Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
After The Final Pour - S9E5 - Half Acre & Revolution Brewing "On & On Part 4"
101 Plays1 year ago
This week we sample the latest collaboration release from two of Chicago's best breweries, Half Acre and Revolution Brewing: On & On Part 4.
Beer description:
We arrive with the 4th edition of our collaboration barrel project with @revbrewchicago. Barrel aging beer forces some high level reality, but beneath those headlines you find oodles of nuance. You crack open details that you hope admirers of these beers find & appreciate. At Half Acre we’re fairly agnostic, looking for bold qualities wherever we can find them. With Part 4, it feels like a Rev dialect, hanging closer to the power of process & the unique qualities gained with traditional methodology. Their partnership on these beers has been great. It’s the beer, but it’s also a process of hosting one another, exhibiting mutual respect.
An aggressive pour evacuates the aromas you’d hope for; choco-roast, barrel spirit & classic stout – fresh 2005 Old Rasputin – on a raft of final gravity. Early sips land letter-of-the-law, double barreled, twice dipped in Elijah Craig 18-year + a mix of Willet 6-year & 9-year barrels. All you folks that come to our barrel releases are like “you guys should do a non-adjunct release to highlight the…” Well, here you go. A barrel charged Reinheitsgebot funnel cloud. There’s a prevailing cohesion that makes On & On 4 what we’d hoped. The confluence becoming tougher to pin down & certainly the most interesting element. Notes of chocolate saltwater taffy, bourbon, campfire, high-kilned specialty malts & Entenmann’s™ donuts.
Thanks to Kevin and Deb Goggin for the theme song.
Outro music by Fluid Minds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:30
Speaker
When life gives you an empty cup, just crack a smile and fill it up. Fill it up. Welcome to After the Final Pour, brought to you by The Malting Hour. I am one of your hosts. Tony Golde, joined always with Brandon Winniger.
Weather and Morning Routines
00:00:51
Speaker
Brandon, how you doing, buddy? Good, man. How are you? Pretty good. Here we are now.
00:00:54
Speaker
I thought it was going to be colder when I woke up. So did I. It's nice outside today. For Chicago, it's nice. I guess it's supposed to be like 60 tomorrow. Yeah. Things are looking up. It's finally going to be spring. We had the fake spring or the fall spring, then back into winter again. Second winter. Second winter. The fall spring though that we had lasted a long time. It was like a long stretch of like really nice weather.
00:01:20
Speaker
Did it, was it Thursday or Friday that it snowed? Like that was like sticky. It was funny because we woke up in the morning and we always ask. No, it was Thursday. Whatever day it was, we always ask Alexa.
00:01:36
Speaker
Stop. We always ask her, we have a command to start our day, and it turns the lights on in the bedroom, reads us the weather, and then it actually reads our calendar and tells us what's on our calendar. Benjamin heard the temperature. He's like, it's cold? He's like, I hate the cold. I hate it. When's it going to be warm? So he was like, huffing and puffing. He came down the stairs, and he saw out the window, he saw snow. He's like, it's snow? I love snow.
00:02:06
Speaker
He's like, you can't have it both ways, kid. Yeah, buddy. Come on. That's really funny. So we doubled that. But yeah, it's been crazy. But I think tomorrow's supposed to be somebody was saying 60. I'm looking forward to it. Rainy, but 60. I'll take the rain. Yeah. I'm OK with the rain. Really nice. That just means it's probably a little higher humidity. That's fine. As long as it's not 90 degrees and humid. That's when I'm like, no thanks. Indeed. My friends in Florida. Brandon, you're taking a sip, but I'm going to ask you anyways. What are we drinking today?
Beer Introduction: On and On Part 4
00:02:35
Speaker
We are drinking On and On Part 4, a collaboration between Half Baker Brewing Company and Revolution Brewing Company. Let's do a sip of that. It packs a punch. It is a Imperial Stout, 17.3% ABV. I'm glad we're just splitting this can as I'm looking forward to whatever meal I'm going to eat after this as I've only had some pretzel sticks today.
00:02:58
Speaker
Oh, by the way, Brandon and I decided to be productive in recording this during the day. Yeah, look at this. Which means by the time I go home, I can actually edit this and have it ready to go. Anyways, so it's Imperial Stout. It's Double Barrel Age Imperial Stout, fourth edition of a collaboration with Revolution Brewing. Early Sips Land Letter. Okay. What? Early Sips Land Letter of the Law, double barreled, twice dipped
00:03:25
Speaker
feel of Elijah Craig 18 year and a mix of Willett six and nine year barrels. All right. Can I read that again? Sure. Early sips land letter of the law
Flavor Profile Discussion
00:03:39
Speaker
comma double barreled comma twice dipped feel of Elijah Craig 18 year and a mix of Willett six and nine year barrels.
00:03:49
Speaker
The fuck? I appreciate you reading the comments, too. I was just... You could have helped you through it? Yeah, like, I... What the hell? I mean, I don't know. That's kind of a mishmash of a... I don't... Okay, fine. Yeah, that is... What are you saying? Yeah. I'll take it. I don't fully understand. I'm glad I got some of the description there, but... Yeah, this is...
00:04:13
Speaker
Aroma-wise, it smells, it reminds me of smelling... Revolution's Death Star. Or Deep Star, however you want to call it. It's in that wheelhouse. Swirling it around, you know, it opens up more, there's a lot of chocolate.
00:04:29
Speaker
Booze. Indeed. I'm getting, I'm getting like booze. Heavy, heavy booze. Heavy bourbon booze. Maybe a little vanilla-y, some oaky notes, things like that. This was definitely barrel-y. It was definitely six barrels. What do you think of it, Brandon? I actually really like it. And I think I like it because it's not thick and boozy. It's, you know, it's borderline. It's still kind of, um,
00:04:59
Speaker
which I'm gonna call it. I guess thin, but it's not like pastry stout thick, but it does still have a little bit of body to it. I don't know. It's just weird. I like the texture. I like the way it drinks. I love the booze flavor. I'm glad I'm only doing half of this. Yeah, because like it is it's super, super boozy. But like, there's not a lot of beers out there that
00:05:25
Speaker
are like that, that I enjoy because there's other things that compliment it so well. And I just think this, I think that's a pretty well done base.
Chicago Beer Scene and Collaborations
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah. I really, as far as barrel aged beers go, I mean, we're, we're very spoiled here in Chicago and especially having two
00:05:47
Speaker
awesome breweries like Half Acre and Revolution continuing to do these collaborations is really exciting and awesome. And it's nice now that I feel like I'm, before I used to just have barrel aged beers, I'm like, oh, I like the barrel flavor and all the others chocolate, like all kind of the descriptors of what I gave. That's pretty much all I like. Now I feel like I'm getting more, you can tell the difference in barrel aged beers. It's not just, I mean,
00:06:15
Speaker
I don't know if this is making any sense. I'm mainly just going off of the way I'm perceiving it. Cause I used to just like, yes, you can taste differences and barely beers. Obviously if there's adjuncts or the way that was done and body and stuff like that. But this specifically, because I've had all the other on and ons, this one's really packing a punch. I feel like it's teetering close to maybe too much of the
00:06:40
Speaker
Maybe it'll mellow out. Maybe I'm gonna let this warm up and see what happens there. It's not ice cold, but it's nice and cold I like it. I like it a lot. What was the ABD on part 3? Let me check. Let me pull that up real quick because it was on one of the searches Yeah, that's the other thing too. I will say that this does not
Beer Release and Logistics
00:07:05
Speaker
It doesn't really, it doesn't feel like a 17%. No, but you can definitely get the booziness. And I just took another sip and I actually like the back of my throat, I almost got a little bit of a bourbon burn. I was like, Ooh. Um, but super, super tasty. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of barrel. This is a very barrel forward. And it's boozy. It feels like there's a shot, like a shot.
00:07:34
Speaker
It's almost like if you had like a D-star and then dropped a shot of Earth in it. Shot in, yeah. Kind of like that. That's kind of what I'm getting. By the way, part three. I could try that sometime. Part three was 16%. Okay, so we're in the wheelhouse. Part two was 13 and part one was 14.
00:07:51
Speaker
So what's part five going to be? I don't know. Um, I'm terrified to turn into utopia. It's just a 20% syrup at that point, but yeah, I'm very, very happy with this beer. Thank you for sharing it with me. Um, also it was kind of released out of nowhere.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, I just happened to see it. I don't think I saw anything on social media. Maybe I did. I don't know. I know it popped up on Ozzender. And I was like, hmm. So I went ahead and bought it. And I almost forgot about it. Because it was a short pickup window. It was last Saturday to today. And I had completely forgot about it this week. And then I looked at the date. And I was like, oh, man, I got to make my way over there. So Friday, I went and picked it up.
00:08:38
Speaker
I stopped in and I tried on tap the on and on pecan vanilla, which was fantastic. Had great, like a toasted pecan flavor. The vanilla was there. It was subtle, but it was more of like that kind of like vanilla extract type flavor, more than like vanilla bean, or maybe kind of like a mix of the two. But it was, you know, it was very pleasant. I wonder, depending on what they use,
00:09:07
Speaker
If they did use real vanilla beans, I wonder if the booziness maybe gave off that vanilla extracty flavor. Probably. I mean, because that one was 17.5% or whatever it was too, so that one was high up there. Did they have any other variants?
00:09:21
Speaker
They did they had that and then some other ones cool. Yeah, sorry to put in spot there. I wasn't expecting you to Memorize that I probably should have asked you before we started recording No, so in like that's I mean that was the one that appealed to me the most because that's cuz I mean I'm I know that by the way, I'm gonna sneak into the Ritz the Ritz bits over here I need to make sure that I can get home safely Sorry about the crackling crunching. Um
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, just like, you know, Revolution, there's always like some variants put on tap. I do appreciate that and enjoy that when it comes to these special releases that, you know, those will pop up. Okay, so the other, so there was, there was really one other one, so they were serving On and On part four. I didn't want to try it, because I wanted to try it here. Oh, this says it contains honey. Whoa. What? Yeah, On and On part four, it says contains honey. Why isn't that in the description?
00:10:19
Speaker
But then they had an on and on old fashioned. Whoa, what? Yeah, I did not try that. I probably should have. What are you doing the rest of the day? Also contains honey. And then on and on pecan vanilla contains honey, nuts and sea salt. And then they had a three year barley wine. Apple brandy, barrel aged barley wine. That sounds really good.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah. I know there's certain people out there who don't really care. And then they were serving Double Barrel VSOD and Petite VSOJ. Did I have that? Clark, did you have that? Well, no. I haven't tried that one yet, do we? Sorry, Clark. That was you being here. I knew that I'd have a revolution. I should know everything. I'm a subscriber to their Deep Wind series.
00:11:11
Speaker
Speaking of which, are you going to jump in on the supermassive cafe death at all? No. All right. I'm glad we're caught up on that. Apparently, I'm the only one who wants to do it. I would. If you're interested, I'm going to grab something. We pulled the trigger. We're getting our deck done. You can't buy a beer anymore. Yeah. Well, hey man, it was fun while I lasted.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, we went. We're closing up shop on the podcast. Oh, we went on Tuesday. We went and we picked out our colors and everything like that and put the deposit down. They said by the end of April, they'll have us done.
00:11:49
Speaker
Oh, seriously? Like the whole deck will be done? Yeah. Wow. Three days. That's awesome. Three days and done. And then they're putting in a little access gate so we can get in there. And the guy's like, how big do you think you want this gate to be? I was like, it's got to fit a body. You need to start cracking up. And I was like, no, I'm going to get my fat ass in there if I need to get something. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm not putting bodies under there yet. So yeah, I'm not going to be doing the
Bourbon County Beers Discussion
00:12:14
Speaker
supermassive cafe death.
00:12:18
Speaker
Damn you, spaceship. I didn't say it. Brandon got to it first. My family needs warmth. We just said it was nice outside. What the hell? This is why we need to... Freeze, people. So I am going to grab that. I know Clark is not a fan of the coffee stouts anymore. The first time I had super massive
00:12:43
Speaker
Cafe death was during the pandemic. He said any more. Did he like coffee stands before? I don't know. I don't know. I know he's not a fan of them now. I like coffee. No. Yeah. I think, I think it's a coffee beer though. I know. I think it's a coffee beer. It just doesn't get down on it anymore. But that's crazy. I did. I, like I said, I, I remember having it during the pandemic, like sitting on the fire and stuff like that was nice. I remember like falling in love with, with that beer. I'm like, cause I like coffee. I like coffee beers.
00:13:09
Speaker
especially with the drug right. And that's just so much coffee in that beer. And then it's barrel aged. It's awesome. Dude, and I think like the first ever barrel aged coffee beer I had was probably Bourbon County. Yeah, same barrel aged. I mean, it may have had other things that weren't barrel aged, but like that was like the barrel aged. I was like, and whenever this was like 2012 or 13, I was like, dude, I was in love with that beer. That was like so fantastic. So good.
00:13:37
Speaker
You know, speaking of which, I jewel out in Hoffman Estates. I was walking through their liquor section because I was grabbing some beers to bring over to a family party yesterday. I ended up going with Maplewood Charlatan. At first, I thought I grabbed a ton of juice until I got to the party. And I was like, whoops, Charlatan. Which I'm happy with is why I love Charlatan. They had this jewel, our grocery store, local grocery store.
00:14:00
Speaker
had Bananas Foster and the backyard rye for $15 sitting on the shelf. Really? The nice deal because people are still charging like $25 for those. Yeah. And it's funny because like I've seen so many mixed reviews about that Bananas Foster and I'm like, I liked it. I liked it a lot. And for the $15, I might, I mean, I might check other jewels. I don't want to necessarily go all the way back out to Hoffman to grab it. But you know, even at Binney's, like they haven't dropped the prices on it and they got a bunch sitting there.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah, the only one they drop the price on like occasionally is regular 11.99 or 9.99 like very it varies depending on the week. It's like yeah, it's funny cuz like when I sometimes when I see like a regular depending on where I'm at if I see a regular Burman County like just see there I'll grab one every now and then be like, you know what? I haven't had a Burman County a little while. I'm just kind of nice like
00:14:49
Speaker
That's what I do like about the overproduction of it now. Maybe not overproduction, but the fact that it does sit on the shelf. More availability? Yeah, the availability of it is nice. I like to have that option just like any other beer where it's sitting there on the shelf and I can grab it if I want.
00:15:05
Speaker
Was it last year? I think it was last, I feel like it was last year after the release. You were, we were talking about this and you were saying that like almost every time you went to Jewel, they had them at the counter and you're like, Oh, just grab. Might've been last year of the year before, but yeah, that's why I did not do that this year. I've not done that this year. I haven't bought any other bourbon County this year. Yeah. I bought one other bananas foster after the initial purchase and really,
00:15:34
Speaker
I will say that like, you know, Prop Day gave me an idea of what I wanted. Now I do still see like the, I think it's been long enough now. Did you get an allotment? Did you buy an allotment this year? No. No, right. You didn't. I won, but you didn't get it. So you didn't get, you didn't go and buy anything. You and I did the same thing, right? Okay. I kind of want to, at some point, because it's still sitting around, maybe sooner than later, maybe I'll do it. Do you get like the Eagle rare and the Angels MV again to give those a try? Oh yeah.
00:16:01
Speaker
Just to try them again, you know, I know you got the ego, right? Yeah, exactly. But you still have just a very small amount left. Bro, just pour it in your beer right now. Make it a triple barrel. Somebody, oh, we had the Super Bowl party. Somebody came in there like, not that I have like an impressive collection or much anymore, but like,
00:16:24
Speaker
Like I was like, Oh, you've got Eagle rare. And like, and then, uh, no, you still have the Colonel Taylor. He's like, Oh man. He's like, man, I'd love to try. I was like, look, you can try anything here. I was like, but if the bottle's not open, you tell me first so I can try it with you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, you have, it's funny cause like you do, you have a nice selection of, of Bourbons like there. And it's funny cause a lot of them aren't open for every time.
00:16:49
Speaker
that we've hung out and I've come by. I've been like, you know what? I'm gonna ask me if it wants to, honestly, I would say nine out of 10 times when I come by. I'm like, I'm gonna ask me if it wants to try that tonight. And then once I get here, and then we have a couple beers, I'm like, next time, next time. We don't need to try all that. Yeah, I gotta get a, I've been putting Jim Beam in that decanter. Really? Yeah. Nice. We just- She's been good. I've tried the Clark and Sheffield bourbon. Oh, how is that? Pretty good. Really? And then just tried the Bini's brand vodka.
00:17:18
Speaker
Oh, okay. I was curious about that. 1.75 milliliter bottle for about 15 bucks. Okay. Hey man. You make vodka sodas with those and lime? Delicious. Very good. That's like the cost of, like what they charge at Costco or Sam's Club. Yep. It was totally, it's totally worth it. Same thing with the Clark and Sheffield. It was pretty good. It's...
00:17:37
Speaker
You can use it for a mixer or whatever, you know? I mean, yes, I've had it like on the rocks and everything, but it's not like something that I'm like, you know, I don't know. It's not, it's good. Especially for the price point. I'm curious to know who distills it for them.
00:17:51
Speaker
Just ask, dude. They'll tell you. The guy at the counter, hey, who just does this? Who makes this? It's just made by like Absolute or Svetka. This is Grey Goose, isn't it? Isn't it Grey Goose? There's a rumor that like the Costco brand or the Sam's brand was like actually Grey Goose. Yeah. I've heard that forever. Whether it's true or not, not sure. But I mean, that's the thing. Kirkland has contracts with distilleries to, you know, basically make this for us and
00:18:20
Speaker
they just put their
Store Brands and Manufacturing
00:18:21
Speaker
name on it. Well it falls into the same category of like if you go to Juul and you buy their signature brand like macaroni and cheese there's a good chance it's made by Kraft. I didn't know that. And it's just rebranded yeah.
00:18:33
Speaker
because you know you're literally buying the packaging. And it's like that with like cereals and like there's so much- I've always, what a weird tangent we're going on here. I've always been, when I go to like Aldi and I remember the first time I decided for the family where we're going to do Aldi shopping, my daughter wanted Lucky Charms and I'm like, you're getting Lucky Stars.
00:18:59
Speaker
from all of the, thank you, Lucky Stars. She tried it, whatever it's called. She tried it, she's like, it's not the same. I go, trust me though, have another bowl. You're gonna, yes, it's not the same, but it is the same. It's the same damn cereal. You should have bought a box of Lucky Charms and just started refilling. You know what would have been funny? She probably would have been like, something's wrong with these Lucky Charms. Like, damn it, she's onto me. No, they're not, they're magically delicious.
00:19:22
Speaker
We're like lucky stars. Have you gone to the new one that's opened up? I'm not yet. I thought about going there today. I need to get some stew. I saw an ad pop up and I showed it to Becca. I was like, she's into whipped cream cheese. I'm like, $1.99 for like a 16 ounce thing of whipped cream cheese? She's like, we've got to go. Whipped cream cheese? You ever made cauliflower mash? Yes. Here's the trick. Get some cauliflower. Boil it.
00:19:48
Speaker
Pop it in your food processor, take the whipped cream cheese, but get the onion and chive one. Dump that in there, puree it, blend it up. You don't need to add salt or butter or anything. It's now like a cream cheese cauliflower. But it's like mashed potatoes. Oh my God, it's so good. I'm down for that. Welcome to the cooking hour. One day you guys know we'll
00:20:10
Speaker
eventually branch out into something like that. It's all about tangents, man. We really can't slam this beer like any other. I know. All right, Brandon. I mean, I feel like I'm drinking it quick, but I'm like, I'm not- As long as you look at me, I'm like, no, we're both, we're pretty- Roughly.
00:20:27
Speaker
roughly. I may have gone a little bit more than you. Brandon, because they're... Well, let me check something real quick. Oh, the can's over there. I think I can check it out here. Give me one second. I am going to look at this now and I'm going to keep talking as if nothing else needs to be said. So mushrooms and skulls have to do with
00:20:51
Speaker
These are like the mascots for these on and on. We'll go like this. Chair hit me. We'll do skulls and mushrooms. So I'm going to go on and ask you, Brandon, how many skulls are you going to give? I said that weird. How many skulls are you going to give? I was going to say, what are skulls? This beer is starting to kick in on my empty stomach. I'm going to say about four and a half. Four and a half skulls. Skulls. Roweds.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'll do four and a half. All right. You want to go mushrooms? I'll do mushrooms. I'll do mushrooms, dude. It's a Super Bowl all over again. I'm going to go 4.25, 4.3, 4.3. Yeah, between there, 4.3. I like it. Yeah, it's really good. I just would like, I don't know, maybe a little bit more balance on the barrel, but it's a double barrel beer. So, you know, I'm not, it's... It's delivering what they're saying. Yeah.
00:21:52
Speaker
Would I have this again 100%? Yeah. And I'm probably going to remind you like, don't you have a, I don't know, part four. I'm happy that there's two because I do want to let this one sit for a while and see how it is and like. Is it a two pack? Yeah. Nice. Like a year maybe. Nice. So you got that. Don't you have all of them except for two? Probably. Cause I don't remember two coming out in cans. I remember us. If we missed it, we did try part two though, or at least I did when Clark and I took you to
00:22:22
Speaker
or went to half acre to hang out before your surprise birthday. I think I tried it though. Yeah, you may have. We've had all of them, but I don't remember it getting like a release. Yeah. Very weird. Digging back into the ritz in the background. Well, I think that's gonna do it for this week, buddy.
00:22:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate it. Um, I always look forward to these and Rev is also about to, like we said, the super massive cafe death, but they're also, if I read that email correctly, some of the crazy, not crazy, but the one-offs and draft only variants that were on tap at one point.
Future Releases and Events
00:23:04
Speaker
They are now gonna do releases of in the 19.2 ounce cans. So it'll be like a big pour of random stuff they did. So red random barrel-aged deep wood beers that weren't packaged before. They were just draft options only. So that's pretty exciting.
00:23:22
Speaker
We'll probably have some of those as well. And you know, if you haven't already, remember to, if you're in Chicago or you're coming to Chicago on April 25th, the meal is on Wheel of Chicago on tap. Just gonna say that. Yeah, raising money for a good cause, as you guys know. We talked about it last week. And yeah, go get your tickets. There's a code there. Shy on tap VIP. Oh yeah, I was gonna say go listen to the episode, but there you go, Brandon. I'm a good guy.
Social Media and Updates
00:24:02
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. Branding can be found