Hey, this is Greg from the Barrel of the Bottle team jumping in. You know what? Hang on a second, Jim, can I get some bed music? All right, cool, thanks. So we don't usually do commercials on this podcast, but we're throwing one out there right now. We have our big Bordeaux tasting. It's UGC. It's a preview of the yet to be released Bordeaux wines from a single vintage. And this year it's 2019. It's coming up. Jenna, when is it? tuesday, June 28th at Union Station. Tickets are $75. And they're available now. At binnys.com. Wait for the rotator to go around to the UGC. Click it. Buy some tickets. Some of us from the podcast are going to be hanging out there. So if you see us, well, you don't know what we look like. But if you see us, say hi. Come taste some Bordeaux wines. It's going to be pretty cool. It's going to be fun. It's always one of my favorite tastings. It's a great tasting. Super classy and the wines are always amazing. And there's French people and... French people. There's food. There will be food. There will be food. Free water as well. It's a selling point right there. Free water. So come drink free water with us and taste some Bordeaux wines June 28th. June 28th, Union Station, binnys.com for tickets. All right. Here's the show. Hey, you're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, jumping into your feed with an episode. I do communications at Binny's. I'm Jenna. I also do communications at Binny's. I'm Jim. Communications. We should have done like a communication. This is a real communication. Communications, communications. You want to harmonize? Yeah. Communication. Wow. Was that Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or Young, or the Everly Brothers? So beautiful. Hi, I'm Chris. I do wine and drink beer and mock people. But really it's a Roger episode. I'm Roger. I do beer and Jim cue the meatballs music. Are you ready for the summer? What? Meatballs, the comedy classic with Bill Murray. Okay. A classic slobs versus snobs comedy. Oh, yeah. Love it. Great opening theme. It's still spring technically, but in true Chicago fashion, it's swelteringly hot right now. It went from being like 40 degrees to 89, 90. Summer beer time. Luckily, the beer companies always start selling beer about three months before the seasons actually hit. So the summer beers are all here anyway. When does oktoberfest get here? Late July. Yeah. I'm looking forward to pumpkin beers next week. Next week. No joke. In July, we'll have pumpkin beers in oktoberfest. So this is the time to go get your summer beers. breweries love summer beers because in general, that term is a catch-all for usually beers that are really drinkable, or as some of our guests like to say, crushable. That was a classic, classic. So when I was picking these out, I have some beers that are specifically billed as a summer beer, but arguably, there's quite a few beers that fit the general idea of what kind of beer you want to drink in the summer. It's the kind of beers that you'd want to put in a cooler. Generally, it's things you want to drink a little colder. A lot of the beers that we talk about are things that maybe you appreciate them when they warm up some, but these are at the other end of the spectrum, stuff that you want to be refreshing. When it's super sunny, super hot, these are the beers that are going to quench your thirst. But maybe offer a little something different than just your typical Pilsner Lager, etc. Wait a minute. Isn't this the show where last year, you made everybody drink like a 12 percent cider? Yeah. I decided I was going to throw in a cider, and then I was so excited about this one from Schilling, Schilling Excelsior, that I just had to put it in there. In a testament to how awesome that cider is, and to make it even more summery, there is a mango version of Excelsior now. Excelsior has officially been flavor blasted. So if you want an even more summer appropriate giant ABV Seltzer to drink, we will soon be getting the mango version. Yeah, I didn't throw any major curve balls at you that high of ABV this time around. I think most of these are pretty moderate. Some of them are a little higher. I think the highest thing today is like six five. Most of them are like under five or right around five. Hey, Roger, does that mango Excelsior still come with space giraffes? You betcha. Super trippy weirdo label. Yep. So, I figured we'd get things started with maybe one of the most iconic summer beers, and it's Brooklyn Summer Ale. A lot of summer beers also sometimes get this reputation as being like fruit beers, and there are quite a few that are. Maybe that's part of the reason we like Summer Ale so much is that this one, you know, doesn't have any fruit in it per se, and it's not really a fruit forward beer by any means. It's kind of an outlier. If you look at the packaging now, they've switched the description to Sunny Pale Ale, which is kind of cute. But I think the idea behind calling it, you know, not really elaborating on it. It's kind of an odd duck as far as what is this beer. If you go back in our podcast history and listen to our interview with Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, he kind of filled us in on the background of this beer. It was a dry hopped version of a beer he brewed at one point called Brooklyn Light Dinner Ale. If that sounds like a weird beer name, sure is. And we learned from Garrett that that's apparently actually a style of English beer, light dinner ales or sometimes referred to as luncheon ales. You can give them to the kids. It's fine. Right. Chris, you're like an expert on all things esoteric, especially like older beer styles. Had you ever heard of a dinner ale or a luncheon ale? Well, my space giraffe friends love them, but only when they're drinking in English pubs. Yeah, it's an oddball. I have to admit, I came to it by way of Garrett Oliver as well. So no, I'm not really hip to that. Well, one of the things that I love about Garrett Oliver is that he really believed in beer tourism. He's a huge fan of Michael Jackson, the beer writer, not the pop star. And he believed in going and visiting breweries and seeking out some of this more obscure stuff and drinking beers that maybe you could only get if you were in the country where they're made. So I've always been interested when people bring that back to America. And he furthermore didn't just replicate this to, you know, in a very traditional buy the book. He threw some American hops in there. So at the end of the day, you're left with this beer that's 5% ABV. It's made with English malt and then a combination of German and American hops. So it's really this interesting hybridized beer. So without any more talking about it, let's all taste it. Let me know what you all think. I think this is beer-flavored beer. I was just going to say the same thing. It's beer that tastes like beer. It's a little hoppy. It's a little bit of that. It's a little malty too. Definitely get that noble hoppiness. A little cracker, a little grain. takes me back. I haven't had this beer in 15 years. That's the style of beer this is. It's definitely a summer ale. I drink this in the summer. I can see it. I usually buy this beer every year. I agree. It does have a bready, biscuity malt, really nice English malt quality to it. One thing though that has always stood out to me from the first time I ever tried it, the hops, I think, give you a really amazing, delicate floral top note. So I don't think it's just straight beer-flavored beer, although I think that's broadly speaking right. Yeah. But it always reminds me of like lilacs in the springtime, in the nose. I think it's really pretty and delicate. Very much a European classic hops nose. Like your fans of like Duval or something like that would recognize this instantly. Finish is very dry. Yeah. More of a European hop character like everyone's hit on here. Again, I think it has a little bit of bitterness on the end, which in today's beer world is bizarrely absent. We drink so many pale ales and IPAs that have tons of hop character, but have almost like no balance. They're all really leaning towards fruitiness and mouthfeel, and this is much cleaner and it has some of that palate refreshing bitterness that would make you want to grab another one once you finish one. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can sum this beer up in one word and that is balance. I thought he was going to say beer. Right on. You get the malt, you get the bitter finish, it's perfect. I could drink a lot more of these. Yeah. It's very refreshing and I enjoy it. It finishes really dry, so it's not really super heavy and sweet. Yeah. It's crispy. I enjoy it. It's a crispy boy. It is a crispy boy. How many on a scale of one to 10 crushables, how many crushables do you get this one? I need more. I'm going seven crushables. Seven out of 10? Yeah, I'm at seven. Seven out of 10 crushables. Shouldn't the scale be one through 12 in case you want to drink an entire 12 back? That's true. That's a good point. It's cold now, but if it was even colder, I bet it would be, I mean- It colder would be more crushable. Yeah, even more crushable. Indeed. Yeah. It's pretty crushable. Yeah. I would drink this by the pool. By pool, I mean in my apartment as I look out the window to my neighbors. I bet you would drink it by the pool side. You would drink a pool size. I would drink it by the pool side. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Why not? Has anyone ever done the very backyard, instead of being in an actual pool, you just sit in a lawn chair and put your feet in a kiddie pool? yes. That's what I would do. This is perfect for lawn chair or kiddie pooling. I just wallow around in the kiddie pool. Like, I'm in a culver session. Why stop at the beach? Up next, speaking of Garrett Oliver, the next one is Garrett Oliver's, one of his favorite beers and something that he calls the Swiss Army Knife of beer and food pairing. This is the classic Saison Dupont. I have to say, I can't be more excited for this because I agree with Garrett. This is one of the great beers of the world, and it's now in a can. I feel like this is one of the most, it's like making its 12th appearance on this podcast. I feel like we've done this one almost as many times as Hams. We talk about it a lot. I featured it at least once or twice. If you folks would like to learn more about the Saison beer style, we did have a podcast on Saisons. They're one of the most high risk, high reward beer styles. There's a lot of bad Saisons out there, not an easy style to brew correctly. Unfortunately, a lot of people interpret it as an open canvas, and while the yeast strains used to make Saisons are famously spicy, some people use that as an excuse to just start throwing every spice they can find in them, or putting way too much spice in them. We're going back to the roots here. This is the iconic Saison. It's on the can. Get the ham horn ready, Jim. Part of the reason I've always loved it so much is that it's famously bottle conditioned. Bottle conditioned, you say? Well, it's funny that you say that, Roger, because I'm delighted by the fact that I'm drinking this out of a can. Yeah. Yep. Well, get ready. It's canned conditioned. Whoa. Amazing. You're still getting that active yeast in there, making this nice natural carbonation. Once again, like I have with other beers, I am going to proclaim this one of the best examples of this beer I've ever had. This beer is so prone to skunking in green bottles, it's insane. yes. I mean, I don't know how many skunked bottles I've consumed over the years. I just thought that was Saison Dupont's character of skunk. I've never had the canned version. It's so good. I don't think that I've had it on draft, so it tastes different. It tastes better. Good, rich, grainy. Yeah, this is probably the best Saison Dupont I've ever had. Yeah. We might have had it on can before, but wow. Talk about a beer looking beautiful. I mean, this is one of those beers where in Belgium, they always have unique glassware for every single beer. And this is such a beautiful beer to look at with this huge crown of really fluffy foam, which serves a purpose. It really traps all those esters. I mean, it has this nice spicy, fruity aromas to it. Just such an interesting beer that's still really drinkable. It's still lean enough that you can dangerously easy to drink at 6.5% alcohol. I think this one is higher on the crushability scale than the last one, merely for the fact that it's got a little more going on for me. Yeah, I just agree. This is a good example of a summer beer because literally the name Saison means season and they are brewed in the winter and then consumed over the summer, right, Roger? Yeah, absolutely. A little background on this beer, the brewery is in a small farming village of Hoop. The farm that this is made on started in 1759 and then they built a brewery in 1844. And everything is still within the family and in the wintertime around harvest time, they would malt a portion of their barley and then they brew a beer for it with the idea that it would be ready to consume the following summer, where they needed to kind of attract seasonal workers to work the farm. And those workers were known as saisonaires. So that's kind of the whole, you know, there's a totally purpose driven beer. They needed something to attract work and they needed something that workers would find refreshing after a day's work on the farm. Nothing new about seasonal migrant workers, right? So it makes our agriculture go exist and work. Sure does. The spice in it kind of reminds me of like peach pie. Like it's very similar spice flavor profile. But I still think the Brooklyn Summer Ale is a little more like I cannot drink a pool full of this. Yeah, I don't know. It's a little bit heavier. It's very, I like it better. I like the flavor profile better, but it's not as crushable in my opinion. This is the fundamental problem with my beer consumption. Crushability and complexity sometimes are at odds. This would fill me up too fast. Yeah. But it's quite good. This is really good. This is at its best with food. I mean, you compare this literally with anything. It's famously good with salad courses, charcuterie, mussels, but it works with name and entree. This is going to complement it. I think some of it is a really spicy character. Yep, brats. Brats. Hot dogs. You could have this with the brat. You know who would like this? Who should drink this? It's people who are stuck in the wheat beer phase. Guys who only drink like Hefeweizen. Like this is just a nudge more complex and just as drinkable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Even people that like American wheat, you know, fans of things like Oberon 312, Boulevard, Upland, anybody enjoys a wheat beer. I think there's a lot to love about this. Even though it's not a wheat beer, it definitely because of those really spicy, yeasty aromatics, I think it will appeal to wheat beer drinkers. All the spice in this is from the yeast. They've been using the same yeast since the 1940s. They do all their yeast propagation there. They have their own lab, so definitely a testament to the importance of a lab, the blending of art and science and of yeast. So, while we're talking about both Belgian styles and we mentioned wheat beers, let's do a local beer next from our friends at Off Color. Beer for Golf. Man, they're labels. Yeah, love them. I love them, I love these guys. More like beer for getting. I mean, the beer for thing is getting to the point where there's too many. They're kind of not setting apart, but I still love the whole concept. So, what, just like the twee little sketches of mice? I just think, I mean, the mice are funny. I think, I mean, they have the beer for lounging that has a capybara, and you can buy beer for lounging sweatpants, which I own. It says lounging on the butt. You have juicy pants? They do say juicy, that's why. That's like my first thing, I was like, if they ever make a juicy IPA, make those sweatpants and say beer for juicy. Beer for juicy. Are they velour too? No, they're really comfortable fleece sweatpants. And they also have a robe also. Do you have the robe? I do not have the robe. Can we have a pajama day in the office so we can see Jim Worthy? They're literally just sweatpants. Off Color famously likes to brew Belgian style beers, pretty esoteric styles. They've done, you know, kind of deep dives on things you've the average person has never heard of. And they've they just kind of unfortunately went a little unnoticed here in Chicago. They were producing really great beers and some of their beers were somewhat challenging. A lot of them were like wild fermentation. So arguably some of that isn't necessarily something you like jump right into liking. It's something that, you know, you develop a beer palate, you drink some of the classic Belgians and then you you might have an affinity and you grow to love those styles. But then they started making, you know, since they made so many wild and sour beers, they made a Goza. Goza is famously brewed with coriander and salt and they're often, you know, tinged with citrus. They already have a natural citrus to them, but a lot of breweries will add like lime or lemon or grapefruit to them. So you'll see like things like margarita Goza. So they ended up making a beer that they called Beer for Tacos. And it was a collaboration essentially with Big Star. And the name, Greg, wasn't as kitschy as I think you're anticipating. I was talking to John Laffler and it literally just grew out of that. Hey, we'll brew some beer. You give us some tacos. That was the brainchild of like, we'll brew you a beer. You give us some tacos. So then it just spawned this huge new series of beers that's been wildly popular. And I'm really happy because it finally shined a light on our brewery and gave a lot of people an excuse to try a brand that, you know, some people gave them a try because like like Jim pointed out, their their packaging is pretty adorable. So a lot of people, you know, did always like their artwork. They're having people try beers that, let's be honest, a lot of breweries aren't really making, you know, some of these these styles. So they're making subtle beer in a world of wacky beer. Yeah. Yeah. And what's what's ironic is that a lot of their beers would be adjuncted, but they're not like, you know, they're not like flavor blasted. They're not dumping, you know, gallons of puree and things, or they're not using like just adjunct extracts. Like they're using real ingredients. So in this, for example, a beer for golf is playing off of the classic Arnold Palmer drink, or, you know, also you might know the alcoholic version as John Daly. The idea here is that it's taking a Belgian style wit beer, which are brewed with coriander and orange peel typically. And instead, they subbed in lemon for the orange, and they used lemon peel, Meyer lemon juice, and black tea. So it's kind of capturing, you know, the Arnold Palmer lemonade ice tea mixture, but in a beer. So you get the benefit of the flavors, but with the creamy, richer mouthfeel of a Belgian style wit. Yeah. This is better than an Arnold Palmer. Yeah. Because it's really interesting and complex. I mean, it's a subtle beer too. At first, I didn't know that it was black tea. It almost came across like cocoa. There's like a richer undercurrent, and then the lemon shines too, because it seems like it's a real bright, focused beer with this grain underneath. interesting stuff. My only complaint is, it's only four and a half percent. It's very crushable though. But it's, yeah. Extremely crushable. It's a summer beer. It's very crushable. Yeah. Yeah. The idea is that it's going to be hot, so you're going to drink lots of them. So you need to be able to stay upright. Yeah. I think on the nose, they have straight up nailed an Arnold Palmer. I mean, I can clearly smell the tea, clearly smell the lemon, and it's so well judged because it's not overwhelming, it's subtle. The thing that pops most on the palate is that little lemony tartness, which I didn't know what the adjuncts were before you said it. So I was wondering where is all this tart flavor coming from? Yeah. But now that I know everything is just like clicked into place and it's so, it's well made, it's very, very well judged as far as the adjuncts. This is a solid four out of five kiddie pools for me. Four out of five kiddie pools. I could drink four out of five kiddie pools full of this. I'm going to give this an eight out of 10 on the crushable scale. Eight out of 10 on the crushability. Chris is going to have his, what's yours out of 12, Chris? All the different scales here. Yeah. Right. This is an 11, solid 11. It's going to be hard to average these scores with different scales. I give this a three and a half out of five stroking your chins while you stare into the can on the porch. The thing I like about Off Color is that their sours are very approachable. If you are looking to get into sours, it's like a perfect jumping all of their regular Goza or their Berliner Weiss is not bracingly acidic and smack you in the face. That's a really good point. It's like if people are looking to get into sours, that's perfect. But also, they have wild, like the Apex Predator is a wild bear, but that's not sour. It's a farmhouse. Just because it's wild doesn't mean it's going to be really sour. It could be funky. They did a great job with this beer, and I have a food pairing suggestion, something that's just arguably one of the best desserts in summertime is key lime pie. Or you can do like a lemon version with some people use like a Ritz cracker crust of a lemon custard pie. That would pair really well with this, I think because it has a creaminess to it already that almost reminds me of like a lemon curd from the wheat and the oats and the beer. So, refreshing but creamy grape beer. All right. I celebrate their entire catalog. Just like Robert Plant, I'd chew on a piece of that custard pie. Where are we going next, Roger? All right, so next, we're gonna do another wheat beer. This is another summer classic that we just sell boatloads of because it's really a neat beer. This is 21st Amendment out of San Francisco. They're famous Hell or High Watermelon. Oh yeah, classic. Again, it is not red because this is legit made with real watermelon. We're not flavor blasting this, we're not putting any dye in it or anything. This is just a wheat beer made with actual watermelon pulp. I remember when this came out being shocked that it tasted more like cucumber than people associate watermelon with. Well, Greg, do you know that the cucumber and the watermelon are in the same broad botanical classification? Get out of here. They are, indeed. They're both berries known as Peppos. Wait a minute, so if a zucchini is a squash, then a cucumber is closer to a watermelon than a zucchini? Well, squashes are in the broad family too, actually. All right. If you've ever had pickled cucumber rind, you would definitely notice that green cucumber-y flavor from that. Well, that's how I was going to say the watermelon rind, like the white part, is definitely a cucumber-y. Just like this beer. I'd suggest you try this on its own first, and then I used to recommend people do like a margarita salt, like a coarse rock salt or a kosher salt rim with this. I think we can do one better. So, take out the famous and Barrel to Bottle fan condiment tahin, and do a little tahin rimmer, and then try it with that. Are you recommending this over ice? Um, you can, or you can just do it, you know, as is. Either way. I mean, it's a super light-bodied beer, very clean, and it definitely leans towards that vegetal side of watermelon, but it still has that fruitier side, too, going on. You get some hints of the watermelon that remind me in a not sweet version of like the watermelon Jolly Rancher, like just that watermelon extra extract flavor, but almost like cucumber water as well. Like this is really light and refreshing. This is another salad. Four out of five kiddie pools. Four out of five kiddie pools. Yeah, I could crush this. I'm at six on the crushability scale. To your point, Chris, if you put some ice in this and flat out turn it into a beer cocktail, it mixes well with gin and tequila. Oh yeah. I can definitely see that. Gin with all the obviously we've hit home that has like cucumber flavor, but try it with some of this tahini. Come on. Tell me that isn't amazing. Tahini is so good. It even makes this beer taste good. I like those Anderson Valley, the Briny Melon Sour. I would like some sour in this. When you were talking about off color, Anderson Valley popped right to mind as another producer that makes a soft goza that's easy to get you into the style. Sure. The Briny Melon was a popular summer beer at Binny's for a while. It was. Yeah. We used to sell boatloads of it. They're actually not in the market right now. I know. It's crazy. Yeah. To heen, if you add more than I should have of it, you get the lime acidity. I'd like a little acidity, but I can still see it being a very refreshing beer and not, it doesn't taste like a Jolly Rancher. Right. It doesn't. Well, if Brophy was here, he'd be like, how many more things do I have to do to my beer? Damn it. But if you'd like to, you could put some lime in it as well to add some acidity, which I'm going to do right now because if you ever want to get salt or tajine to stick to the room of a glass, you can obviously wet it or you can use a lime. That'll help it stick better. Also, if Brophy was here, he would only complain about how none of these beers are hams, so I'm not really interested in his opinion on tajine and lime and beer. Whatever. You know what the most crushable summer beer is? Hams. Then we'd go, Brophy, don't you mean PBR? Yeah, exactly. We'd have to relive that situation all over again. Let's do a riff on arguably one of the most iconic summer beers, period, Bell's Oberon. If you were to visit the Eccentric Cafe out in Kalamazoo, for the several years now, they've been playing around with Oberon variants, like little twists on it, where they add a different fruit to it. Mango is one that was especially popular. More recently, they did one that's simply called Tropical Oberon, which features mango, guava, and passion fruit. Pretty close to my favorite combination of passion fruit, orange, guava. Yeah. Yeah. It looks about like that too. It looks very much like chinola. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Looks like a puree of something. Only translucent enough to let the light through at the top. Man, I love this. I've had it before. I love it. It's really good. There's just a little bit of tartness in there from the passion fruit and the guava. Yeah. And then like the sweetness of the mango. It's a lot of mango. Huh. You know, so what would the shortened name for this be like Pog? Would it be Gump? I believe it would be Mangwup. That doesn't sound right. Troberon? Troberon. I don't know. It delivers what it promises, but that's not usually the version of Tropicana that I'm reaching for. So count me out, I guess, but there's nothing wrong with this. It feels like it's missing a particular fruit, like a mid-weight, like a mid-pallet fruit, like banana or something like that. Because it has this high-pitched note, and then it has this breadth down at the bottom. It's probably from the wheat, but I don't know. It's missing the orange juice. Exactly. They put in mango instead of orange. They should have put in orange. Yeah, Roger, I agree. This needs orange. That's what's missing here. I literally was there trying to get them to change this beer. We visited Bells recently and I'm like, I know you just doctored up the mango to make this, but can you just make a POG one and take the mango out? Seriously, they're like, oh God, the POG guy is back. I think it would be better with orange juice, with orange. I think so. Because Oberon is not a traditional heffa-wison that you serve with orange, but I think I've seen that in Michigan at least, that people, it's on tap everywhere in Michigan in the summer. I have a theory that the orange on the packaging is no accident. I mean, it's got some quote unquote spices in it, doesn't it, Roger? The original Oberon? Are there spices or no? Good question. I don't know for sure. I think the yeast strain might just throw a little bit of spicy character maybe. Yeah, I agree. I don't know that there are spices in Oberon. What I will say is the nose on this screams of camera bag filled with wavas. I wasn't going to bring it up this time, but you're getting like flashback. Wait, I thought it was mangoes in the camera bag. Are you screwing up your own? No, totally guava. Yeah, it was guavas. Pure guava. Yeah, I mean, if you've never, guava is one of the most beautiful smelling fruits and worst fruits to eat. It's just this amazing smelling fruit full of little BBCs that will break your teeth into pieces. I mean, you can smell guava when you walk by it in the supermarket. Exactly. Yep. You can smell it through a COVID mask. I mean, it's really strong. Very strong. This is KN95 rated guava. Guava. I do expect like when I'm drinking this, it's based on the smell. I'm expecting a little bit more tartness. Yeah. Just like what the hell, or high watermelon, I guess I was. You know what? I still enjoy it. It's quite enjoyable and I think I would rather drink it than the regular Oberon. You know what? What I think my problem is, is that I smell these flavors and I know these fruits, and I just associate them with juice. So instead of having an amped up beer, what I'm tasting is like a lacking juice. You've become a passion fruit guy over the last month. Yeah, talking about ugly fruits full of BBs, but count me on Team Pog. I'm on Team Pog. I agree. I think passion fruit and orange and guava would be a good combo. I also think beers sometimes can change a little bit, and I think that this year's batch is a little more mango forward and it's a little thicker, honestly. I think they might have upped the puree trying to pandered to all the smoothie people out there. It looks like a Hazel Boy. Yeah. Some ways to fix this. So putting in a little bit of orange juice, especially some fresh squeezed. If you get some crushed ice or pebble ice, if you want to stop by Sonic and get their iconic ice, you can turn this into a tiki drink real quick. Pour it over some crushed ice, add a shot of good rum, maybe some plantation OFTD, squeeze of lime, maybe squeeze of orange, and boom. Top it off with some chinola. You can make a beer mozo with it. Maybe a little splash of philarnum. Forget the Oberon, let's just make that. Well, I will say that the guava is prominent in the nose, but the mango pops too. What I don't get a lot of in the nose is the passion fruit. But that subtle tartness comes through on the finish. I mean, you can definitely get the passion fruit on the palate. I think it's good. It's very refreshing. It's very natural taste. In a world where people are putting a lot of fruit flavorings and stuff. That's why I think this would make a cool beer cocktail because it does have that nice thick rich creamy body of Oberon even amped up a little with the purees. So yeah, enjoy this as is, but this could make a great mixer. It's a brunch beer, is what it is. It's a brunch beer. yes. Great point. I specifically line this up now. The next beer is very tropical tasting, but... Oh, I've been looking forward to this one. All the fruit in this is just from hops, which I always find pretty cool. I think if you're going to go for something that's a tropical tasting IPA, and you can pull it off with just hops, and you're not putting fruit puree in it. Yeah. Not only that, Roger... That's a pretty cool story. Not only that, but if they make their packaging look like this, which is literally like the print on a shirt from Miami Vice, if they're going to do this with their packaging, that's ballsy because people are going to expect Pog, and if they're doing it just out of beer, that must be doing a good job. Here we go. I think I had a shirt like this that said Hawaii 80 on it when I was a kid. That's awesome. All right. Yeah. Great lakes has been, I think we've all been big fans of Great lakes for quite some time, and I know they make some IPAs that Greg's a big fan. these big, monstrous, clean, unashamedly have some bitterness, like Lake Erie Monster, Nosferatu. Nosferatu. Even Chillwave. Chillwave is a little more modernized, but it's got a little cut to it too, and it has some crazy tropical aromatics. Great lakes is known for their Porter and their lagers, things like Dortmunder Gold and Elliott ness, but they brew some pretty damn good IPAs too, and this one is brand new. It sits right in that middle ground between fruity, juicy, hazy, and having some IPA bitterness. It actually has a spine. yes. It's like, actually, I got to tell you that the beers that I like to drink that are very happy, but tends to be way north when it comes to ABB, this is what is crushable for me. This is a crushable beer because it has an actual bitter finish, and that makes me want to drink more and more and more. This is Tropicoastal by the way. Tropicoastal from Great lakes. Tropical IPA. Yeah, looks like a Magnum PI shirt. From the tropics of Cleveland. There's definitely a pronounced bittering hop element here, which is very welcome. bitterness can be as refreshing as acidity sometimes if it's deployed properly. And the amazing thing here to me is on the nose, it's almost as tropical as the last beer without any adjuncts. I mean, this has got to be loaded with some modern fruity hops, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the hop bill on this is incredible. So again, the value here is just absolutely off the charts. I mean, these are some of the most sought after expensive hops on the market right now. Things like Idaho 7, Strata, Calypso, Mosaic, Lemon Drop. I mean, these are great hops, all famous for being crazy, aromatic hops that, you know, you'd see a lot of your local breweries, they'd be putting an IPA like this in a four-pack, you know, hitting that like $15 to $18 price point. You're getting this from Great lakes in a six-pack for $10.99. Nice. Excellent. Just an awesome beer. I think, and again, just really well-made. I think there's a very subtle haze to it. For the most part, it's kind of more, you know, it's a great example of how you can have an IPA that's crazy aromatic. I think that's what a lot of people love about IPAs, is the aromatics and the fruit flavors. They don't always want the crazy thick mouthfeel that come from adding a bunch of oats and wheat that's so famous with hazies. So even the term hazy can be confusing because you can have a hazy like this where it's like very subtle haze. They're not even calling it a hazy, but I mean, it's not filtered, it's not clear, but it's worlds apart from something that is opaque to look at. Yeah. Absolutely. We get criticized for incredibly refreshing. Right. For sure. We get criticized sometimes for **** hazies too much. We like them. It's tough to talk about them because they come and go too quickly. But if you're into that kind of beer, but you're looking for something lighter and just drinkable during the summer without being too heavy, give this one a try. Give this one a try. First of all, all you critics out there, Greg will be at UGC and Union Station on June 28th. Come and talk to them about it. You know they have kissing booths? His will be punching booth. It's a punching booth. Come up and I'll punch you in the face. You still have to pay $5 a punch. Again, especially with an episode like this one, we're trying to talk about summer beers. That's a good point. We do appreciate it really. Some of these bigger hazies and thicker ones are interesting. They no doubt have great flavors and stuff. But again, if it's 95 out and you're sitting with your feet in the kiddie pool, do you want to drink something that's as thick as a smoothie, and after two ounces, you start to feel kind of nauseated. Do you need lactose sugar? No. Probably make you more buoyant. Yeah, that's true. I'm assuming they have a house yeast strain over at Great lakes. It has that Great lakes quality. But also, I think one of the first IPAs I ever had was probably their Commodore Perry, which was like just an insane resinous, yeah, like insanely hoppy. And this has that, there's that similar flavor there a little bit, but there may be their yeast, but then also that... Probably the yeast, yeah, good call on that. But that it's just not as like scraping your tongue. To be a little more specific, I mean, we keep saying fruity, but I mean, the combination of fruit flavors here is quite remarkable. I mean, you're getting things like kiwi, papaya, mango, I get like star fruit, passion fruit. I mean, not to make it sound like a catch-all, but like that is how complex I feel this IPA is. I agree. How many kiddie pools, Jenna? This is going to be a three out of five for me, because I feel like the hoppiness at the end for me would get a little old. A little bit of betterness, right? Yeah. I'd want to switch to something a little more refreshing. Yeah, crushable, but I could do like maybe three out of six if I had a six-pack. Well, three out of five kiddie pools, but if I had a six-pack of cans, then I would drink three of the six cans. We have a new scale now. 4.25 potted monstroso plants out of five. I give this four out of five lounging sweatpants. It's like three out of five leaves on a palm tree in my backyard. All right, so let's cap things off with, I mean, arguably, you ask people about what comes to mind like absolute just, boom, answer me as fast as you can. Summer beer, a lot of people are going to say summer shandy. Summer shandy. And we've sold boatloads of it over the years. Yeah. Listeners at home can't see the hairy eyeball I'm giving Roger right now. I'm a skeptic heading in. I hope you proved me wrong. Oh, it smells like a, remember Lemon Jolly Ranchers when that was a thing? That's what this smells like. So again, I'm not a fan really of Line and Kugel summer shandy. I get why it exists. I get the popularity. It was never really my thing. Last year, Goose Island decided to throw their hat in the ring when it came to shandies. And the idea, a little bit background here, shandies and radlers both originally were a mixture of beer and soda. So they're typically pretty low in alcohol. They could be as low as like 2%. Line and Kugel kind of came up with something that I feel, they defined the shandy category with that beer, but it's kind of an Americanized shandy. It's like 4.2% alcohol. And it's kind of more like this beer lemonade mix, but still a lot of beer body to it. So Goose Island wanted to produce a shandy, but they were looking to do something a little different. And I think part of what endeared me to this was that, whenever I try a beer, I try not to read about it beforehand. I taste it first, evaluate it, then read what the brewery has to say about it. And in my notes, and I'm not kidding, I kept writing and underlining Italian ice, or lemon chill. And then when I read the description of this, that was specifically what they were going after, was to produce something that made people think of that, which I thought was pretty brilliant, given Chicago's history, Taylor Street, Mario's, you know, like, it is such a Chicago thing. And I remember going to Sox games as a kid, eating lemon chills, and I don't know. I think they kind of nailed this. And again, this is coming from somebody who doesn't really like line in Google Summer Shandy all that much, but curious to see what you all think. It's definitely different. This is Country Time Lemonade. There's never been anything close to a lemon in it. How's that, Cuoco? Yeah, that's right. Oh, come on. My first sip was not, I did not like it. But when you say the Italian ice thing, I think I understand that a little bit more. takes you back. I can appreciate it a little bit more as that concept. I'm not from around here. Are you talking about the big tall plastic thing that you get at like Naperville days at the lemon booth? No, that's like a lemonade slushie. That's what I'm thinking. Those are lemon shake ups. Yeah, those are just like fresh lemonade. Italian ice. I don't know. It's like a snow cone. No. It's almost like sherbert sort of, I guess. It's not dairy based. Imagine a slushie, but it's like not this. It's like solid. Yeah, you would eat it with a spoon. It's like very smooth and like. Where have I been? I don't know. You've never had Italian ice before? I'm oblivious to this. You can even buy it at the grocery store. You can get them in like little single serve. Let Chris explain it. He knows. Chris is our resident foodie. I'm sure he's made Italian ice before. Well, all I was going to say is this is where it becomes very obvious that Greg is a pescatarian because almost any Italian beef stand worth its salt sells Italian ice. There's the famous Mario's on Taylor Street that Roger was referencing. Yeah. And one thing I will say is on the nose, it really nails that because as you don't know, Greg, a good Italian lemon, Italian ice will always have lemon peel right in the drink or the- Yeah... . whatever you want to call it. This does sound delightful. When you smell the nose of this, it's all about lemon oil to me. Yeah, lemon oil. Yeah, exactly. So it does really nail that Italian ice profile pretty well. A younger Greg would have really enjoyed this. Next time you go to South Loop, you need to go hit up Mario's and I think you'll dig these. It looks like it's in New York City because it's like a building in front of a stoop. It looks like it's in like the little Italy area of New York City. On Randall? On Taylor. Then go across the street Greg and get an Al's Italian beef and ruin everything. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's do a field trip. Yeah. We'll go to JP Graziano's, we'll get a sandwich. I love that place. Then we'll go. That's on Randall. Yeah. Then we'll go south to Taylor and we'll get the Italian ice at Mario's. You have been listening to a bonus episode of Barrel to Bottle. The gang talks about Italian places. We need to have, clearly we need an episode where we just get a- whatever of these things will travel, we need to get the stuff and do an episode. Yeah. We're a Chicago-based podcast, we should- We're just all tout Chicago things. Chewing on Mike for 45 minutes. Our favorite Chicago foods paired with our favorite, I don't know, Chicago- Yeah, Chicago beer. Beer or spirits. Pitched and added to the list. Add it to the list. That sounds amazing. We should just get brewpubs to invite us in, to feed us and pour beer for us and then talk about it. That would be a good idea. You're right. We've been doing this the wrong way. Taking it on the road. Yeah, clearly. Fans, keep giving us ratings. Boost our popularity so we have a lot more swagger and power. Anyway, back to this monstrosity that there's a beer in my cup here. Jenna's going to empty that kiddie pool. Coming in hot. She tipped over the kiddie pool. This is an empty kiddie pool. An empty kiddie range. This is not even beer. This is candy. It's giving me a stomach ache looking. Yeah, that's true. Shandy candy. It's giving me a stomach ache. If you look at it in the world of Shandy, it's above the rest of the Shandy. I respect Goose a lot for everything else that they do except for this one. Right. Yeah, for reference. For my unfiltered opinion. The full name of this is Goose Island 312 Lemonade Shandy. You need to remember that, yeah, it's coming in to a world that we live in now with FMBs and selsers, and it's got lemonade and hard lemonades, and it's got lemonade written right on there. So it's trying to appeal to not just beer drinkers. Yeah, that's fair. The nice way of me saying I don't like something is that I appreciate what they did and they executed it correctly, but it is not for me. Yeah, fair enough. I give it two out of five sweet and low packets in the basket next to the Club Cracker, two packs by the parmesan and the Crushed Red Pepper Shakey. I'm going to take the sesame breadsticks. I give it one crystal light lemonade packet out of five. The pink one or the yellow one? I would say along Jenna's line of objections that this liens just slightly sweet for me. I wish it was just a little bit tartar. yes. I think that lemonade name really telegraphs what they're trying to do, and you shouldn't be surprised by it. What it reminds me of in addition to Italian ice is the experience of drinking limoncello from Italy. It's always a little sweeter than I want it to be. The lemon is sweet and floral, but I always wish there is more cut to it. Yeah. Well, I think what you identified, Chris, that's perfect is the thread that goes through all these things is lemon oil. Yeah. I mean, lemon oil is in the limoncello, it's in the fake lemonades, the things like Country Time, it's in, again, having people think of Mario's is great, but really what this reminds me of is Lemon Chill, which you can buy in the grocery stores. Yeah. That's like what I had at Socks Park and stuff. So I think they're tugging on nostalgic heartstrings here, but again, it's going up against Linekugle Summer Shandy, which I think if we had a Summer Shandy next to this, I think it's better than that. So that would have been interesting. Roger, I noticed that the can of Shandy, I don't know if, did you say this already? It actually has a little picture of Italian ice on it. It does, yeah. Jenna just showed me a picture of this thing and it looks like an absolutely delightful treat that I've never seen before in my life. It's so good. Guys, we got to do this. I need this in my life. It's like a cross between Hawaiian shave ice and sherbet. That sounds amazing. It's so good. I can't believe you don't know how to tell us. Why is it only in Chicago? I don't think it is only in Chicago. This needs to bleed out into the rest of my childhood. I mean, it's not in Iowa, I guess. So we've gone far off the rails here with our love for food and Chicago traditions. That's a lineup for everyone to enjoy. We did a summer episode last year too, so check that out. Most of those are still available, but this is a whole new fresh spread of things for you to consider when it comes time. It's a wide swath of beers here. Yeah, it is. Something for everyone here. Yeah. I mean, lots of nice options. So I'm glad you enjoyed most of them, at least. Fill up those kiddie pools, fill up those coolers, and give some of these a try. Roger, you did a solid six out of seven open cans slash bottles of beer today. Nice. Good job. I was working that one up myself too. Good work, Jenna. Well, if you enjoyed this episode of Barrel to Bottle as much as these guys apparently love this cherished childhood treat, leave a review on the podcasting platform of your, just Apple podcasts. That's the one. Send your questions to us, comments at binnys.com, at binny'sbev on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It's there. We're all there. Yeah. Roger, thanks for bringing it. Yeah, thanks, Roger. Thank you, Roger. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Roger. All right, cool. So we'll be back in your feed next week. Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Jenna. I'm Jim. I'm Chris. And I'm Roger. Keep tasting.