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Episode 152 - Old Irving Brewing Krampus 2024 Lineup (feat. Trevor Rose-Hamblin, Tim Broyles and Matthew Moldenhauer)
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It's our favorite time of year here at the Malting Hour studios. We welcome back Trevor, Tim, and Matthew of Old Irving Brewing and sample this year's Krampus lineup.
Beers on this episode:
Krampus Cookies
Double Barrel Krampus
Champurrado Krampus
Rocky Road Krampus
Pirate Krampus
Front 242
Be sure to check out KT's Kids and donate below
https://www.ktskids.com/
Special thanks to Trevor, Tim and Matt for taking the time to sit and talk with us about this years lineup.
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Outro music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey everyone, this is Tony from The Malting Hour welcoming you to the third annual Old Irving Krampus Cookies Barrel-Age Beer episode. If you've listened to the years past, sometimes the mics get a little hot, we get a little loud, and you know we've did our best to try and correct that, so apologies in advance for any clipping that might happen. Without further ado, here's episode 152 of The Malting Hour.
00:01:02
Speaker
three years.
Guests and Beer Lineup
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm looking forward to the next 30 years of doing this. We are joined with to Brandon's right. Tim Broyles. yeah And to his right, Matthew Moulnar. Matthew, you've been here too many times this year. And to his right, Trevor Rose Hamblin. And gentlemen, you are from Mulderby Brewing, and what are we drinking today? Krampus. 2024. It's our
00:01:35
Speaker
This year's lineup, the 2024 Krampus. Anyways guys, thanks for coming back to the show. That was better. We're going to see how much a clipping we'll do by the time this episode ends. I'm hoping. I'm hoping. hoping Then when I go back and I'm actually at the spend time and edit this to make sure that volume levels are are just
Krampus Production Shift
00:01:56
Speaker
right. So I think it's going to be better than than previous years, but it's always a fun time. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're very excited. Um, Trevor, why don't you talk a little bit about Krampus and this year's Krampus. For sure. Um,
00:02:11
Speaker
Obviously, this is kind of a monumental year for Krampus Cookies for a few reasons. One, as you guys may or may not be aware of, I know you guys are, but your listeners may not be, we started a whole new kind of manufacturing facility down near Goose Island. So we're at Wooden Walnut there, taking over the old Finch space. We put in like all new equipment.
00:02:36
Speaker
All state-of-the-art all that good stuff with that um You know having a restaurant on Montrose where we've been doing barrel age stuff having to dodge babies and you know Unpacked five things just to get what we need out of storage it's been a never-ending headache and it's made our hell week of making sure Krampus is actually like to ah to our taste buds as close to perfection as we can get it even worse so we are very excited that Krampus is going to be shifting homes for future years we're going to be brewing and aging all of our Krampus
00:03:14
Speaker
at the new facility. So this is the last year of the OG location for Krampus. So kind of kind of ah kind of ah a cool year. um You know, we' we are standing on the shoulders of giants as always.
Industry Mentorship and Collaboration
00:03:30
Speaker
I've been listening. Tim's been listening. We all listen and we all share notes on what we hear from what we consider the greats of Chicago. I can never mention barrels without mentioning my man Marty Scott.
00:03:42
Speaker
who has helped us in so many ways. And then ah the boys are more in so many other great breweries when we're focusing on body and things like that. But this is I feel like the finally the culmination of a lot of hard work over the past years that has come to an apex to where I'm the happiest with crampus i think i've personally ever been and this has also been a year where we all kind of knew what needed to happen to make it happen and i i feel like it was less painful tim i mean you were in you seemed in good spirits for most i would i would say it was definitely the least painful crampus season we have had yeah i believe this is the first year that we actually went into it with a plan
00:04:25
Speaker
That was pretty unique.
Barrel Variants and Challenges
00:04:28
Speaker
Thank you, Matthew. right Well, and even just you and I sitting down talking and actually just the logistics of how we move 30, 40 some odd barrels of beer into tanks and then how we split those beers into five different variants right requires a lot of complex thinking. you know It doesn't sound like it would, but realistically trying to pull that liquid out is not the easiest thing. And getting the right amounts of liquid out is also very difficult at times, because we don't have a real easy way of knowing the initial volume out of those barrels. and so You can't just use like a wine thief out of the barrel and color it in? We do use a wine thief. Sorry, the first couple days of Krampus de-barreling, which usually takes two to three days, is actually a very fun time, because we try every single barrel. That sounds like the most fun.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it's fun until like you're like gagging yeah got so many barrel shards like fuck it over the throat but No to Tim's point I think at this point, you know eight years in we all kind of know our strengths and I think I i mean i remember i Mean because we're so kind of spread out now i remember sitting there and thinking about like all the plans and I was like God this is a lot to think about in terms of tanks and everything else and so I kind of came up with a little thing in my head but I was like I don't why do I not feel complete in saying what I'm saying I was like oh I don't have Tim here and so I contacted him and I was like Tim help me and he's like got it and we like sat there and we figured it all together I'm like Jesus Christ dude like you're like my yin to my yang and and we like sat there and we we figured out exactly how things were going to move, how we're going to infuse. We don't have an infusion tank. All this stuff is happening in bright tanks. you know We still, to this day, don't have that. Next year, we are going to have that. It's one of the investments that we're going to make. But forever, we've done it the very, very, very hard way. and It's a lot of figuring out. and
00:06:20
Speaker
I just got to give it a special shout out. The whole team has been absolutely amazing. But Tim, specifically this year, there were a few issues that popped up. And this guy sleuths the shit out of it and found out what was wrong, like right away. And we were able to save beer because of it. But we were also able to like, he was so flexible and like some of the crazy shit I want to do raise again. No problem.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, let's do that. It's a pretty good team, by the way. I've just like so indoctrinated him with chaos for the last eight goddamn years, where he's just used to it now. But every every single aspect came together to make this thing happen, and it's so cool. So yeah, that's I just want to give praise. And Matthew, i mean having him on team,
00:07:01
Speaker
make sure that we have the exact weeks that we need, clearing our schedule, making sure that we have this like very good path to get all this stuff done.
Flavor Innovations and Changes
00:07:09
Speaker
um Yeah, this is the best OIB that OIB has ever been.
00:07:16
Speaker
um And it comes from the people who came before obviously and helped us Figure all this stuff out, but I feel like we're really starting to clean up and really grease these wheels and do a good thing so this year of Krampus is obviously emotional very very cool very fun and Yeah, yeah, so Trevor can you talk a little bit about what changed with the Krampus because this is my favorite Yeah. Base Krampus, the amount of flavor that we got on this is just way more than I think that we've ever had. It's definitely my favorite. Told you told you Matthew works here. Yeah. No, no, he's like it. He's like, he's like go back right in. um No, the and thank you Matthew for asking that. Very great question. i the The whole idea behind Krampus always was milk and cookies, but like the evil side of milk and cookies for Krampus. You know, Santa comes down the chimney.
00:08:10
Speaker
He gets a little cute milking cookies. That's so nice. When Krampus comes busting through the door to take your chilled, bad children away, you're gonna, he's gonna want some whiskey. So the idea was to make like this like bourbon soaked kind of cookie and milk combination. So, you know, back in the day, I was maybe a little bit more literal when I was writing these recipes. So it was like lactose and how do we build the grain build to be kind of more like cookies and um,
00:08:38
Speaker
you know i think you can still tell that story without having to use lactose so this is a big year for us where there is zero lactose uh that's awesome any other variant except for one which is the two-year crampus because obviously uh the last time we released this there was still lactose in it um and i think it lets all the variables shine a little bit brighter uh lactose kind of smooth things out makes it one-dimensional but now you get like the acidity and the bitterness of coco nibs and you get kind of simped up from the vanilla the grains love to speak the barrels are all this big spirits want to see anyway the screams of children scream of children you can hear it and never you can rattle the staves uh but uh yeah this is the base this is the og this is the baby this is where we started kind of it started at six percent but this is the base so just like before uh you've got the gano coco nibs hand toasted in-house
00:09:29
Speaker
ah vanilla puree that we still make in house and then the base of Krampus aged for one year. Yeah, and whiskey barrels. Real quick, yeah'm I'm noticing with the can that it's a gold tub. That's different. Tim needs to take that away. So we have a so there Our lid supplier i changed the way they made their lids. there's a The black lids that we used in the past have a light coating of enamel that would have required us to retool our entire canning line to work properly, oh which would then in turn make that canning line not work properly for our silver lids that we use for the other 99% of our beers.
00:10:11
Speaker
The gold lids, however, are just anodized and not enamel-coated, so therefore they're not a different size and they work perfectly. And we had used it on, something else, I forget what beer it was, we had used it on, I believe it might have been 12-foot skeleton a few years ago. Yes, that's exactly what we did, yep. And we all kind of really liked that look anyway. And so I went with that. If you can look on the label also, there's a little more gold accents outside of just that.
00:10:38
Speaker
The OIB logo is in a little gold accent. Just to tie it together. Just tie the room together a little bit nicely. I also don't have glasses. Like I still say I'm going to bring on one day. One day I'll have glasses. One of these days. I was going to say it's a... There we go. Glasses.
00:10:55
Speaker
Um, nope. That made it worse. Not your glasses. Thank you though Trevor, I appreciate it. You didn't You didn't say what kind of glasses. It absolutely stemmed from a necessity. It looks very cool. yeah it's like and As soon as I realized it, the first thing I thought of was, you sitting next to it is a camp of Guinness. I didn't even make it that. We didn't even have that. It does look very similar. I'll tell you what I had thought of though is liquid death also has black camp. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think it looks cool. I didn't know if that was like a aesthetic choice this year just to
Distinctive Packaging Changes
00:11:29
Speaker
kind of switch it up, but it became an necessity. it was it was a It was a fortunate accident, in my opinion. I actually think they look better than the black lids. I think the black lids in the past, as much as we liked them at the time,
00:11:42
Speaker
I think now that I've seen it with the gold lid, and I think all of us agree that it makes it stand out, makes it pop a little more, gives it a little more uniqueness instead of a singularity of just a solid black nothingness. Yeah, and pirates love gold.
00:11:55
Speaker
Very true. We're not at that yet. We're not at that yet. Take it easy. Don't jump ahead. Come on, man. I just gave you props on being a host. We get a little teaser here. Shut up. I'm going to unplug your mic. You have to look at some of the pictures that you have there. You can see the old black can. I love the old black can. I always thought the black can was super cool just because I wasn't used to seeing that very often with beers.
00:12:22
Speaker
We were very stoked on that as well. If I remember correctly, Trevor, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the very first year we did black, we canned Krampus, we did not have black lids, we had the old school silver lids. I mean, Jesus Christ, yeah. I mean, we were flying by the seat of our pants. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure things just didn't look good. Yeah. I mean, was that?
00:12:42
Speaker
Oh shit. Was that 2020, the first year canning? I think 2019 was still a bottle, right? The 2018 or 2019 was last bottle. If I'm not mistaken, I think 19 might have been the first can, but I thought it'd be wrong. I think you're right. I think 2019 was our first cans. I'm not 100%. Does Dan still have a bottle of Krampus? He might. Oh, I definitely, do i have I have at least one of...
00:13:07
Speaker
most variants of every year. If we were at my house, I'd have all the bottles still. I'd be like, oh, we did. models and let's going I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure you're right. You're talking a grandpa.
Double Barrel Krampus
00:13:20
Speaker
Oh, crampy. Uh, yeah. So yeah, I think, yeah, I have no idea. Uh, but yeah, it started off, I think with silver lids and then we found the black lids and then we found out that black was really tough to use.
00:13:33
Speaker
Anyway, now we have the gold. that's in iron I prefer it. I think it's nice. I will say that drinking just the OG Krampus cookies here, very good. It's very delicious. yes it's i with I understand what you're saying now without the lactose because I do think that you can taste a bit more of everything else.
00:13:56
Speaker
on its own like you get to taste everything a little bit more uh instead of like i guess i didn't really thought of it about how lack because i mean there's certain beers that have lactose i'm like oh that's great but also sometimes when i have a beer with too much lactose my tummy's like no thank you we don't want that anymore yeah but i'm i definitely will say and the some that i tried last night showed up right now the some that i tried last night that i did i do notice the cocoa a lot more than maybe in years past yeah yeah And then in a positive way, like it's very tasty. I like it very much. Good. Yeah. Thank you. Great. We always want to hear your impressions. Well, the best thing is, you know, the thing I love about this show is that I think you guys kind of always catch us.
00:14:41
Speaker
right after we're real done with Krampus. You know what I mean? like We've been tasting it for so long. And then I take like a couple of days off from drinking. I'm feeling fresh again. I'm waking up in the morning, crystal clear. I'm coming out of the fucking gates, feeling good. And then you guys catch me like, OK, cool. We can go back and try Krampus again. So I'll feel like shit tomorrow. But it's always fun. I like <unk>s i kind of like, by the time we release it, once it's in cans and I see people taking it away, I kind of like shut off for a second. sure And then I turn back on for this evening because I actually get to go back through and taste them, which we've talked about in years past. Yeah. It's cool to go back and see kind of, yeah, I mean, like as I'm tasting it, I'm noticing kind of what I said, it's more acidity from the coconuts. It might have used like a little less time would be kind of nice. So it was a little bit more on chocolate.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, but there's like I'm taking little notes in my head, you know, so it's also cool to get your guys perspective because you have been such ardent Friends and fans for so long that it's cool and I know we can speak freely where we can all kind of try this stuff absolutely and And be honest with one another so and also real quick in conjunction with Trevor's talking about us being crampest out so to speak We finished canning this two days ago. Yeah so and must This is Wednesday, Monday we was our last day we canned both the Champerado and the Rocky Road. Which I think is also awesome because is already it was already able to pick up yesterday. The following day. yeah Which is super cool, I mean that's super scary. We were very scared. Super cool for you, and not super cool for us. Super stressful on our own. I'm sure, but it's i mean that's pretty freaking nice. The time was necessary though, you know, we felt like we just it needed a little more time, specifically the champarato. Need a little more of that cinnamon, a little more of that chili. That's why when Matthew's scheduled a lot of that stuff, he says he gives us extra days. He's like, I know
00:16:33
Speaker
from years past because we used to drive them fucking and insane because i would sit there and i would like take something like it's not right and then he's like but i have a schedule i'm like yeah that's cool so that's gone ah this isn't right it ain't going on yep so no well What are we going to do? So now he's in this one now. Yeah. So now he's got like a schedule. He's like, okay, this will leave enough room for Trevor to go through and fuck everything up and make sure that it's exactly as right as he thinks it should be. And then we're still packaging two of the variants the day before there. Yeah. So what were the two variants that came down to that? Uh, champ Rado and Rocky road. ah And honestly out of the, all of them, I think we were probably, those are the ones that I'm not as freaked out about probably.
00:17:16
Speaker
only because we had done like really good bench trials. We've done a champ around it before, so we know that one. We know how would to do it. We're very confident in that. Rocky rope, a little shaky, but then like the real big one a iraqular so yeah the real big one for us this year was rum.
00:17:32
Speaker
pirate crapost yeah yeah But it's part of the thing that I love about Trevor, where it's always been beer first and quality. yeah And so, yes, it's messed up schedules and different things. And I've learned with that. But the product that comes out, Trevor makes sure is the best kind of beer that you get. and Indeed.
00:17:52
Speaker
yeah You know we've said many times that you guys are not a sponsor for the show and there have been beers I think in the past that maybe I didn't necessarily care for but fair I will say that 99 I really like last night when I was at the brewery I went specifically to try a couple of the Krampus to get my two-pack, to get this shnazzy, beautiful sweater. You look really good in it. Thank you. I'm planning on wearing into it to all the holiday parties I am not invited to this year. Y'all can't see it, but it's a Krampus ugly sweater, but it's not ugly at all. It's not tra yeah ugly! You're gonna love it. It's a sexy sweater.
00:18:29
Speaker
That's a very sexy sweater. But I also had like a sentinel while I was there, and it was there, she had, was it, I keep, Sony, Sony? Sona. Sona. I don't know why I can't pronounce it. When I see it, I want to say sunny. Sona. Listen to more Ramstein, you'll get it right away. It does mean sun, so you're not off by saying sunny.
00:18:48
Speaker
But I mean, just when I looked at the list of all the beers that you guys did have on tap, I'm like, I've tried that, I've tried that. I was literally able to speak on all the beers, except for the other one that we're drinking the two for two longer, which very, very good. correct um It's just what like you were saying that, you know, the quality of the beer has always come first. And I think that that's probably one of Volderring's strongest suits, which, ironically enough, is not some strong suits for other breweries. you know I'm not sure about breweries, but like the product and the beer should be first, and you guys, think I think, nail that all the time. you I appreciate you saying such. I mean, um it can be it can be frustrating for a lot of people around. it's not It's not an easy thing to do, and it's certainly not always the most popular thing to do. It'd be way easier to just be like, hey, man,
00:19:35
Speaker
Send this through put it out, you know, whatever we got to make room for other things We got money to make but at the end of the day, it's got to be great. Yeah, but you know this year speaking of which You know, we we take notes every single year on all of our beers and last year I think that one mark was always consistent and anybody who likes Krampus will say the same thing last year was a little sweet and And I think that was the year that we all kind of looked at each other and agreed like lactose you're the fuck out We've figured out how to make things sweet with body and everything else everyone else is pulling lactose We can make this story happen. So the one in front of us currently is double think I thought I was real smooth. that was I was actually shouldn't have said anything. Yeah. No, it's okay I love I love to give myself credit for stuff
00:20:19
Speaker
um someone' got do a song yeah yeah But this one, the double barrow Krampus, you know, it's fun. It was just an experiment. We've never done a double barrow. We've been, obviously two years ago, you guys remember we did the Krampus and the Buff? Yeah, which still remains my favorite Krampus. Oh yeah, that was fantastic. The wood and the spirit was awesome and we were inspired by that to do Krampus and the Rye.
00:20:41
Speaker
swo The sweetness is a little high for the ride. The ride didn't get to speak as much. and we're like I still love that, dude. It's still very good. You're talking to the guy who makes the gloves so he hates everything that he makes. I feel my eyes are really forever on this one. Cribs of the ride, when we first made it, was phenomenal. yeah It got sweet very quickly. Yeah, it did. see I think it actually mellowed out over time. I just had one a couple months ago and I think it got better. Fair?
00:21:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've not had one in six years. So then the, uh, but when the sweetness happened, that was like, this is such a great opportunity for a double barrel. And we had some extra volume because we had increased volume one year and we're like, we don't actually need these extra, whatever eight wooden barrels, 15 ish or 12 and a half to 13 barrels of liquid. What can we do with it? And I was like, easy, let's put it in another barrel. So first year in Willett.
00:21:31
Speaker
It's like you're in Russell's Reserve, a single barrel, which is cool. So most of the crampus that you're having today is all Russell's Reserve single barrel. I'm finally convincing Ethan over at Midwest Barrel Company oh wrongy that i i deserve yeah wrong even that I deserve the best barrels because I am Buy in volume now, baby. Give me the best barrels. Give me that pappy, baby. Anyway, that was my little quick thing. I hope he's listening. ah so We can send him a link. Double barrel actually really helped the sweetness. I'll tamp it down. Alcohol percentage went up, cut through some of that sweetness. The wood came in, did its thing. I get tons of bourbon off the nose. There's a little bit of sweetness. I really like this one. It's so funny because I was overall, I won't say disappointed, but not as enthused about last year's total batch of Krampus.
00:22:20
Speaker
but this makes me a believer again. I really like this one. This is my second time having. This is one of the ones that I had last night. It's also one of the ones I purchased. i What I think I like about this, having this, because we're like, we said but this is not chilled. We're not drinking these chilled at all. It sucks. I actually really like this another they nu actually i genuine like this nut because I'm almost getting a bit of a bourbon warming in my chest as I'm drinking. Well, and that's what I got. So I went.
00:22:48
Speaker
so Last week, I went and after they put them into the tanks and I saw Tim and Tim was like, hey, you want to try some double barrels? Like, he goes, yeah, you do. So he like poured it right off the tank and I tried it and I was like, this is great. And I went back to my wife and I gave it to her. She goes, it's not carbonated. I was like, I said,
00:23:12
Speaker
Aside from that, how goes she goes, she's like, it's, it's a fantastic barrel aged beer because she loves barrel aged beers. So yeah, it was nice to like, uh, have it in like the true form. And like, even now it's not heavily carbonated. It's just like, it's very subtle. And dude, to i this might be my favorite. i think heary unfortunate I haven't had the other ones yet. You know, this is the only one I've had. Oh, really? Yeah. Tony's had, he went yesterday, so he had a couple. and I did not invite brain. I gotta be honest, having the front 242, 242 vlogger side by side with us, it's also very good good. Can we give a quick shout out to Front 242? Let's go back to the 1980s real quick, right?
Charity Collaboration and Influence
00:24:00
Speaker
1984, Front 242 comes out of Belgium. I'm two years old. Screaming hard. of you really um One of the very first industrial bands. One of the very first industrial bands to exist, coming in through wax tracks records. It sets the the stage for bands like Nine of Snails and eventual ministry becoming industrial and things like that.
00:24:20
Speaker
And my God, we saw them this last week and we did this beer for them. My friend Adam Vavrick, one of the better beer minds in Chicago, reached out to us. He's also a synth producer. He's also helps out. He has a tech for a tool. He leaves a couple blocks away from here. He leaves a couple blocks away from here.
00:24:40
Speaker
he sounds like a celebrity but we're all just like kind of crusty fuckers that hang out in backyard that are partially dead but yeah no like we it was so cool to have this chance because when i first moved to chicago i was so freaking pumped about coming to like kind of the industrial music hub like we're one of my favorite genres of music came from and now i get to make a beer for one of the the godfathers of industrial music with the company that started it all fuck yes anyway badass I'm really glad this beer turned out so well we wanted to make it kind of like a check pills it's easy it's crispy we have a lot more left in the pub too so come by and get some I'm gonna come back whoa
00:25:25
Speaker
so just a quick shout out so this was done for liars club and wax track with front two four two as a uh charity beer uh for their 20th anniversary last ah tour for katie's kids a charity here so it's going back to a great cause uh here in chicago katie katie's kids yeah I'm not drunk yet. I know you're not, buddy. I'm not drunk. I'll fight you. I'm not drunk. It's a podcast. And it sounds like you said Katie's kid. Katie's. It just sounds like you said a broadcast. This is being broadcast live, actually, right now. Shit. We do all the Krampus episodes live. No, that's a good point. So Katie's Kids is a charity that's near and dear to both mine and Matthew's hearts.
00:26:08
Speaker
weird things I don't know if we ever talked about this here. Do you guys know the connection between me and Matthew other than our good looks? I don't think so. You are too strapping. Thank God. this He's looking extra strapping. He's dating a yoga instructor. He looks really good. He does look really good. um Sorry I said that like right here in the mic. Anyway, they're great. um The other thing that we have in common is that we both grew up with quadriplegic.
00:26:30
Speaker
fathers. So we have, I think we have talked about it. Okay. yeah but continue Yeah. Yeah. So Katie's kids, what they do is they go out and they make sure that there's all this kind of programming for children with disabilities and making sure that there's all these fun events for them, making them a part of the community. Um, cause obviously, uh, having a disability can be very alienating. So it was like something like, it was a no brainer for us. So you're like, okay, yeah, we're definitely gonna. So you're telling me that I had to team up with one of the first and best industrial bands that's ever existed with uh the first and best industrial music producer and record store that's ever existed got it with one of the best brains in chicago uh and we get to make a beer for you and we get to give money to a charity that's near and dear to our hearts Yeah, piece which also just a quick shout out to Blue Label yeah and Omega Beast. RawRBSG. RawRBSG, they all came through and also helped donate it. It's awesome. To make everything. We should throw a link to the charity in this episode too.
00:27:30
Speaker
t'skids.org, I believe. And I'm going to go pick up some more of this. Well, not some more, but I'm going to pick this up. Yes. And so when this comes out, we actually held off releasing the cans at the brewery so that everyone would first go to Liars Clubs and the events for Katie's Kids. And then for anyone who did miss out because they want this amazing can and connection to Front 242, this will be at the brewery after this. Absolutely good.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's K-T as the letters, skids, s-k-i-d-s dot com, not dot org, sorry, katyskids.com. If you can, go out and donate to this amazing organization. Do that.
00:28:16
Speaker
More positivity. Yeah, more positivity in the world. Yeah, the link will be in the description. Absolutely. So coming back round.
Audience Feedback on Krampus
00:28:23
Speaker
Yes, I mean, I know. I think we all finished our double barrel crampus at this point. Brandon, where do we do impressions? I was going to say, Brandon, what do you think of the double barrel?
00:28:32
Speaker
um i loved it when i first tried it and it's still good now like there's nothing there said now i did now no it's carpet no yeah i like what kind of said it when i hate i was talking about it there's like the the minimal carbon uh carbonization doesn't do anything to it like it keeps it like true and like dude you get the barrel you get the all the flavors chocolate and vanilla and like that deep malt flavor Dude, this is like, this my this is still my favorite, so. All right. I haven't tried the rest of them yet, but still. yeah we So we keep all our barrel-aged stuff at a at the lowest end of our carbonation range of anything that we have in our portfolio. Those are all our barrel-aged doubts. Lower. Yeah. Not existent, because the judges at FOBEB are very, very serious about their carbonation. Oh, so we want a little bit, too. You know, you add a little bit of... but
00:29:31
Speaker
You add a little bit of acidity that comes in through that, through the carbolic acids, when you carbonate a beer. And that absolutely changes the flavor a little bit. You mentioned earlier that your wife mentioned that it was not carbonated. yeah And that is actually something that you learn as a brewer over time of how to taste a beer before it's carbonated. yeah And in your head, you kind of have to go, oh,
00:29:55
Speaker
What is the carbonation going to add to this? And I think that's something that you only learn just through trial and repetition. It took me a while to my brain to wrap around that when Homebrewer, like trying your own beers and being like, I think I know what this is going to taste like when it's carbonated. And then in your Homebrewer, you're also fucking excited. Yeah, absolutely. You're like, why don't you sit down? Well, yeah, of course. But the nice thing is, legit, over time of trying beers every week that are uncarbonated, as a brewer, you actually finally get to a point where you understand what that carbolic acid is going to add to that.
00:30:37
Speaker
and so then you can Conjecture on what it's gonna be and you're usually pretty correct after a while. like sure you you You get to a point where you're like, oh, I got it Well after to trying so many and then you know what the final product's gonna be Well though stylistically it makes a big difference when you're having stouts, brown ales, milds It doesn't impact as much as like I remember the first time I had sentinel Uncarbonated which is we do some on cask and I was like, these are two completely different beers, right? Very very much so So did you have the double barrel last night? I did have double barrel last night. That was the second berry and a half. I love it. I love it. I've also come to realize that I love Trevor, can we get that onion love trev which is why I reached in this beard.
00:31:24
Speaker
I'm going to make it pretty for the radio. I told you, this is live streaming. There's cameras everywhere, too. I've come to realize that after my one year of not getting, we went to Prop Day, and I didn't get a double barrel, where we're counting, and was made to feel bad by Afro Beer Chicken, who I'm still hearing shit about it after all these years. She's put me in her phone as double barrel Tony. Wow. I mean, that sounds like a good nickname. double-barreled Tony. I mean, you're in Chicago, you're double-barreled, you've got some straightforward shit right there. But watch out, it's fucking double-barreled Tony. But I've come to realize that I really, I go after double-barreled beers more, just because I'm not more like, fuck everything else, but I'm more interested because I remember after having that Goose Island double-barrel when they first had released it in the nice black packaging and everything, I was like, holy shit, for it being that high of alcohol,
00:32:22
Speaker
how well done those beers are. i'm i'm I'm kind of a little bit more interested to be like, okay, so yeah, you can double up on things. Like, you know, the whole craze of like double IPAs and double hops. sure and hops I remember the first time I made a hop stupid in a bomb run. I'm like, yes, all so much so many IBUs and it's crazy.
00:32:38
Speaker
until finally you know it's like well there's a time and a place to maybe do all that that was fun for a hot second and then absolutely i mean pop stupid came back i wouldn't be mad sure but uh so this one i was really excited to try and it's not just a point it is a like i said like drinking it is you it's it was kind of like having like a little bit of a warming burden going down and i i enjoy that i'm really I'm excited to drink these at home. I don't think you guys will be surprised to know that I really love bourbon. What? Yeah, I really like it. After the last episode, I definitely had a lot of your bourbon. The night's still young. Do you ever look at the extras on the last Amazon?
00:33:16
Speaker
But no, the on on our voyage to balance, you've got to experiment a little bit. And I don't ever want to go overboard with anything. we will always in There will be some years where you're like, wow, that's really intense. And then you'll probably notice the next year we delve back because we want to make sure you have a balance.
00:33:36
Speaker
Drinking experience. I think like you I was burnt out by like the IBUs of yore and I'm just done with that shit I don't want to be smacked over the face with adjuncts. I won't be smacked with a face with
Crafting Balanced Flavors
00:33:47
Speaker
much. I want a beautiful symphony I'm 40 now. I want a goddamn beautiful symphony and I think a lot of drinkers want that these days. That's what we're shooting for. Yeah I'm with the voyage. What do we got next? and the voyage couldn wait Lots of adjuncts a
00:34:04
Speaker
Shut the fuck up, Tim. It's a beautiful symphony of a bunch of adjuncts. I will be honest. I'll be honest real quick just as a preface to all this. This year, I think I actually prefert prefer most of our adjuncted ones to our non-adjuncted ones. Interesting. As much as I love the double barrel, all all my rankings of this year's Krampuses are very miniscule differences. it I love all of them. yeah And I'm not saying that because I have to. Trevor's not holding a gun in my head right now. I swear to God it's not there. yeah but no But legitimately, I actually think some of our variants came out even better than I expected them to. I'm interested to see where, personally. Rocky Road specifically. That was one that I generally am not a fan of Rocky Road as an ice cream.
00:34:57
Speaker
you know I know I'm, oh. I'm either. I'm gonna say I'm odd in that, but no, apparently not. It's not, it's not good. You're both both idiots. yeah Rocky Road is delicious. i know too and i am pretty smart The majority of people like Rocky Road.
00:35:08
Speaker
This was the one variant that I was admittedly hesitant on, and I think that it came out to be one of my favorites, actually. so I mean, Tim was the third best fighter in high school. This is true. I was i was the fourth i do trust as the fourth best fighter in high school. I was also beating up younger people, though. Well, that being said, we will get back to those variants after this break.
00:35:32
Speaker
We're not talking about tech groups. And we're back. Welcome back, everybody. It's the Melting Hour Krampus 2024 special. We are joined here with Trevor, Matthew, and Tim from Old Irving. And as Matthew is purposefully pouring the drink into the glass for our ASMR listeners, I actually think he does it for himself when he goes back and listens to the episodes.
00:35:53
Speaker
This isn't wrong, and I had someone actually tell me that they really liked that. Okay, well... I'm sure your mother is very proud. I was trying to find the joke! I was trying to find the joke and you beat me to it! Shit! jaie that's who You know, and that's what I thought it was. No, it's it's a great idea. um We took a little break.
Chomperato Variant Exploration
00:36:11
Speaker
we Man, those Krampus wings are fantastic. I'm glad I did take your advice and use the paper towel. yeah because it's It's like squid ink. It's almost like squid ink. But it's, man, they're so good and the curds are delicious. Because it is squid ink. It's also very weird because... Let's shake it a little bit. It's it's weird because SME.
00:36:34
Speaker
Picking up the curd and I'm about to put it in my mouth I'm like this is not the way it's supposed to taste just from the way it looks but your curds are delicious Thank you i think your kidsds are so you paid the Trevor I love the way your curds taste I don't ever consider what a curd looks like before I put it in my mouth Dude, you know what but you know what a curd looks like a fried curd looks like I don't know I don't care I just know that it looks it's fried cheese and I'm putting it in my mouth. and Yeah again mayor You know what? I don't judge my curds, Tony. I'm not judging the curds. You were judging me. Don't make this a race thing. Jesus. All right. You heard that a race thing. Okay. I encourage your judges, you sons of bitches. I said we're not doing politics on this one. All right. Hey. Shut up and drink your beer. Trevor? Yes. What are we drinking next? Yeah, so obviously last year there was... What the fuck? Are you okay?
00:37:28
Speaker
I was laughing when Brandon said sorry. um I opened up another front 242 vlogger as well. Yeah, I bet you Getting back on track, these amateurs. I'm the guy who sat in silence in the corner while you guys are talking about business and fucking cruises. I'm sorry. Lonely kid in the corner. All right, so anyway, no, I was kidding. I love you, man. ah So we're moving on to Ciampa Rado campus.
00:37:56
Speaker
um nice Some cool things we actually thank you it's it's better for you For the people that can't see what we're doing because none of you can I went ahead and took a champerado can and stacked it on top of a front 240 can so I can look at Krampus and his non-existent black eyes And he looks amazing Anyway, so obviously in 2023, we didn't have champerado crampus around. It is near and dear to my heart. I love this beer for so many reasons. And it really stems from my love for mole back in the day when I was doing the cook thing, the chef thing, whatever you want to call it. At Moto, we got an old mole recipe from an abuela down in Mexico who made an absolutely amazing, you okay? You okay, Tim? yeah
00:38:43
Speaker
Dude, he coughed off the mic so nobody would know. That's why he walked away! Trevor, you wouldn't notice it. Hot gas 101, buddy! No, I just want to make sure that people know that Tim has, uh, his whole line of family is weak, and it ends with him. Fair. Fair. Maybe you don't cough on air or dick. I'm not the dick. You're the dick. Anyway, so, chop her out on campus. Such a abuse here. so It stems from my love of mole. I would like to bring it back to the beginning of this episode where he was complimenting me. yeah yeah hey That was the first half. Welcome to the second half. I heard that Tim has a weak family line. Apparently someone's addicted to vittles from Mexico. Great wow white guy. anyway
00:39:29
Speaker
so I do you love ice cream. Why does this always happen? All right, so Choparato Krampus. This one, I love mole. I love these chilies. Sancho, Waiyo, and Pacia chilies this year. We did, as as in times past,
00:39:47
Speaker
bake them in an oven along with the Saigon cinnamon. Everything remained exactly the same except for the base. There's no lactose. We're so happy to have it back. I absolutely adore this beer. I think that the heat from the barrel, the heat from the chilies, the heat from the cinnamon all work in conjunction to hit you right in the back of the throat like what happened to Tim just now when he coughed. Shut up Tim. So let's enjoy.
00:40:08
Speaker
Ooh. Ooh. Yeah, so this has been gone for a year, but it comes back, and I think even stronger than before, you guys definitely added a little bit more time with the cinnamon and chills just to make sure. I was just about to say that the one thing that stands out for me right off the bat is cinnamon. And as anybody knows who listens to this podcast, Brandon and I are both huge cinnamon fans, especially when it comes to stouts. Shut the fuck up, Brandon.
00:40:35
Speaker
um This is delicious. I'm always worried about champarato because I'm not a huge fan of spicy stouts. Yeah. And I feel like this has a really nice because I yeah but think the last time I had champarato, I was like, yeah, it's just not for me. That was one of their that was one of the crampus I didn't really care for. But this one is actually, I like the spice in there. I think the cinnamon, the the amount of cinnamon that's in there is almost like with the spice, it feels like it's a spiciness from cinnamon instead of it being like, here's cinnamon and then here's spice. You know what I mean? Like it's a, as some people don't like using it, it's very well balanced. I like that. I like that. it's really Finally, you were right about stuff and where you were wrong before. Welcome to the party, Richter. I like when Trevor's not here. They sound just like my family. In your place. No, it's all good. It's all good. I know i know i know my values. I love you, Trevor. I love quesadillas at small bars. that's yeah Anyway.
00:41:40
Speaker
ah The Ciampa Rado is never a high selling Krampus. It's actually the slow selling Krampus out of all of them. I think everyone shares kind of like what you say where people are afraid of the Chili's, they're afraid of the heat. I didn't say I was afraid. Which is odd because you see like a cow verbally it is the most requested one. but Yeah, vertally and and when people have it at the bar, it seems to be the one that they like the most. yeah And a big thing that we do with the Chili's too, I say that I just roast them, I don't just roast them.
00:42:06
Speaker
Tim can now attest, he complains. oh yeah The only time Tim complained during the whole Krampus thing, by the way, and just to sing his praises again, he's an amazing human being, I love him so much. But the only time he complained was when we were taking the chilies apart. He's like, holy shit, this sucks. And I've done it by myself. This is weirdly enough, the first year I've done it. He's ever he's never done it before. ah And literally, you take these dried chilies, you can find them anywhere. Jewel, Tony's, whatever. Every every Chicago person knows the yellow top. Oh yeah. The crinkly paper. Oh yeah. The dried chilies on the inside. Maybe you're putting it in the Abedia or maybe you're putting it into your mole. It doesn't matter. Or maybe you're just like an average white guy who's like, I don't know what to do with this, but I'm going to buy it. I used to be that guy until I realized what to do with what he Yeah, there you go. So.
00:42:49
Speaker
we instead of a lot of times you'll want to reconstitute them with a little bit of like hot water what we do is we bake them to kind of like flash pasteurize them and first we remove a lot of the seeds like 90 percent of the seeds and the core and we kind of let like on purpose kind of let our hands slip once in a while and be like oh I guess I didn't get all that core out just to let the right amount of heat through And then it really is a tasting game. We go in, we go through this vehicle, we taste, we taste, we taste, until me and Tim go, fuck yeah, that's perfect. and And Tim, at this point, by the way, he can taste any beer that we do, and he knows exactly what we're looking for, and i like we're we tongue-tied together. It must have has mango.
00:43:32
Speaker
Unless that's me. but no But for these ones specifically, um I know when he tastes it, he goes, yep, that's it. And then I taste them like, yep, that's it. Well, like a good example for this specific beer, actually, a champorato, is we put all this on cinnamon and chilies on Friday, or on Thursday, I apologize, on Thursday. Geez, man. We tried it on Friday, knew that it needed a little more time, hence the canning on Monday. On Sunday, we all had a little fun get together at Trevor's house. that will meet and greet was the wrong word. i think that's what these scenes get I'm whiskey and some beers. You're my boss. So we were sitting there and both Trevor and I had tried the Ciamparato on Saturday.
00:44:22
Speaker
and Both of us were like, it's not quite there yet. I was very adamant that it would absolutely be there on Monday. I'm like, it just needs a little more chili time. Like it got the cinnamon, but the chilies weren't there yet. And Monday morning we walked in and I tried it and I was ecstatic to find that it tasted like champaretto.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, cool thing about this beer always will be the the mixture of those those three heats. The cool thing that I'm experiencing now that I wasn't experiencing before is like that mid-palate heat. It goes right down like the center of your tongue yeah into the back of your tongue. I realized that once I when i took another sip of the super cool the front 242 lager, I was going to keep pushing that. It's fucking delicious. I did that to kind of cleanse my palate, and I also went back and poured a little bit more in there because I really like it.
00:45:10
Speaker
That's where I'm getting a little bit more of the heat is in the middle of the tongue Like this is I'm actually very bummed that I didn't roll the dice in and and buy this when the pre-orders went out look get a touch On those on that back of your lymph nodes right there on the sides of your throat. Yeah i It's not intense though. It's like the it really is like a really nice like it's it's like the perfect amount and I feel like You guys use, do you guys use Saigon cinnamon also with Prost? We do. Okay, so. That is the only real cinnamon. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it really is like, I think maybe that's also where my brain goes when I'm drinking this because Ben and I love Prost, we also tried the Maple Prost, which was fucking phenomenal, like really good. I was like having French toast, Prost. Um, French toast, Prost. Goddammit, that's a great name. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take credit for that, I'm gonna take credit for that.
00:46:02
Speaker
This is this is really good. This is really, really, really good. And anybody who is like me, who might be worried about as far as like, you know, chilies and a beer, which I do like spicy food. I just don't really want like spicy beer. But I've had good spicy beers. It's just hit or miss, especially when it comes to stouts. And this is top notch. Very well done. brandon was I'll definitely say that I wasn't a fan of a lot of spicy beers before Ciampa Rada, but I think the balance is that you can actually drink 10 ounces of this beer and you're not sitting there
00:46:36
Speaker
Sweating. heat like Yeah. heat It's noticeable. But because of everything else going on with the chocolate and the vanilla and the cinnamon, it turns into this nice. It's ahs it's a very well balanced beer. And like I felt that way with champerado from years. Do you have any champerado? Because you are correct. Yeah. OK, Trevor, take it like that's always been one of my favorite beers. Like I've always gotten that and I've always enjoyed it. And it's it's.
00:47:03
Speaker
It's never been overwhelming. and And I guess most of the time I'm getting it in like five ounce cores or whatever. Sure. yeah I'm pretty sure you probably have a chamfer out of left in your. I know I do. um But we're not doing that. We have enough. But like that being said, like, yeah, like it's it's one that always intrigued me and always like I've always went for it because it does. It does impart so many of those different flavors that you want. I mean, not that you want to be here, but that like.
00:47:34
Speaker
No, I want a beer. yeah like For me, like you want to try. like yeah and it's not like and And I've had like stones done like their hot ales and stuff like that. And like that's just like not pleasant. Well, what' Pipework has their end of days, which was the first spicy stout that I had. And I really liked it. And I still do like it. But that to me, i have one that that like set the bar for me of like the amount of spice that I want in a stout. And I've had some other stouts that were like,
00:48:02
Speaker
Super spicy, you know what I mean? Drink his beer. Drink his milkshake. I just want to point out that Trevor just had Matthew drink his beer. I did, I did. Because he's the boss. I did want to say one last thing about Chomperato before we carry on. The cool thing, like I said, since we don't get to try these, obviously during, after we've already done the things and my palate's like lagging and I don't know what we're doing anymore,
00:48:29
Speaker
The cool thing about this that was unexpected is the amount of heat that sticks around way after you grow up. Yes! Like mid palate, it's almost like it reminds me of like when you eat like mint or spearmint and it's almost like cooling and heating at the same time and you can feel it down your chest and down your tummy and it's just like this really cool like overall just like a fact that keeps on lasting. So if you do have a chance to taste this beer maybe by itself individually, sit there, enjoy it, throw on the new Cure album, and just let it take over, you know? That's what happened. That actually sounds like a good time. That's like a comforting thing to me, though. To me, too. That's what I'm saying. Because I love hot stuff. I love spicy things. I love all that kind of shit. And then just having this and just taking a couple sips and it just kind of lingers with you. I really want to have this.
00:49:24
Speaker
colder now to see what the difference is. Me too. Yeah, because it's like the warming could probably be a temp down. Okay. Well, one of the questions... Can you stand outside for a little while? Stand outside with a can by yourself, elevated. Which, by the way, which by the way, I will say that with the way that the weather has been here in Chicago, we ended up with like the perfect weather. We've got snow flurries coming down right now and everything, and this is great.
00:49:48
Speaker
bourbon or not sorry bare hpi One of the fun things with Champurrado, so we have another brewer named Cole, who's one of our favorite people. He's one of your favorite people. Yeah, he's one of your favorite. fair But he likes to find our things in life. Cole's a good guy. He truly does. He really does. and i'll start But what he really wanted with Champurrado is he wanted more spice. Oh, he did. We did not acquiesce to that.
00:50:16
Speaker
i to his, much much to his chagrin. Well, I was gonna go with chagrin, yeah. It's such a good word. Chagrin's a great word. I also said aqueous. Yeah, aqueous and chagrin, right, in one and one paragraph. and that's I did hear that Trevor could outswim coal in a swimming match, though. Is that true? Well, that's very true. Is that true? Not right now. Fuck no, that's not true. He's working out. I've been drinking Krampus for like three weeks straight and tasting everything, and then eating burgers because I need to like undo the effects of the Krampus.
Rocky Road Krampus Collaboration
00:50:46
Speaker
No, he would absolutely kill me right now.
00:50:48
Speaker
But guess what, if I train for like three months, I would ruin you. It's going down. It's going on record. Okay, I'm punching the mic and almost ready. What are we drinking now? That's what we're going to get to, Brandon. This is an important variety as it's one that we... This really is. I've never done anything like this before, or we've done things like it, but we've never done this one before.
00:51:11
Speaker
Uh, big shout out for Max Durbin. So when we divided and conquered with the new facilities, I've got Ethan Summer, um, kind of known from alarmist over at our wooden walnut location. i e And then Tim kind of going back and forth between the pair. And then I love Ethan. He's the best. And then, um, at the pub, um,
00:51:35
Speaker
I'm trying to figure out a brewer for that location. um I've been good friends with Max Gurbins for a number of years. Ever since the pandemic, I actually used to play video games together during the pandemic. That's how we became friends. I was a flower boy in his wedding, and now he's one of my brewers.
00:51:52
Speaker
so
00:51:54
Speaker
He has wanted to do a rocky road beer for so long. I was sick of fucking hearing about it. So we teamed up with one of his favorite breweries, Gnosis, and that was one of my favorite breweries, because all of those guys dearly died in Indiana. All these guys made.
00:52:08
Speaker
a kind of collaboration between Krampus and their beer and god damn it Tim. We're all dying. We're all dying. Drink the lager. I don't know what I did. I don't know why I'm involved in Yukoff first. Yukoff first and you spread it to us. The super spreader. He might be the chaperone. I think it might be. It was chaperone.
00:52:29
Speaker
So the idea was to go in from here and then make something that was like Rocky Road inspired. So they did a really good job. We really liked it. And we're like, cool. How do we pay them back without brewing any beer at all? No, I'm just kidding. We went back and we were like, how do we pay them back in the biggest way ever? And we were like, let's make one of our signature beers.
00:52:52
Speaker
Collaboration with them and that's where we came up with the rocky road crampus. It was this first collapse crampus called the crampus Krampus collab and this is gonna be kind of a continuing theme for a lot of years. I Want to collab Krampus? I think that's such an awesome idea. Well, and it's also fun like ah you know, there's a lot of people and there's a lot of beers especially barely stuff where people think to themselves and Or just take the beers extremely seriously, which you should. is People are pouring a ton of money into this, and they're going to give you like really eloquent, cool things, and I love that. But I come from a moto background, and this was a place that was a Michelin restaurant that got like the least amount of Michelin stars, because we were the biggest assholes. We were the ones that were in the back of the class throwing fucking paper at
00:53:34
Speaker
the guy who is trying to are in the front of the class like this is sorry see but you guys can still work in unity exactly nerd of yeah he's always gonna have a pen i'll never have a pen uh but like um that's what i kind of love about Krampus is it's like yeah we're taking it very seriously yeah we pour over it but yeah it's fucking fun like let's invite our friends get jump in like let's Let's all get around some, like, weird, crappy shit. you know what You know what? I would love to see is a... and I don't know if I'm... um but Go ahead. I got all... of Man, those I can hear those headphones from over here, Brandon. I can hear myself speaking. Are they on the ground? No. Just because you're insane. That's true. Yeah. I'm next to it right now. Okay, so one of the... we all the way
00:54:22
Speaker
This is the first year that I bought all of the benthic variants. And not all the old Irving. Wow. Okay, take it easy. Well, that's what I do. I offend the people I love and the people I don't know, I shower them with my joy and money. um I really enjoyed all of the, i have there's two of them left that I haven't tried, but their variants have been exquisite, very good. And I think with what you guys do with Krampus, it would be interesting to see what you guys can do do with them over there at a Half Acre. That's all I wanted to throw in there.
00:54:57
Speaker
I think you're that would be awesome. I mean, I'd love having her obviously When we're talking about like the like apex, I mean, you know, we're like I always say we're standing on the the shoulders of Giants clearly half acres among them and about everything they do absolutely kills and so like yeah well yeah please we love to do one of the ways we were able to sell doing bo cans versus bottles of crampus was was as a heacher yeah yeah this this year is a batch is really good they're turtle we had it with raced out from the Illinois craft burers guild last week where we love a human veryy handsome
00:55:38
Speaker
what dude He's one of the nicest dudes. Also the best name ever for someone who's running a beer. yeah absolutely He and Matthew are two of the nicest beer people I've ever met in my life. Tim, you're right there, Trevor. still Thank you. I appreciate that. i don't know you I don't want to be that guy. Your music taste is what saves you. um i would say that yeah I was going to say that was his death from... He and I are very similar, so when I see all these collaborations with bands and stuff... done Yeah, we're deaf from listening to all of the de toess we're definitely listening all the awesome music that we listen to.
00:56:20
Speaker
um Brandon had to take a whiz, but I was going to ask him what he thought about the Rocky Road. This is one of the variants that I tried last night. And I saved this one for last because Tim and I were saying, like, I'm not a fan of Rocky Road ice cream. However, the fuck? I don't need pieces of marshmallow in my fucking ice cream. You want to put, like, strands of melted marshmallow in my ice cream. Whoa! Oh! Funny fact, I don't like it because of the nuts.
00:56:48
Speaker
I love the marshmallow in this. Well, here's the thing. This is what I was going to say. What I love about this beer is the actual marshmallow flavor that I get from this beer. Because I love marshmallow. What I don't like about Rocky Road is that they throw like mini marshmallows in most Rocky Roads. I'm like, just give me like fluff. Throw some fluff in the ice cream. I don't want Rocky. That's the one thing I don't like about Rocky Road. Someone doesn't know how gelatin works. It's OK. Hey, shut up, Trevor. I'm about to ask Brandon, the other host of the show, a question. You're a guest. I'll unplug your question.
00:57:19
Speaker
like ah third time we can bring you back your fucking canvas shit i'll never hand it Brandon what do you think of you rock i'm killing poor poor tres have hard i love brand it what do you think of the I like it. It's sweeter than the other ones that we've had. And I think that comes, obviously, from the marshmallow. I was going to say, the one thing that I don't like about Rocky Road ice cream is when they put mini marshmallows in there. I love that about it. But what I love about this beer is that
00:57:57
Speaker
There's marshmallow and then what's what's the nut that goes in home? What's the nut that goes in that ice cream? Because what do you guys use this you use? Because there's a nuttiness in there as well Brandon this is where if we had a soundboard you can drop it's a bit nutty yeah This is, I wasn't, I didn't know what to expect from yeah this beer. Did you have it yesterday? three no I did, I did. And I really liked it. It was the last pour I had for the, nope.
00:58:28
Speaker
out of the second and last part. I don't want to be curious. It's cool. Okay. All right. I run this show. No, it's it's it's funny because when we were when I was there and I had I had the uh when I was there for so we've come to the crampus realization. Shut up, Matthew. Shut up. So, I'm I am curious about like what the nut is because when we were. What the nut? We were at uh Old dinner i turned around and there was i like tons of boxes from nuts.com. Yeah, and that's all you need to know. yeah Don't worry about what's in that box. Don't pay attention to the nuts behind the box. No, we we use peanuts. We do. And it's not real peanut, just so you know. Yep. So it's hydrogen free. Nice. we We have found over the years of doing many of these, not just Krampus but other beers,
00:59:21
Speaker
that almond flavoring ends up tasting like cherries. cherries yeah Yeah. And obviously that's not what you want in a rocky road. No. I know that rocky road is traditionally almond. You know what, real quick, ah Tim, it is the nuts that I don't like in rocky road either because the almonds get soggy and weird. Yep. agreed Agreed. I want a crunchy nut in my mouth. So we went with peanut. This is how you do.
00:59:47
Speaker
I'm just going to gloss over it. we went with We went with peanut this time, so we have an alternative. Rocky Road. Yep. We're just going to keep going. We're going to keep rolling. Yeah. that It's funny because the last beer that I had with nuts in it from you guys was Trail Buddies. Which was pretty great. Yeah, Trail Buddies was fantastic. The nuts in that were awesome. I love the nuts that you guys give me. The nuts you guys give me is fantastic. Yeah. And I generally don't like nuts, but they did work very well in that beer.
01:00:19
Speaker
Anyway, if I could say one thing about old Irving, you know how to put nuts in my face. In liquid form, in liquid form. If I make you go back in... If I make you go back and dust yourself real quick.
01:00:36
Speaker
so Real quick, the basis of all ice cream is obviously some kind of sweetness. In this case, like ice cream. you but You're going to put sugar in cream. You're going to mix it up. You're going to have, in Rocky Road, chocolate, caramel. I don't know. I'm actually just guessing at this point. dude i don't know Marshmallow almond.
01:00:57
Speaker
Uh, but the big two for us were marshmallow and almond. And we did find, um, by the way, if you ever want to fuck with marshmallow in your own homebrew recipe, please feel free. It's very sticky. It's awful. It's vanilla. Uh, and it's, um, gelatin glucose. It's not fun to deal with.
01:01:14
Speaker
I've never tried by the way, but the flavor is but the flavor is right And then the the peanut flavor is just that it is peanut flavoring You're gonna have to accept it you'll bring it into your life if you want peanut butter flavor specifically fun don't show off the cargies Wow, I broke the game. I broke the game. Why don't you just go ahead and tell them exactly the email they go to to get our very special, don't do that. I don't know what it is. It's in for the maltinghour dot.com. That's right. But no, there are certain things that, and actually Sean Burns said it best years ago.
01:01:48
Speaker
ah From phase three where he said, you know when you're eating Something like a an ice cream. You're not there's no one out there. That's going like hey, let's take pistachios a very like Expensive ingredient puree them make a natural flavor out of them and then put them into this ice cream Yeah, unless you're paying like a million dollars at Whole Foods We're already paying a million dollars for our barrels. We're paying a ton for this extra green. We're paying a ton to bring this very special
Nostalgic Flavors in Beer
01:02:16
Speaker
flavor experience. If we want to go in into nostalgia sake, we're going to use things that evoked nostalgia. And so when we're talking about marshmallow, you're not thinking about like a beautifully perfect roasted, you know, organic marshmallow.
01:02:31
Speaker
from Whole Foods or whatever. Do you think about Stay Puft? Do you think about maybe Stay Puft? You're thinking about shitty grocery store or you're thinking about cereal marshmallows and for me yeah this kind of like hugs the line between both of those in terms of marshmallow flavor. It's kind of like cereal marshmallow and all that.
01:02:48
Speaker
and so it evokes something you're like i'm having like the good shit the big thick um barrel aged beer and then we're also kind of coming up here with that uh vanilla and all that and believe it or not you know vanilla we're talking about barrel character you know we're talking about You're talking about marshmallow. You get that from barrels. Yeah. That's nothing. That's nothing about barrel-aged beers. Exactly. Sorry, I didn't mean that. No, no, no. I'm totally meant to cut you off. I wanted you to. Stop talking. No, I love it. I need to stop talking. No, no. You're absolutely right. And that's one of the things I love about, like, I love vanilla.
01:03:24
Speaker
and I love vanilla stout, so when it's done done well, it's not like having a vanilla extract, which is why with this, it is more marshmallow than just, it's not just vanilla. yeah it's It's actual like marshmallow, and that's what I get from the nose right away, and the first thing that I taste, and then nuts and chocolate. Yeah, I will say real quick on draft,
01:03:43
Speaker
As much as I love this out of the can, this is probably the crampest that shines the most on Grafft. It tastes so good when I had it last night. It's very similar, but I got more of everything. It was also cold. You get a more interesting body off Grafft that I think lends it to very ice creamy. Like a melted version. Yeah, exactly. Not a milkshake, but a melted ice cream. You know when you used to whip it around in your bowl with ice cream soup? Oh, yeah. That was the best. You're absolutely right. That is what it tastes like. God damn. Good job. Finally, someone gave me and Tim a compliment tonight. I know, right? You guys are great. We love you. But a fun thing that everyone should know about any of these variants is this is not a one-man
Collaborative Brewing Process
01:04:30
Speaker
game. It's not me by myself sitting there with little eyedroppers making sure that everything's right. It is a team effort. What? I knew. And so. No, he does sit there with eyedroppers.
01:04:39
Speaker
doing that. Yeah, sounds really fun but we're all involved. well Yeah, all of us are involved. in But there are definitely eyedroppers and specific millimeters or milliliters of that. It's kind of crazy. Most fun. It is fun. But the coolest thing about the last one was and this is where you got to keep like an open ass mind is that we had already chosen one. I did ah a side but I did like a full panel, you know, we're on a time crunch. I got to make sure everything's right.
01:05:06
Speaker
We all like, I think there was like two or three of us that picked one that we really liked. And then Matthew came in and he was like, damn, that's really good. I want more marshmallow though. What if we did this? And I was like, all right, cool. And so he put on another glass. He was like, let's try it. And boom, boom, boom. I did it. And then we had like three more people try it. And I was like, God damn, that's good with extra ah marshmallow. You're right. And the nuttiness kind of comes in the back and he kind of does his thing. 100%. So Matthew came in as a w ringer, last minute, slam dunk, suggested something. That's why we love him.
01:05:35
Speaker
Damn, you know, that was pretty cool. And so that's like, that's the kind of community that we we vibe with at OIB. And yeah, man, the reason that tastes exactly like this is because Matthew came in last minute it's with his big old yeah sexy palette. It's really different, man. We are a wildly, I mean, it really is a wildly team effort. Like it really is. Like when we do any flavor paneling, when we do anything, when we're doing all the flavors that we try. We want everyone to be involved. It goes across.
01:06:00
Speaker
Everyone. i think We bring in people from the kitchen, we bring in people from the front of the house. like we We will do that all the time because we're like, we re may taste one thing, but let's get more more taste buds on this.
01:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, and it's amazing that we have a workplace that people can speak their mind, and it's open, and it's not just one person making a decision. It's, hey, let's see what the best thing is possible, yeah and we go from there. I think that comes back to the culinary background of but Trevor. Yeah, Trevor creates that community that really allows for that. Now we're complimenting Trevor. Tim, I'm pouring you a beer.
01:06:40
Speaker
Thank you. Beer can be very lame if it's always the same thing all the time. The cool thing that we try to do with our team is to make sure that everyone, we try to cultivate a culture of creativity and that's something that I'll always be very passionate about. I want everyone to be heard.
01:06:56
Speaker
except for 10. I will say this, yeah I think that that's the most and important, not important thing, but i to me personally, like I love the fact, if you guys shut the fuck up, I'm trying to be really nice about Murray and the people that work there. cause this has a rude Thank you. joe We're on the same side. do finally you you be totally that's his I think ah I think that how the way that you guys do that as far as like everyone being involved and like you know from the kitchen and so on like that speaks volumes and it it shows in the beers like that there a lot of thought went into it instead of just being like we're doing this and this is how we're doing it and this is it and we're done move on which is how I can see Trevor doing if he wanted to
01:07:41
Speaker
but oh yes Well, and just so we're aware, the team effort doesn't just extend beyond the team, it also extends to coming here and doing the show every year. The consistency of being able to sit down and Tacy's always gives me a lot of enlightenment, so I always want to thank you guys for having us as we delve into this last beer. thanks And furthermore, our guests. I'll always make it a point on at least day one to go around and ask everyone their opinions.
01:08:07
Speaker
And it's awesome to hear everyone agree with me. So I, uh, it's really awesome to go around and hear if everyone's like, in you're right so then exactly. here I will say this. Brandon and I are are very fortunate that, uh, you guys, uh, are very cool and we appreciate that you guys think that we're cool and we love doing this with you guys. It's it's so much fun. and I'm very excited to drink this very last variant of Krampus, which is crazy by the way, every year that we do this episode, yes we drink things in between, but I can easily like drink some of these beers on my own and not feel
01:08:44
Speaker
as inebriated and as happy as I do when doing this with you guys. So what is the very last, this is it, this is the last one. This is piwood ram pirate Pirate. He's gonna give his pirate voice. There's
Pirate Krampus Infusion
01:09:00
Speaker
a lot of coconut here.
01:09:01
Speaker
ah Yeah, there is. The cool thing about Pirate Krampus is the team was like the whole time that we were de-barreling it, infusing it, everything else like that, we did play the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean the whole time. You need to know that. We were de-barreling it and when we canned it. Fucking hyped up the whole time. I gotta tell you, like that score is so good. We were so pumped.
01:09:22
Speaker
Um, but it was cool. I mean, obviously, um, it's, it's the abusive relationship. I keep on going back to, uh, with Ron barrels. It's, it's, it's the one that always it has let me down enough times with this time. It finally showed up to pay child support. It's, it is it is my Bay. It is, it is the one in the back that somehow still gets my heart. Um, it tastes like captain Morgan.
01:09:46
Speaker
Shut the fuck up. Jesus. I thought it was Malibu. I thought it was Anyway, it is a rum barrel that- Caribbean rum barrel. Okay, sure. just let's just Let's just get into it. ah jesus Previously bourbon, then rum, as rum barrels do. And then rum barrels from there for listeners who don't know. Actually, I'll be honest, I didn't know that.
01:10:21
Speaker
yeah Oh, yeah, they're all they all originate so you get the first toast usually Somewhere in probably Bergen County or wherever they're making barrels and then they go from there They get filled with whiskey they get aged and then eventually they go down and then the second use will be for rum So that's where you'll put rum So bourbon bourbon it real quick. No, it's okay. You know bourbon has to be getting right hair don no but My whole life has mindset is like How does rum come about? Which seems like it's earlier than, like, bourbon. How did rum come about? They were just using whiskey barrels. But where did they... Whiskey was coming from England, from Scotland, from all that area. And when the English were obviously colonizing all of the Caribbean area, they were bringing those whiskey barrels full of whiskey.
01:11:15
Speaker
And then they would make rum in the colonies in the Caribbean and put them in the barrels that had previously had whiskey. Yeah. I mean, it was also like a lot of this stuff wasn't a barrel. A lot of it was like literally just like rum that was being made. And without barrel, it was all a lot of way. Yeah. Well, originally, I mean, there was nothing but barrels.
01:11:38
Speaker
What were they doing? Your mom's a barrel. But that's literally what happened. is that The British were bringing in barrels of um of of whiskey and of stuff to the Caribbean nice and then they would empty them and then fill them back up.
01:11:55
Speaker
So okay just Okay, thanks for the history lesson tip. No seriously. Thank you for the history. Listen. tim No, you're welcome. We love you so much and tony vo ah Yeah, so Essentially these yeah these uh, thank you. Oh Papa Matthew bring in cheeseburger shit So yeah The original thing that happened with this one is that this got a little bit more contact time with Coconibs, and we loaded it up with everything. We loaded up with more Coconibs, more time, and then a ton more coconut. I mean, this is the most pounds per barrel of coconut we've ever done. It's got a coconut. So yeah, it's coconut, rum, the Coconibs, obviously the vanilla, all coming together. It's probably my favorite Krampus label ever because of the double swords.
01:12:45
Speaker
And then I love that Tim, again, and included some of that gold on the eye patch. Very cool. We should have had gold eye patches this year. we should I know. We screwed up. We didn't do pirate merch. We really don't. We missed the boat. Oh, man. I would have bought a Krampus eye patch for $15. No pun intended, but we missed the boat on doing pirate merch this year. You have to say that. Cool. If you guys can shut up, I have to ask Brandon a question. Sure. Brandon, what do you think about this beer?
01:13:10
Speaker
Um, I like it. This is one of my, I love that you started with, I like it. you it's great to know i like to i know it's good um This is one of the ones I was looking forward to the most and I think I like it.
01:13:24
Speaker
Probably the best because everything comes through everything and I go by just like what it's supposed to be like it's supposed to be a I don't want to say pirate but like suppose a rum barrel aged stout with all of these adjuncts and it It it plays really well with each other. So um If pirates had a barrel aged beer, this would be it. Yeah, I Yeah, don no dude, it like it works really well. um It's really sweet in the beginning, but then like... not i white Yeah, it's not like coily sweet. yeah yeah yeah no like It's like the right amount of sweetness. Like, you know, you can sip it.
01:14:03
Speaker
And dude, this is a definite zipper for me, but like, it's so good that like you can just, I could probably do a 15 ounce Canon or 16 ounce Canon. I am thoroughly. I bought one. Yeah, well. I gotta pick it up someday. I'm going to show up as you. I'm in a serial answer QR code so I can get this because I did not buy this. I'm mad at myself for not buying it. Okay, so this is the big reveal for me. This was the first one I tried and this is hands down my favorite. It is in the, and I don't want to just kind of pigeonhole it, but the way I was describing it to a friend of mine, Mike, who does our theme song, who has been on the show once, who is not a huge fan of barrel aged beers, but is
01:14:58
Speaker
always wanting to try different beers. And he didn't like some other barely stuff. When I described this to him, he had said, that sounds like a barely beer. Like I could sit down and drink. Yep. It reminds me of a liquid mounds. Yeah. In the night without being really sweet. Like it's not sweet like a mounds candy bar, but this is yeah have that agreed. This is.
01:15:23
Speaker
Hands down top-notch. This is my favorite variant of of so this was also the most difficult Variant we had this right. Yeah, by far easily. Why is that? This is the one that held us up This little this beer is the reason why we canned beer two days ago Sometimes ah you you try you try some things, and they don't always work out, and you're like, oh, maybe we evolved this way or we evolved that way. We've used coconut enough times. You would think we would know exactly how to do it. But you know. You guys do a great job. Well, here's the big thing to remember. that This is an organic ingredient. So what we got last year is not the same as what we get this year. Same with cinnamon, same with everything. but All these organic ingredients, they change.
01:16:09
Speaker
yeah And so while we know what to expect, which is fun there's always going to be a little bit of... variation. Pardon me. There is a little bit of terrifying. It is terrifying. By the way, Tim's chair sounds like there's a bird. Yeah. That's what you're looking at, Brandon. Yeah. No, I know. Oh. We talked about it. Oh. Sorry. It looked like you were looking around like, what's that tweeting sound? Yeah. So while it's, is it still sourced from the same place, but it's just because it's organic, like there's going to be variations. Yes. Nice. So what made it difficult this year?
01:16:46
Speaker
We added an amount of coconut the first time and it just didn't play. the the The first tasting of it that we expected to be one thing, it didn't play as well. So we ended up having actually having to move this beer from one tank to another to get another one going. We
Flavor Experiments and Challenges
01:17:07
Speaker
added another 200 pounds of coconut to it and it ended up being what it is now which is much like you it is my favorite variant we've done are you saying i'm your favorite variant yes thank you yeah it is it is uh hands down my favorite variant this year not to take away from any of the other ones but like
01:17:29
Speaker
This one just kind of, which is funny because we did the, we got invited to Goose Island for their Bourbon County preview, which was a lot of fun, and at that preview they have the macaron variant this year, and I did not get any coconuts.
01:17:47
Speaker
in it and everybody else did and i didn't until rare day uh last weekend finally tasted the coconut so i'm like oh my god am i losing my taste of coconut but i love cook like i love coconut in in in stouts like this like adjuncting stouts like to me i feel like it just works very well
01:18:05
Speaker
Brandon has just French press. It's been sitting for the entire episode. It's a citadel scratch. Hold on. You shut your horror mouth. I swear to God, Trevor, I will punch you in the face. I bet. This is Biscoff cookies. Oh. Sitting in regular, this year's 2024 Krampus. Krampus cookies. Because this this stuffff is the idea of what a malting hour variant could taste like. This is pretty sick. I'm not going to lie. This is really good.
01:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. The flavor's great. It could use some tweaking, but I think the Biscoff cookie with this, wouldn't we? Oh, yeah. It tastes like you dipped a Biscoff cookie in this because you guys fucking put Biscoff cookies in the French press and then press it with it, which is great. It will definitely not reformat anywhere because there's probably no added sugar in Biscoff cookies. OK, look. This is what I'm saying. If you guys can find a way to get the flavor like a Biscoff cookie, it's great. Hey, baby. We got you. I mean honestly cookies for Krampus very and this was just something No, no, no, I didn't would have showed up on time during the D barreling
01:19:15
Speaker
Right. Brandon, Brandon works at his other job. Good for you. And yeah, he has a voice. You can talk. And that's why I have this beautiful blue mic. No, but um you know, something that we learned this year is that what I like to do every year is I reach out to a bunch of my suppliers and they'll like bring us a bunch of stuff. And we actually did, I was like wondering, I was like, I always make up but A, B, C, D and E plans for everything.
01:19:45
Speaker
That's just how my brain works and I just want to make sure that like we're going to get down to crunch time. We're going to have to release this beer. And so what I do is I make up like these just extra walls of protection for us to make sure that what we release will be good or at least we have some options to try if it sucks. um We're not taking huge risks, but I still like to have the extra level of protection just for my own wellbeing. Makes sense.
01:20:08
Speaker
So we ordered we ordered some extra extracts and extra like flavors this year. And one of them was intended for a different use, but ended up tasting exactly like the base of that Biscoff cookie. And almost like like ah brown sugar, like obviously anything, even if you take white sugar, you you mix it with butter and then you bake it at high temperatures, 354 degrees.
01:20:31
Speaker
it's going to caramelize and that's kind of the base of the flavor that you're tasting here is obviously you you're not gonna be like oh that tastes like egg white or or it tastes like the flour no what you're tasting is you're tasting kind of caramelized sugar and then you're tasting be yeah oh Yeah, looking back ah some kind of nuttiness Maybe like actually more over than anything. It'd be almost like a dark caramel almost burnt sugar Kind of flavor on it, especially with the roasted malts So if you wanted to like emulate that then we go back we we see how we can make that flavor again And there's actually an extract that I use this here that is very close to that It'd be very easy to emulate another thing I always tell people whenever we're doing something with stouts is I'm like, okay, well
01:21:21
Speaker
Alright, let's say you have an idea for, oh man, I'd love to do a key lime pie stout. Cause I love key lime pie and I love stout. Sounds good, right? And then you're like, okay, well let's think about what stout is. The base of stout is dark malt. What do we get from dark malt? We got coffee, we got chocolate. When was the last time your key lime pie had chocolate and coffee in it. yeah you know and then It certainly has a sweetness. We got that part down. yeah But in order to continue the whole story, how do we continue it? So when we're thinking about things that go along with stouts, you have to think about ingredients that make sense with chocolate and coffee and roast. Vanilla. ah in Like vanilla or like you know things that that tend to pair well with chocolate, which is actually kind of
01:22:04
Speaker
narrow which actually makes this whole job a lot easier a lot of times don't get me wrong i've had people that have been like fuck it let's do a key lime pie let's do something crazy and then they nail it but then you know that's so that's a risk that some people can take uh and i'm always willing to use risk your risk of biscoff cookie for example Fantastic. Yeah. Good job. Thank you. Very, very tasty. So, do you ever want to, like, cramp as a carnival, multi-hour barrier, like five gallons of guys like this to open it? We're down for it. For five gallons? That's an easy yes. Thank you. Yes, that's an easy yes. We'll talk to you in 2025. I do have a question. One question I do have, because I'm not sure. God damn it, Tim, stop. Sorry, seriously. Now I'm calling you out.
01:22:47
Speaker
It's not his fault that your basement's dirty, ew. Brandon, can you read that? That's Brandon's return on my own fucking liver. But I will if I wanted to, he lied. Have you guys know ever thought about, have you guys ever thought about doing like a- There's no cats down here anymore. Berry variant.
01:23:07
Speaker
that but that's Now the reason why, okay, so look, now the reason why I asked that, I don't like bear. And we may have asked this before, but I don't care for fruited stouts. So I just want to know, is that something that you guys ever thought about? And is it something that
Future Flavor Experiments
01:23:23
Speaker
you would do? You and I apparently have a lot more in common than they've been before. No, shut the fuck up, Tim. We just became best friends. I have thought for this for years. I think this was the last year conversation. I'm just trying to remind myself. I want to have a Blackberry. oh Dude, go back to like early 2000s. You can get yourself a Blackberry.
01:23:42
Speaker
There. OK. That joke fell flat. I want to do a Blackberry variant. I've asked for this. Trevor has mixes me every year. He looks so mad looking into an empty glass right now. No, it's not empty. It has a little bit of beer in it, so you're wrong twice. I'm not angry, and I was looking into a glass of beer because I was just thinking about my friend, Pete Crowley, who made, I think, one of the best examples, if you guys remember back in the day,
01:24:11
Speaker
of um a barrel aged stout with fruit and it was with cherry he did it with black cherry and it was fan freaking okay so i will say this i feel like cherry is one of the fruit cherries and currants are the two fruits i think i Enjoy when it comes to a barely stout and I lean that to revolution who? who have done very bra about the most out of not bramble not bramble don't don't you but but but how't like bramble but but i need to know i did not i did not try this year's bramble Did you like past brambles I
01:24:48
Speaker
Technically, not technically, what's the word I'm looking for? Consecutively, historically, do not like bramble. Okay. But cherry and black currant have been ones that I've... There's opportunities like when we say about, and just to follow my own guideline, when we're talking about pairing things with chocolate and coffee and things like that, berries make a lot of sense. I'm never gonna say that at all. Chocolate and strawberry is delicious.
01:25:13
Speaker
But for a long time while we were developing this brand, I think that we were
Krampus Variants Rankings
01:25:18
Speaker
definitely taking a lot of safe roads that I knew had worked and that I'd seen work. But now, I mean, I think we're becoming more trusted. I will say right now on record with our friends that in 2025, we will oh experiment on a bench trial with some fruit. Let's experiment. Hell yeah. Let's experiment with some fruit.
01:25:41
Speaker
We have some ways where I'm not worried about re-fermentation. yep ah There was a lot of that worry. I'm not worried about the flavor profile because we know how to dial in flavors. I feel more confident more now than ever. Tim, I'm promising you as a friend. Let's try some shit.
01:25:57
Speaker
Hell yeah. Let's get in some fruit. This is like a multi-arch. You've benched some blackberries. I don't see that. The reason why I bring it up is that I've tried this for years. I just want listeners to know that. We'll do it. We'll do it. Because of the beers that I have had from Old Irving over the years, I would say that if there's one brewery that I would trust, and even this year has, again, proved me wrong and correct with the champarado, is that If you guys did do a fruited, barrel-aged beer, I would lean more towards, I would probably thoroughly enjoy it, because I just have such a hard time with it. So let's do that, and let's see if we can do bottle-watch it, because they're barrel-aged.
01:26:45
Speaker
blueberry coconut stouts, one of my favorite berries. Ooh, yeah, that sounds good. And actually it sounds really good. Bottle logic is insane how good they are. that's all why that is very interesting If we're going to learn from someone, let's learn from bottle logic a little bit. yeah So Tony Brandon, because we haven't followed your havo no logic here. Yeah. Lightning round. How many barrels do you give each of the Krampuses? Oh, shit. Oh, god. Oh. Just as a little reminder, we started with O.G. Hey, by the way, I just want to make sure everyone knows here real quick. My name's Trevor Rose Hamlin. If you rate beer, you hate beer. These people hate beer if they're going to start rating it. you know am I rate every episode. Also with that, Trevor head did like my check-in for the fucking pirate Krampus last night. I was going to throw that out there.
01:27:37
Speaker
If you rate it well, you'd love beer. Also, don't go off of ratings. Don't go off of ratings. We've said this on the show many times. It could be tonight the reason why I feel this way about a beer. It could be tonight the reason why Brandon feels this way about a beer. But many beers were like... I can see what... Is it because there's a case of White Castle that makes everything taste extra delicious? Also ratings are always subjective. Absolutely. We always love the, I'm gonna give it one star because I hate IPAs. You guys are great. My favorite is, I'm gonna give it one star because the server was a dick. Yeah. That's actually a good idea though.
01:28:16
Speaker
yeah Just break the server instead. So ah let me go through, I will i will rank my my favorites. Without the barrels, I'm gonna go just through what how I like it. good be a afraid My favorite is ah Pirate Krampus. Pirate Krampus is my absolute ah favorite. um I would say coming in in second.
01:28:41
Speaker
So I'll tell you this, regular Krampus cookies, just like what I do with regular Bourbon County, I don't include it. Fair, fair. I can't do it. Because I'm not going to include it because I'm going to go off the variance because Krampus cookies is number one. That's the base. That's the best. That that wins. that's That's the best. So I'm just going to go off the variance. So I'm going to go Pirate. I'm going to go Double Barrel. I'm going to go Chomperato.
01:29:06
Speaker
Rocky Road. All right. That's it. And and that the thing is, is that Rocky Road and Champerado are neck and neck because I almost wanted to put Champerado. No, Champerado is where I wanted it.
01:29:23
Speaker
Rocky Road, for me personally, probably would have been higher because of the vanilla, but the Ciaparato this year to me, it's with the cinnamon and the spice, everything, it was fantastic. Hell yeah. Yeah, see, I'm different. Like I would do double barrel first. Ooh. Okay. Cause I loved that. Um, and then pirate, uh, Rocky Road.
01:29:44
Speaker
than Ciampa Rado. That's interesting because you that that see, so so that's where like, that's where the whole like taste thing becomes objective, where Brandon, who really enjoys the Ciampa Rado. A little bit of real first is Biscoff. Yeah, Biscoff is the multi-arbarian. The multi-arbarian is definitely number one. The, it's it's funny though, because like that goes to show that how taste is subjective. Yeah. Because you know, Brandon loves Ciampa Rado. I was not,
01:30:12
Speaker
looking forward to Chomperato and that was higher than where he... And I know you guys aren't rating this. I think my favorite is just the Krampus cookies. The amount of barrel that comes through on the base, like the cocoa vanilla and then that Russell's Reserve and the George Dickel 15 year, those barrels come shining through on the just the base Krampus and that's my favorite. That is why I do not put it in there because Krampus cookies... wall And that's why I think I like double there out first because all that...
01:30:41
Speaker
Would you put, would you put Double Barrel above Raylor, uh, Krampus cookies? Yeah, probably. Would you put Kramp, where would you put Krampus cookies in your list then? Out of curiosity. Double Barrel and then Krampus cookies. Yeah, I think it was Krampus cookies and then everything else. Tim, shape what's your favorite variant? On Pirate. Yar! Pirate number one. You got the beard for it. Rocky Road number two. Holy shit. Wow. Then Double Barrel. thenchimpmperrado Then Champerado, then Krampus cookies.
01:31:10
Speaker
Now again, I want to make sure that everyone knows that these are very tiny margins It's just what if it's literally sitting here and like yeah if I had all of these in front of me Like what am I drinking first and going through? Yeah, I'm going pirate first then I'm going yeah Now now it comes down to the brass tacks Trevor. Oh Trevor to everybody this is trevor I kind of love that we all have different ones by the way. And mainly because I'm more interested like, not that this has like any weight or anything, but I'm i'm interested because like you said, what the bob when you what you guys have gone through. The man that invented these and the man that created these. and now we've taken a break and now like you said you have a chance to like come back i like that you're moving the mic hopefully it's not disconnecting it's my shitty mic others done don't touch it don't don't touch it like that got it just Brandon let's make sure that's recording watch the recording Brandon like check check check okay all right now Trevor yes give me your grampus
01:32:18
Speaker
You son of a bitch. We're gonna get sued. I'm afraid of no loasts. I vote Miller highlight good winner tre is high delicious movinging frontier tre do you like High Life. one yeah they dude oh how do new achieve no right let's shut it all right Trevor. Tre All right, so I don't know. For me, I always like... Now, granted, this is also just you right here right now. No, no. i You know I love
Barrel Character Appreciation
01:32:55
Speaker
my ingredients and I love to fart around my ingredients and all that stuff, so... Don't say fart when you're talking about... I like to fart around my ingredients. I'm going to say you're not my mom or my dad, are you? And then... Could be. I don't know myby only thanu i don't know my Where the fuck were you in Oklahoma in 1983? Whoa!
01:33:14
Speaker
Anyway, so yeah. yeah my dream ah My first one will be double barrel. I think I am a purist at heart. So I like the i like the barrel. I am excited because like I said last year, it was a little bit sweet. And then to see kind of how that sweet liquid then turned into like a very bourbon forward delicious treat. And as you know, I love bourbon because I always drink all of yours when I come on the show.
01:33:40
Speaker
And then second for me is Ciampa Rotto. Ciampa Rotto will always be my baby. I love the cinnamon. I love the spices. I love the amount of technique. um I like that like me and Tim get to taste it together. It's it's a much more ethereal thing. it's not like agree it's not It's not just a flavor for me. It's also like connecting with my team.
01:34:03
Speaker
and getting to like work with people I love and being like, we don't even measure the chilies, I'm not even gonna lie. We look at it and then we get sick of de-seeding them and we go, that's fucking good enough. I don't wanna touch any part of my body that has moisture. You fucking nailed it this way. You know what I mean? and and then and And then we go and we toast and we go and we just trust that our instincts are right and it panned out really well this year because I love the burn, I love the way it comes together.
01:34:29
Speaker
And that's the beautiful thing of camaraderie and exactly what our beer is always about, balancing camaraderie. I would say after this one, uh, I would probably go double barrel, champerado. Yeah. I already did but double barrel and champerado.
01:34:47
Speaker
I'd probably go after the OG. It's my baby still. That's where it got it all started. And honestly, I really liked the chocolate. I think the chocolate adds like that certain amount of like fudgy to like all the barrels, vanilla, and maybe some like coconut from the barrel and some like other like really cool attributes. That's what I think the base for me, I can't Put it in there because it's it is number one. So I want to go off. I appreciate a lot of people I think a lot of like general tasters would disagree with us But I think for you and I and for people who really appreciate barrel and like just like the natural order of things great um And then yeah, I mean don't get me wrong though my sense of adventure and everything else comes down to rocky road and I think rocky road is always like a If we're ever to break down like what OIB is, it's like let's do the classics great, let's do modern as best as we can and then once in a while let's paddle our own canoe and do something new. This is also an opportunity for my team members like Max and for other people to be heard, for us to kind of you know do a little tap dance with our friends over in Indiana or whoever else we might decide to collaborate with that year.
01:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, um obviously those those are my top to whatever. Let's not look at at it like that. It's like, let's put that shit outside. I love these babies and I love the people and I love the liquid that came out of this year. Well,
Krampus Tradition and Event Details
01:36:11
Speaker
we're always, we, number one, I speak for Brandon and I that we're both very honored and thrilled and very lucky that you guys love coming on here and sharing these beers with us because it's always so much fun.
01:36:24
Speaker
And it's definitely becoming a tradition and these beers are fantastic. And if you didn't get the pre-orders, obviously there will be some available at the TAF room. I don't know when. The 29th of this month. ah Yeah, this month. Whatever's not picked up, we keep a little bit extra. On Bike Friday. On Bike Friday.
01:36:43
Speaker
Black Friday. That's my friend Black Friday. Yeah, the day after Thanksgiving. So the day after Thanksgiving is when when? Yeah. So don't look at me like that, Matthew. You said the 29th. You didn't ask me my favorites. More importantly, we have, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We said High Life. Oh yeah. yeah carnival You said High Life Light. It is important. You know what, Matthew, I apologize. You know what? Actually, I'm really embarrassed. Matthew, what are your favorites?
01:37:10
Speaker
OG first, Pirate Krampus, Rocky Road, then Chomperada, and honestly the Double Barrel is my least favorite because it is what I've known.
01:37:27
Speaker
And I'm looking to the future. And for me, the but OG Krampus this year is the one that shows the barrels off to me the most. And that's what I love. that's Like you get a little bit of that whiskey, yeah and that's why I love it. You know why I glazed over you is because you started it and then you went there, so I apologize. Sorry, Matthew. I mean, I'm actually not sorry because it's just...
01:37:49
Speaker
as As you know, many of the co-hosts that have joined Brandon and I, they just... And I also have Timothy. this one But never you, Matthew. We're so we're actually, ah we also have the big Krampus carnival coming up every year. yes Yep, Krampus Market. It's going to be a big old creator's market full of artists, full of beautiful people. My friend, Jen Denrider, who's also one of our bartenders, puts on this amazing creepy, like, you love the Chris Kendall market, right? You like the little, like, cutesy things and how bright it is. I do love that term. We're going to go ahead and turn off the lights. It's going to be as dark as hell. It's going to be scary. Is it like a Terrifier version? It's going to be the best version of it. And there will be a live Krampus there. Krampus is going to be showing up. Hide your kids. Hide your wife. He's whipping everyone around. That would be the day of what Tim is going to tell me. December 8th. That is the one. That is the day that is going to happen and I cannot wait to be there. I am looking forward to being there. Sunday, December 8th. This will actually be the first Krampus market that I'm going to. Really? Yeah.
01:39:02
Speaker
It's on my calendar, I'm super excited. It's a really fun time. I was bummed last year because wasn't there like the triple Krampus or something? It'll be there as well. What the hell? Seriously? Yeah, you're hearing it here first. 20% Krampus is back without lactose. We only have one 6-12, but we're only selling it in tasters.
01:39:27
Speaker
It is a Krampus that we blend into the whole Krampus to get a little bit more of that barrel vibe, all that stuff. But you get to try it in its purest form, which is the scariest, most brutal, and most most face melting version of it. It's the most metal version of Krampus you will ever get. Yes, correct. it but that would and it's actually number one actually and we all kind of agree i think when we had it we were like if you want barrryel character you want booze you want all those other things that's it that's the bay yeah is that is the that is the the crown jewel of crampus and you can only get it
01:40:00
Speaker
if you come
Closing Remarks and Promotion
01:40:01
Speaker
to this goddamn market. And that's December 8th from 12 to 5? 12 to 5 is correct. 12 to 5. All right, I'll be there with my awesome Krampus sweater on. It's called an ugly sweater. It's not ugly at all. Sexy sweater. It's really sexy. Metal as fuck. It looks really good on me.
01:40:19
Speaker
um Thank you guys again for joining us. This has become a fun tradition. It's probably the most exciting barely aged beer release that I look forward to every year. I can tell you right now I look forward to this and every year as well. some Tim, I want you to come on more.
01:40:39
Speaker
I just need to figure out, we just need to figure out like when that is. Not to pit me in, here we go. Yeah, we'll figure it out. We're gonna face Thursdays. Yeah, whatever. We have a hard time texting Matthew. We have a hard time, I'm putting air quotes, hard time texting Matthew when we're doing episodes.
01:40:54
Speaker
But in all seriousness, thank you guys always. You guys brought food and beer. we We feel so honored that you guys love coming on here, and it's so much fun sitting here. It's probably each year one of the longest episodes that we do. And I actually sit there and listen to every single second of it. Mainly because we both sit for way too long. Do we want to talk business and cruises again, or we're just going to wrap it up, right? I think we're pretty good. All right, Trev you, Trev you.
01:41:22
Speaker
Trevor, when Matthew, Tim, thank you very much. Everybody go and find Krampus is anywhere you can. And also stop by Old Irving Brewing and remember to, oh what's what's the, what's the, for the the the front 242? ktskids.com, ktskids.com, donate some money, make sure these kids have awesome experiences. Absolutely. oh yeah And if you have time, which you should, because it's December, early December, you're Christmas shopping, it's a great way to ah segue from some Christmas shopping, go to the Krampus Market, and and and go ahead and hang out with me. I'll be there drinking. And buy cool shit from really, really cool vendors that make really cool stuff.
01:42:06
Speaker
Absolutely. um Brandon, I love you, buddy. Love you too, man. He's ready to press stop. ah Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next week. Bye. Cheers.
01:42:19
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. Dan can be found on Instagram as hip underscore underscore hops and to 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.