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Episode 118 - Fruits of Our Labor
123 Plays1 year ago
This week Brandon and Tony sample some fruited from beers from the midwest. Then they go deep into their love of hot peppers, smoking meats and jerky - what a week!
Beers on this episode:
New Glarus - Strawberry Rhubarb
Old Irving Brewing - Miko's
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Outro and break music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Laughter
00:00:00
Speaker
I can't not laugh every time we're about to start. Like, it gets in my head, like, you have to say this, and then I'm just, I just want to laugh every time. Laugh, dummy! Laugh! Not very professional. This week we're drinking fruited beers. This is episode 118 of The Malting Hour.
00:00:23
Speaker
What's the haps on the hops? Guy ease that speech This the molten hour where we talk about our drink And tell you what we think, every other week And if we get drunk, well we might slur our speech Got the gift of ab, the friends who wish you had Join us for a drink, join us for a laugh Time is never wasted, way you're getting wasted The molten hour here, people, people taking places People, people taking places
Hosts Introduce Themselves and Discuss Football
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome to the Malting Hour. I am one of your hosts, Tony Golic, joined always with... Brandon Winningger. Happy... second... Monday... of September. A week after Labor Day. Yeah, and it's the first night of Monday Night Football. Oh, yeah.
00:01:09
Speaker
And as we're recording this, we're coming off of Thursday night football. Did you watch that by any chance? Because a bulk of it I did. And and then so like I watched it, they were they were up and then I started playing Red Dead for a while and then turned it back off. Turned the game on and saw Red Dead again. Saw the Lions take the lead and I was like, I'm going to bed. Yeah, good call. Yeah, I stayed up and watched the entire game in my fantasy football league. I have
00:01:38
Speaker
Because Travis Kelsey was out.
00:01:40
Speaker
I have Kadarius Tony and he's not one of my starters normally. It was just, you know, kind of a flex. And since Travis Kelsey was out, Jeff, my neighbor, and I decided we run the team together. We're going to start Kadarius Tony because he's got to get a ton of passes because they got a whole bunch of, you know, wide receivers that they're not always thrown into. Uh, you know, they, they, they lost some guys last season and Kelsey's out. So Tony's going to get some volume and he did, and he caught one pass out of like eight.
00:02:11
Speaker
So we bench Chicago Bears, Darnell Mooney for him. At the time of this episode, we'll know how mad I am about doing that. But Jeff did, did text me and said, and say, this one's on me. So, oh wow. But it was a great game. It was fun. I'm happy football's back. I'm excited about it. You know, I know a lot of people don't like football. There's a lot of, uh, bullshit that goes into it, but, uh, I'm
Balancing Podcast with Personal Life
00:02:34
Speaker
still a fan. Football first, then hockey, you know, that's not.
00:02:39
Speaker
So it's been a long time since we've done a full episode, and not this episode is going to be full, but you guys got to get getting tired of these malted minis and after the final pours, right? I mean, I think they each end up being almost a half hour, if not more, or some of them. That's true. Actually, I think one of our our last malted mini, or the last after the final pour was about 45 minutes, or they both were around there. So they kind of like full episodes. It's very busy time for all of us right now. And, you know,
00:03:09
Speaker
We got some stuff coming up, but I keep saying that. I don't know. Brandon and I are working on a new schedule and format. Not format, but he and I are going to sit down and kind of work this out because we're spreading ourselves thin here with the podcast and making ourselves go crazy trying to get this out because we love doing it, but also we have lives outside
Fruited Beers and New Glarus Discussion
00:03:34
Speaker
of this. We have lives and jobs and families and
00:03:38
Speaker
You know, we still want we still want to keep doing it. So thank you for sticking with us and continue listening. I haven't seen numbers drop from streaming, so we got that going for us. Yeah. And I think the big thing is we want to continue to focus on quality over quantity, making sure that we're giving great episodes versus just throwing something together just so we have something together.
00:03:59
Speaker
Well, this tonight, I thought of a title right before we started recording, since we did, you know, Labor Day last week for after the final pour. No, hi, welcome. I'm going to call this one fruits of our labor, even though we didn't make these beers. But I'm throwing labor back in there. And you and I have both selected fruited beers for this evening. Brandon, why don't you tell everybody what it is you are drinking?
00:04:26
Speaker
I am drinking New Glares Brewing Company's Strawberry Rhubarb. Yes, I love that beer so much. So I'll read the description. Teased from the loom by the kiss of the sun, Mom's Strawberry Rhubarb delights are the happy memories of childhood.
00:04:42
Speaker
Diploma Master Brewer Dan employed juicy sweet strawberries to tame the barbaric wild tart fermentation of rhubarb. Escaped from the far corners of neighboring yards, local rhubarb was incorporated into the wild sour fermentation to create this drinkable dream. Bright sour and effervescent, toast chilled in cold to bright skies, fireflies, bare feet, and rhubarb pies. I don't know if I've ever had a rhubarb pie, have you?
00:05:10
Speaker
I have not, but I've had my aunt used to make these strawberry rhubarb bars, because she grows up at their lake house, which is right down the road from my dad's lake house. She grows rhubarb. That's up in Wisconsin? No, it's in northern Wisconsin, just outside of Gurney.
00:05:31
Speaker
And she was growing, like this was a couple of years ago, I remember she planted the rhubarb. I don't know if you have to plant it again every year or if it just regrows, but whatever it was, it was like May and I, we were, I think putting the piers in and I went out back and I was like, what the hell is this? She goes, it's the rhubarb, it's already in. And it was like eight feet tall. It was like massive. I was like, hey, you got some rhubarb.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, I, I definitely have not had rhubarb before. But I have had this beer before. And it's a really good beer. One thing about this beer that I always get, and when I first had it, I thought maybe it was just how my palate was that day, there is there's this like,
00:06:14
Speaker
Everybody knows who listens to this show. I got a weird palate sometimes with beers, you know? I call pale ales, saisans with Clark, you know, it happens. There's a, I get like a smokiness from this beer, not like a heavy smokiness, but like in the back, there's a smoke of some sort. And I don't expect anybody else to get it, to be honest. So if you say I don't get it, I totally understand.
00:06:39
Speaker
I'm not getting smokiness, but I'm getting really earthiness. I don't know. Yeah, I'm getting a little earthiness. And I think that comes from the rhubarb probably. Yeah, that's my thought. Yeah. And so like my experience with the spirit, this was one of the first nuclear spirits that I had. I think the first thing I had probably was
00:07:00
Speaker
Spotted cow or something like that. I feel like that's most people in at least Chicago. And Spotted, this may have even been the first because I had when I was dating somebody at the time that lived that.
00:07:13
Speaker
her family lived out in northern Illinois. And it was like a less than an outward jaunt to get to New Glarus. And she had a really good friend that was into craft beer. And when we were over there, he would come over and he would bring a bunch of different beers and he would always bring like New Glarus stuff. I think it's the first time I had like the original original Goose Island rare.
00:07:38
Speaker
and Goose Island Vanilla, like he had bottles of those, because he knew I liked craft beer, so he would just bring those. But I had this, and I was like, it was probably one of the first like, quote unquote, sour beers that I actually really enjoyed. And then the interesting thing about this was like shortly thereafter was the first time I learned about the Beer, Bacon and Cheese Festival. Oh, yeah. In New Glaris. And so I got tickets.
00:08:05
Speaker
And we went up there and we
Beer Ratings and Preferences
00:08:07
Speaker
were like the, not the first people there, but we were there before like the crowds came in. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You've been to the beer, bacon and cheese festival without me. Yeah. Years ago. You son of a bitch. I thought I told you that. No, but now I feel like you're cheating on me in the past.
00:08:25
Speaker
So when I went, so the interesting thing about it, though, when I when I went, we checked in and New Glares had a station there and this giant fucking, you know, fruit press and.
00:08:41
Speaker
If you, at the time, at that time, if you brought in a pound of rhubarb, you got into the fest for free. What? So you would bring the rhubarb and they would take it and they were pressing it fresh there to make for this beer. Oh man, that's fun. So they had these big massive bins set up and they were just pressing rhubarb the entire time. But if you came in with a pound of it, you got in for free, which I thought was pretty cool.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I did not have a pound of rhubarb. I paid for my ticket, but still a good time. Good man. So real quick, I jumped on untapped to look at my check-ins, and then I looked at your check-ins. I think I'm confusing this beer with a different fruited beer from Nublaris, because nowhere did I mention the smokiness. In fact, when I checked this, I know I've had it before this check-in. I've checked it in three times. The first time,
00:09:35
Speaker
Would you believe it was last year? Which is weird. And it was on June 12th. I have a feeling that was around the Beer, Bacon and Cheese Festival. And it was. And it was. And then a month later, I checked it and I said, dang, like fresh strawberry jam in beer form. I like I think I like this more out of a bottle and not as a sample at a beer fest. You picked up a four pack of this.
00:10:01
Speaker
I did. I remember correctly. I checked it in November 24th saying nice beer to end the holidays. So that was for Thanksgiving. I gave it a 4.25 around Thanksgiving. It was a 4.5 on July 17th. And I gave it a four in June. So that's why you can't really take my check-ins seriously or anybody else's. Brandon, what do you think? I mean, we're not going to get to your rating now and really talk about it. But back in 2014, February 23rd, 2014, you checked this in. What do you think you gave it?
00:10:30
Speaker
Do you know what you gave it? I know what I gave it. I looked it up already. God damn it. Oh, that takes the fun out of that game. And I would still rate it that, like... 4.5. That's what you gave it, yeah. I mean, I guess I ruined that to say how many rhubarb's would you give it. But I really... I don't know where everybody... We have tons of listeners from all over the world.
00:10:56
Speaker
If you get a chance to try New Glares beers, a lot of people will say Spotted Cow and Moon Man. Moon Man, by the way, is one of my favorite paleos of all time. It's great to have fresh over there in New Glares. But my favorite beer from them is the Wisconsin Cherry.
00:11:14
Speaker
the Wisconsin Cherry beer. What is it? Wisconsin Cherry Red or something like that? Yeah. Wisconsin Cherry Red. Dude, that's a liquid cherry Jolly Rancher. I think you still have one too, but I miss the big bottle format of that because it's so much fun to drink of. Yeah. When I had strawberry rhubarb for the first time, that was one of my all-time favorites. When I had the cherry red, that was
00:11:39
Speaker
the kind of knock this one out. I would rate them pretty much pretty close.
Old Irving Brewing's Mikko's Fruited Sour Ale Discussion
00:11:45
Speaker
I'll check. Keep talking. But I do enjoy. Yeah, I don't know if like in the moment how I would have rated it. But like in my head right now, I'm thinking like, it's it's up there. Oh, it's Wisconsin Belgian red. Yeah, that's what I was missing. There it is. Wisconsin Belgian red. I have 10 friends who have checked in. We're gonna go all the way to the bottom to see
00:12:07
Speaker
where Brandon first checked it in, at least down here. Well, uh, a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of people, 10 chickens, not even close to Brandon yet. We're in 2022. Brandon, you checked this in on July 12th, 2022 during the, probably the bacon, beer and cheese festival, June 12th, 2022. Yeah. Sorry. June 12th. Uh, and you gave it a 4.5. Yeah.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's about right. My first check-in goes all the way back to 2014, December of 2014. Mine was July 18, 2014. And I gave it a four back then. And that was when I was, you know, being better about my check-ins. And since then, it's been like 4.5, 4.25. And then two years ago, I said, if I had to choose a favorite beer from New Glarus, this would be it.
00:12:57
Speaker
Then moon man. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't think so. Like these chickens from 2014. I don't know if that those my I don't think that was my first experience with it. I think, you know, it's your first time checking in at least. Yeah. Because I'm trying to I don't remember when I first started using untapped. So I think I met like seven years now, maybe more of using untapped. It's got to be more than that. It's got to be. And you're you're you're a little better.
00:13:25
Speaker
checking in things than I am lately I have not been when we hung out for Labor Day weekend before we recorded last week's after the final pour Ron our good friend Ron who we were drinking with kept track of all those beers and checked them in I went back and checked in none of them so I kind of feel like I want to go back and check them in yeah just like to read at the time and then I was just like yeah
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of beers to go through. But yeah, I'm sorry. I was going to say this is the same thing of like going to beer fest. Like the people that are so like hung up on like, I need to check this in. I need to check this in. It's like, OK, great. Like when I when I check things in normally, it's because I want to give it a rating. So I remember, you know, what I'm what I'm rating it versus like, you know, oh, I had this so I stats.
00:14:20
Speaker
I mean, you don't get anything from Untapped. Untapped does not pay you. You get badges, dude. You get all those cool badges. We don't even know stinking badges. Those badges don't do shit. If you got points from Untapped to redeem for something, for checking stuff in, I would probably be more diligent about checking things in. Absolutely. Every fucking beer that ever, like, wisps across my nose, I would be like, checked in.
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I, I do check in a lot of beers that either I want to remember or that leave an impression on me. Like lately and Clark said the same thing, but like he doesn't check in all of his beers all the time. And I don't either. The last beer I checked in was an Aldi Oktoberfest beer, which by the way, it was $8 for a six pack and it is delicious. And by the way, it's made by, uh, Genesee.
00:15:16
Speaker
I don't know. That's sounds like that's you. I think that's correct. Yeah, it was and it and it sounded like fun beer like beers like that that I want to remember. And the beer that I'm going to drink tonight, I'm also going to check in. But yeah, it's like ones that I want to remember or left an impression on me, you know, or one that I know that like, I haven't checked this in a while. Like, how does it compare to, you know, how I've had it before, you know, or previous times?
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty good about that. So if I know I've checked something in before, but it's been a while, I will not go back and look at my old check and I'll give it a new rating. Absolutely. And then if it changes, it's fine. Aggie's trying to let you know that she'll check in any beer. Yeah, I know. Fuck this cat. She's like, I check in everything, all the beers, all the beers that I drink, I need to check in, Dad.
00:16:09
Speaker
She's very antsy, so I don't know if this will be a full 45-minute episode. All right, so we got through that. You said you'd probably give it the same rating that you- Yeah, 100%. If we were doing rhubarb, so it would be four and a half rhubarb.
00:16:27
Speaker
That's what I was going to say, rhubarb. So sticking with fruited beers, and by the way, a reminder to everybody, when I tell you what this beer is, they do not sponsor us. They do not give us things other than their friendship and their love. And we love them. And I have a feeling that Matthew thinks that they were just, you know,
00:16:49
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what he's going to be. But I was going to get this over Labor Day weekend. I didn't make my way into Old Irving and I stopped a beer in the wall today and they had it. And so I had to grab it. It is Old Irving Brewings Mikko's Fruited Sour Ale. Let me tell you a little bit about this. This beer. Oh, I can open the tab. Oh, great. Thanks. Thanks. There's that. Okay.
00:17:11
Speaker
Mikko's Old Irving, sour, fruited, 6% ABV, 10 IBUs, Italian ice inspired kettle soured ale brewed with Meyer lemon and hopped with Haller 2 Blanc collab with Mikko's Italian ice. It's my first time having this. I don't think they've done this before. I don't think so either. Yeah, I'm almost positive. I'm pretty sure we've had like almost every Old Irving beer at this point. But the idea of
00:17:39
Speaker
Italian ice beer and how they do their fruited sours like last weekend when it was so hot. I'm like, I gotta have this. I think I even messaged Trevor. And I told him I was gonna get it. And then I lied to him because I didn't stop in and get it. However, I did end up getting it today. And I gotta tell you, man, it's like drinking a melted
00:18:04
Speaker
carbonated Italian ice. Like this is straight up like I, I wish it was a little colder. I put it in my fridge a little late. Um, cause if this was like, this is a beer that if you had ice cold, it's not like that ice ice cold, but like pretty freaking cold, it would be like drinking an Italian ice. If you're, if you're comparing it to an Italian ice. Oh my God. Like, I don't think it's going to like the, the strong,
00:18:34
Speaker
I mean, like a good Italian ice, like it's like a little bit of rind and tartness and sourness from a lemon. And oh my god, dude, this is this is really good. And here's the best part about it. I've been sipping on this since we started this episode. And I've already I mean, I've got a full glass now. So it's a 16 ounce can I drink through some of it already. You know what I don't have heartburn at all. Ooh.
00:19:01
Speaker
which is something that I've, I've found from a lot of older things, sour beers. Yeah. So Wednesday, this past Wednesday, we went to older vein because, you know, Becca offered up Benjamin, like, Hey, what do you want to do for dinner? And he said he wanted to go to older. I got to start hanging out with you guys when you asked Benjamin, where he wants to go. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's where we usually go. We're about once a week that we're there.
00:19:27
Speaker
roughly. And again, they're not giving him a free meal or anything. No, no, no, no. And we're not sponsored by them yet. The goes was on the menu. And I tried to convince like I told Becca was like, hey, you want to get this? And she just ordered a nice tea. And I was like, you don't want a beer? She goes, well, I had one for lunch because she had like a team lunch that they went to. And I was like, oh, OK. And she's again worried
Smoking Meats and Cooking Tips
00:19:50
Speaker
about driving. I'm like, like we had separate cards. I was like, sure. I was like, you can have like
00:19:56
Speaker
I'll drive us back. I don't care about leaving my car on the side of the street at Montrose. I'll come get it in the morning, whatever. It's not a big deal. She opted not to. Based on the food I was ordering, I was not in the mood for a sour, but I do wish I would have tried it. Well, I believe it's still there. Oh, yeah, it is. Dude, and as soon as you, by the way, as I'm burping, as a little more my favorite ways to taste a beer is when I burp, dude, it's like lemon heads. Ooh.
00:20:25
Speaker
uh in the best way possible and it's not sweet it's not like a super sweet beer either like so when you had said becca got an iced tea the first thing that came to my head was like oh my god i want to make an arnold palmer with this get regular iced tea and pour some of this in there and then i've got like a beer cocktail of like an arnold palmer with this beer i um strongly recommend you grabbing some i
00:20:51
Speaker
Come back. Aggie's petting Brandon's face right now, and it's really adorable. I come back from Michigan today when this episode's out. I might stop in there and see if they have a four pack of this because I really want to make an Arnold Palmer with this beer. It's delicious. It's really good. It's really, really, really, really good. So you guys coming back Monday? Oh, yeah. We're staying up in Michigan for football on Sunday. The first time we're doing a two-day trip.
00:21:22
Speaker
And we're gonna bring back some beers. And I think now as we're getting into fall, Clark might just end up on the show with us. I don't know. Would it be the first time this year? It could be I still haven't gone back to check. But yeah, but this beer is man, I am
00:21:43
Speaker
I was gonna say thoroughly impressed, but not that I'm not impressed anymore by Old Irving. But I still, man, I can't tell you if I've had a bad, not a bad Old Irving beer, but I haven't had an Old Irving beer that I was like, meh, that's okay. You know what I mean? The other beer that I got from Beer on the Wall, which is another Old Irving beer, was the, oh man, what's the triple IPA with the teddy bear? Is it teddy bear apocalypse?
00:22:10
Speaker
something like that. It is. It's teddy bear apocalypse. So I have that. And I think I'm gonna bring that up to I was not gonna drink that tonight. It's a mosaic and strata hopped hazy triple IPA with badass artwork. Matthew, this is my reminder to you. You said you had stickers, I would like a sticker of this. But yet, it's a hazy triple IPA. That's 10.1% ABV. So that sounds insane. And I think we're gonna try that over the weekend. So
00:22:40
Speaker
By the time I'm seeing a nanny cam of Benjamin and I see him like, oh, no, he's sleeping. So the way that it's a little it's a little cloudy on what I'm. Yeah, but it's hilarious. Like he's just like sprawled out on the floor. He's living his best life, man. He's living his best life. So, yeah, I think that I'm going to give this what can I give this beer? How many lands lemons? How many Meyer lemons would I give this?
00:23:10
Speaker
based on the style and what they're going for, man. This is like a, I don't think I've ever done this before for a sour beer in my entire life. And again, I went and bought this beer. We're not blowing smoke up anybody's butts. We just happen to really like all their beers because they make really good beers. Damn, this is a solid five. Ooh, this is,
00:23:39
Speaker
out of all the sour beers I've had from them in their Cushy series, this topples it, man. I hope this becomes, I don't know how expensive it was for them to make this beer. But I hope this becomes a seasonal summer beer for them that they make it each year because it is just absolutely, dude, they knocked us out of the park. It's so good. I mean, it really does. It tastes like an Italian ice.
Holiday Preparations and Culinary Experiments
00:24:04
Speaker
It smells like an Italian ice. And when you burp, it's like lemon heads.
00:24:07
Speaker
That would be if you froze it just a little bit. Ooh, make a beer cocktail, like a beer. Slushy. Slushy. There you go. That'd be really good. Now I'm happy that I'm drinking it tonight, but I should have bought two of these because, well, it's going to be in the 70s. There's a good chance Clark bought this already. Oh, shit. I'll find out. We'll update everybody on the next episode, maybe, if I remember.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know but it's uh, it's man. It's it's really good Brandon if you Don't get it if you end up I'll tell you this if you end up at older thing with your son this weekend Nothing, which you probably won't drink a beer while you're there, but if they have it in their four packs Okay, well then get it or get a four-pack or do I would get a four-pack? Yeah, perfect. I'm glad we're on the same page because I really do think that like when I come back I gotta I gotta get more of these man. I
00:25:04
Speaker
I say that a lot about beers, but this is one of the ones where I'm like, Ooh, this is what I want to like. There's just sometimes when I want to have a beer that I want something that's like this where it's fruity and it's not like I'm drinking a beer necessarily, but it's still like drinking a beer. If that makes sense. It's just refreshing and tasty. It's not too sour. It's not too tart. There's not like a whole lot of sweetness to it. It's just really tasty.
00:25:33
Speaker
I'm glad. I know that you just put Aggie down, but that was just so funny. Like, cool. Cool. Yeah. Really nice, man. I got to go. I'm glad that it's good because I was excited when I saw it. And it's funny, I think, I don't know if it was that day. No, it wasn't that day. Maybe I was walking, I was by myself.
00:25:53
Speaker
Maybe I had Benjamin with me. I was coming down Montrose and I was right in front of the Montrose blue line stop and there was traffic and there was a dude just kind of walking down strutting and he had a four pack of beer and I was like, the only place you could be coming from is Old Irving, right? And I was like looking, he was going to the train and I looked and it was the lemon beer. I was like, ah, nice. I almost rolled down the window and shouted to him, but I was like, I'm not going to be that guy. Old Irving rules.
00:26:21
Speaker
Dude, I really am enjoying burping from this beer. It's like I had some lemon heads, man. Nice. So good. It's awesome. I love this beer. I love this beer. Hands down, in my opinion, they're best sour. And if anybody, you guys can get a hold of this, go get a hold of it and then let me know what you think and let me know if you agree with me because I'd be hard pressed to think.
00:26:44
Speaker
that anybody else who enjoys like ices lemon ices or lemon ice would would disagree that would would think that this was not perfect. Well, I'm out of beer. So give me one second. Are you gonna grab another beer? Yeah, no, I'm not gonna grab a new one. I'm just gonna grab something to sip on. Oh, okay. I like that.
00:28:49
Speaker
And I'm back. And you know what? Since you went into that, I actually gonna grab one more thing. But no, you know, I'm not. Nevermind. I still have stuff to do tonight and pack and I gotta be at Clark's house by nine o'clock. Brandon, what did you pour for yourself? I just poured a little cushy berry. Now, did we discuss cushy berry recently? We did. Like the first night I put it on tap, that was the first thing I drank.
00:29:16
Speaker
Everything's just everything's just blending all together. It's all becoming one big mush because we keep recording in our basement separately. We haven't hung out to record in a while. I'll tell you one thing I did today, though. So I did make so during my lunch break, I ran I had to do some grocery shopping because my wife's out of town. And while I was there, I picked up a bottle of Wild Turkey 101.
00:29:42
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes. Tell the people what's happening. I brought that home last night for dinner. We had made BLTs and I made a whole pack of bacon, saved all that bacon fat. And I've currently got the whole bottle of wild turkey and like a half a cup of bacon fat sitting in the freezer. Oh, my God. So what I'm going to do tomorrow is I'm going to pull
Gardening and Pepper Preservation
00:30:06
Speaker
off the it's already like separated. So I'm going to pull the fat off.
00:30:10
Speaker
melt that back down and then separate the bourbon back into a bottle. And there's a recipe for like a breakfast old-fashioned that I want to make. Oh my God. You know what, I need to come by just with my Chicago Bears flask and I need you to just pour some in there so that during a Bears game, I can just whip that out and be like, I've got bacon bourbon. What's that called, bacon washing or washing the bourbon? Not washing.
00:30:37
Speaker
Was it? Fat washing. Fat washing. Yeah, something we've seen a lot of. Yeah. And it's funny because like Becker was repulsed by the idea and I was like, last time we were at Community Tavern, you were the one that told me to get the duck fat washed like old fashioned. And I did. And it was really fucking good. That sounds amazing. So, yeah, so this so not only am I going to be using, you know, you know, have this bourbon for
00:31:06
Speaker
you know, making these drinks. But also, I'm going to then take that fat tomorrow and make a batch of bacon chocolate chip cookies that have bourbon in them. And then I'm going to use my homemade vanilla extract that has buffalo trace in it and use that to spice it up with the little vanilla, put in some chopped up bacon like really fine and then
00:31:33
Speaker
Are the biggest question? I mean, number one, excuse me, that sounds delicious. Number two. Are you going to give me one of those cookies before we go to riot fest this week? Of course. Fantastic. Great. That's outstanding.
00:31:46
Speaker
Dude, that all that sounds really good. I'm glad that you're trying that out. I don't I'm, I'm terrified of doing stuff like that. Because I feel like I'm going to fuck it up somehow and just be so mad. But I will say this, you reminded me that I have my own vanilla extract as well. That's now been sitting for two years. Oh, I used Tahitian vanilla beans. Okay. And
00:32:13
Speaker
a white whiskey, not the Buffalo Trace white whiskey, but a white whiskey that our friend Stephanie brought over one time. And she left it and gave it to me. And I use that. And so it's just been sitting and I tried it one time after like
00:32:29
Speaker
six months. And it was amazing. And I haven't really been back in that closet in my basement for a while. There's a bunch of stuff in there. And it just reminded me that it's there. So I think I need to do some baking with that soon. Now the holidays are upon a soon. I mean, not too soon. But we're getting there. We're getting there. Yeah, what I haven't, what I really want to do is I want to make my own eggnog.
00:32:53
Speaker
I feel I feel bad saying that like so every Christmas Eve insert sleigh bells for the for the past couple of years my sister-in-law my brother's wife has come and brought like homemade eggnog and I don't know how long she lets it sit for but I've seen like like I've watched like the Elton Brown recipe where it's like you let it sit for it can age for up to a year oh wow but I'm like
00:33:24
Speaker
I really want to do that. I've got several flip-top bottles where I think I could just pop them and age them. But yeah, man, please make some eggnog. I love eggnog. Eggnog is definitely a hit or miss for people. Eggnog is delicious, man. It's so good. When I was a kid, I was just I didn't hate it. I was just like, whatever. But as I got older and not even like, oh, there's booze in it, it's like so much better. It's like I've had.
00:33:51
Speaker
like you can get premium like store-bought eggnog that doesn't have booze in it and I'm like, that shit's fucking good. Absolutely. I mean, it's a dessert drink. I mean, it's delicious. It's really good. I love all the holiday drinks, but your breakfast old-fashioned sounds top-notch. That sounds really, really good. I feel like that's a good way to start like a football Sunday.
00:34:16
Speaker
Are you inviting me over for a football game one day where we finally throw some stuff on the smoker and hang out as friends and not have to do a fucking podcast? Yeah. I mean, I've got 10 pounds of chicken wings that I need to do something with. Well, let's make some plans, baby. Still got a whole turkey in the freezer. I've got a capon. You know what a capon is? It's a type of chicken. I believe it's a type of chicken. Yeah, capon's type of chicken.
00:34:42
Speaker
My dad gave it to me. It was frozen. It's still frozen, wrapped up. My dad hasn't lived in Chicago now for over a year. I think he gave it to me two years ago, but it's a specific type of chicken. I don't really know what to do with, but you just cook it like chicken. So maybe we'll smoke that. We'll throw that. You know, smoking a chicken is fun. Oh yeah. The only thing I don't like about smoked chicken is that the skin gets real rubbery.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah, if you don't do it right. I didn't. And I haven't. I haven't used my smoker in over a year. I think I'm close to that too. Yeah, but you got an electric smoker and I'm really envious of that. I like I mean, I like the whole charcoal and wood idea. But man, they can I remember one time swinging by your house to pick up some beer for an episode. And you just came out like, yeah, here you go, man. Here's some beers. I'm like, what are you up to? You're like smoking some ribs. And I was like,
00:35:37
Speaker
Must be nice to like just know that you, I mean, not that like I'm hovering. I'm so paranoid also. I'm like, I have to hover over this. I have to check the, you even gave me like a Weber grill, like, you know, thermometer and stuff. And I'm still like paranoid. Like, is this correct? Do I need to do this? You know, whatever. I don't want to over smoke things.
00:35:53
Speaker
Uh, but like the idea of an electric smoker that you can just program and kind of just walk away just sounds so much nicer. Yeah. So the, so the caveat to that is mine is, is it electric, but it's not a digital electric. So I have a manual like dial. I have to dial in. That's okay. You still have that option.
00:36:13
Speaker
So I throw the probe in there and I walk away and then like, you know, I could 20 minutes later, I can check it and be like, it's oh, shit, it's two hundred and eighty degrees. It's supposed to be two twenty five. And I got to run in like a big dam or like the the chips will flare up or something like that. Sure, sure, sure. It's like just dark smoke billowing out. So it's so I've I've gone to cheater mode. Yeah. And so I use an amazing tube now.
00:36:42
Speaker
And oh, yes, that's right. How is that? Dude, I love that thing. So I pack it with pellets. You like one end of it and it'll burn for like up to six hours or something like that. And then I just accept the temperature and the temperature stays a lot more steady that way.
00:37:01
Speaker
And that's like if I'm doing a long smoke if I'm doing the short ones I'll still use like the the traditional like I'll throw wood chips in the bottom and I'll when I started doing is like I was I'm very impatient and I can't stand waiting for
00:37:16
Speaker
the wood chips to start to smolder. So what I'll do is I'll start the smoker, get it to temperature, I'll pull the basket out and I use a kitchen torch and I just kind of just go along the bottom of this pan until I start seeing like smoke coming up like a good amount and I throw it back in, set it and like usually then it'll go. That'll go for a couple hours and then
00:37:42
Speaker
there's nothing wrong with that. That's a nice little hack. You know what I mean? It's cheating. I think that's just a fun way of doing it. I have a bunch of jalapenos that I've neglected. There are jalapenos sitting in a bowl right now. I've pickled some jalapenos. I need to, and there's some just sitting waiting to be picked. I've just not been good about picking my peppers this year. But that is one thing I do plan on doing. I
00:38:09
Speaker
I may have to do it one weeknight or Monday when I get back at some point, just throw it on the smoker and I want to have some Chipotle peppers. I mean, that's what Chipotle's are, just some Filipinos. Plus, I've got a whole bunch of cayons that I need to dry out, dehydrate in my air fryer because
00:38:24
Speaker
that is the best crushed red pepper to throw on a pizza, which by the way, I have so much of it, Brandon, I'm going to give you some crushed red pepper, like fresh crushed red pepper to throw wherever you want. Because it's or I'll just give it the peppers if you want to dehydrate them yourself. But all you gotta do is just pull some in a spice grinder. And that's it, man. Just get a little shaker bottle. And yeah, we have some that's a year old. And it's still nice and spicy. Oh,
00:38:52
Speaker
I also have some dried habanero powder that I don't know what to do with. We came home, so we came home from, I picked up Benjamin from school today. We were coming back and he's walking up the back stairs and got up there before me. I was locking the garage and he's like, dad, we got peppers. And I was like, what? I think most of our plants are pretty much dead in the back of the yard. We just did a terrible job of keeping them alive. But your tomatoes were fantastic.
00:39:19
Speaker
Thank you. There's still a couple on there, so I still keep trying to water it. Even the plant looks dead. I'm like, let's get something. Let's get some. Anyways, but it was a green man. Bread him and fry him. He was like, he was like, he's like, dad, we got peppers. I walked up and he was about to grab one. I was like, don't touch that. It was that it was the ghost pepper. Oh, my God. So I've got two ghost peppers that are almost perfectly red. So I was like, just leave those. I'm like, we'll get those. I'll get those tomorrow. Like.
00:39:47
Speaker
So I'll have some fresh ghost peppers, which would be nice. Sorry, I thought I muted the mic, but I just vaped straight into it and lose smoke right into it. So sorry, everybody. I'm not editing that out. Yeah. So yeah, so we'll have some fresh ghost peppers. I think there's one or two more jalapenos that are coming in and then maybe another green pepper. The other crazy thing is that I have all these fresh jalapenos ready to pick, but also in my freezer because of last year's harvest, I have vacuum sealed.
00:40:16
Speaker
Frozen, jalapenos, and other, I got jalapenos, I've got the cherry bombs, I've got, and there's no, what's great about vacuum sealing them and throwing them in the freezer is that, I like how this is now turned into the pepper podcast. There's no like, it's vacuum sealed, so the peppers aren't crushed, it's formed perfectly around it, and there's no like ice forming around them at all. I've got so many peppers ready to go, man. Dude, that's how, so when somebody in this giveaway group was giving away Carolina Reapers,
00:40:44
Speaker
We had a big basket of them and I just took the whole basket. I didn't even cover it. I just put it in the freezer and like, they're like, there's no ice on them whatsoever. I pull them out. So every time I make jerky, I just run it under water for like literally like 15 seconds. And that's like normal pepper again. Chop off the top, throw it in the blender.
00:41:02
Speaker
Which, by the way, your last jerky, although a little dry, almost like a cracker jerky, was very tasty. I'm all out of it. I liked it. It was a venison jerky that he did. And I'm looking forward to the day that we finally do do a jerky beer pairing with your jerky, or at least eat some jerky. Dan cannot participate. Sorry, Dan.
00:41:23
Speaker
No, but I did tell him one of these days I will try to make a mushroom jerky for him. Oh, man, I would. I'd like that. My daughter would like that, too. She'd be into that. She she likes jerky for the protein. I got this turkey jerky that she does not like. I got it from Costco and
Closing Remarks and Future Plans
00:41:39
Speaker
she thinks it's a little too spicy. And I think she just prefers like the sweet like beef jerky. But the turkey jerky from Costco is so good. So underrated, underrated jerky.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, like at Sam's, they had these turkey sticks that we had gotten like little beef sticks. And yeah, those are pretty good. Can't go wrong with turkey, baby.
00:42:02
Speaker
And I mean, like when you go to like Sam's Club or Costco, it's dirt cheap. I mean, not dirt cheap, but a lot cheaper than, you know, other places. So it was like, you know, it's great. I said I was going to call this or that we, sorry, I named it for us. I apologize that I would say this was called labor of love. And here we are talking about another labor that we love, which is these things with peppers. Look at that. It's full fucking circle as we hit 40 minutes. And I think
00:42:27
Speaker
I think we've run its course. This is probably the longest I've drank one beer on a pod. Well, not the longest, but again, when we do these episodes like this, I drank one beer on this episode, baby, and I love it. I just finished it, man. It's that Mikko's Fruit and Sour from Old Irving is fantastic.
00:42:47
Speaker
at the good call with the going with the new glare strawberry rhubarb because I wasn't sure I had a couple other random beers but I'm glad that you did that because I was like oh good we can do a fruited beers so another roll of the dice by Brandon and Tony putting out quality content in our minds and maybe yours that's how we do it baby Brandon you got anything else you want to say
00:43:09
Speaker
No, just keep listening. One thing, so people that I don't think we've mentioned on the show this year, we will not be attending the Great American Beer Festival. Correct. It did not work out for our schedules. Yeah, but we are hopeful and fingers crossed. I'm going to make every effort to be there again next year.
00:43:27
Speaker
Absolutely. I am going to go ahead and schedule days ahead of time and make sure that all my other plans around that. Plus I've now been in my job long enough where I've earned an extra day off. So yeah, I think we'll plan better. I feel like that was more on me this year that we didn't do it. But there's some other festivals I think where at least one, I hope, we'll see, that we'll go to that we've been to in the years past.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, so we should ask some person if they would like to talk about it.
00:44:04
Speaker
Ray, we want you to come back on and talk about great, uh, not great American, faux band. That's cool too. But, uh, you know, we'll see, we'll, we'll see what's up. But, uh, yeah, everybody, thanks for, uh, listening. Um, we know it's been kind of a wacky kind of summer for us for episodes, but, uh, you know, life sometimes, uh,
00:44:26
Speaker
Finds away that doesn't really make sense. That was just my Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park But you know, like we said, this isn't our full-time job, but we love doing this the show for you guys We love cranking out episodes and we hope that you're enjoying it as well It looks like you are according to the numbers of everybody streaming. So we thank you and the interactions that we have so Now that we're getting into fall we you know, we hopefully hopefully find time to do an Oktoberfest episode see about that pumpkin beers are coming and
00:45:02
Speaker
Clark and Dan have only been on, well, Dan has only been on so much. Clark, I still don't know if he's even been on an episode this year, maybe in the beginning. It'll be fun to see what everybody has for their multis, and I'm hoping we're giving out awards this year, like physical awards, sending to these breweries. We'll see if that plan comes to fruition. Did somebody tell us that they knew someone that made awards? Absolutely, and I will tell you off, Mike, baby.
00:45:20
Speaker
and then Christmas beers and then the Maltese. It'll be even more interesting this year for the Maltese because
00:45:33
Speaker
All right, man, Brandon, I love you, buddy. Me too, man. I hope you have a great weekend with Benjamin. That's awesome. I'm sorry I'm not around because that would have been a lot of fun for the three of us to get in some mischief and hang out. But I will be bringing back some beer for Michigan for a future episode. Enjoy Michigan. Pure Michigan. You'll be there at some point. All right, everybody. Thanks again. We'll see you guys next week. Cheers. Bye.
00:46:05
Speaker
This has been The Malting Hour. Be sure to follow us on all social media by searching The Malting Hour and at themaltinghour.com. You can also follow us individually on social media. Brandon can be found on Instagram as bmdub81, on Twitter, bdub81, and on Untapped as bdubdrinksbeer. Tony can be found on Instagram and Untapped under Ace of Hope Chicago. On Twitter, The Ace of Hope Chicago. Clark can be found as Clarkowski on all three.
00:46:32
Speaker
Dan can be found on Instagram as hip underscore underscore hops and hip hops on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe, like and rate the show on your preferred podcast listening platform. Until next time, cheers from all of us at The Multing Hour.