So welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Greg, I do communications at Binny's. Joined today by Pat. I'm Pat, I drink hams at Binny's. And Roger. Hey, I'm Roger. I work in beer. And Jim. This is Jim, I produce this podcast. He's going to edit out all of that crazy um that he said between I and produce this podcast. Dramatic pause. Yeah. And joining us for the first time, it's Chris. Hey, Chris. Hey, how's it going? Chris, what is your job title these days? Well, I am the wine manager at the Willowbrook Store, but doing a little writing. I don't know what my title is. I'm sticking with wine manager. Yeah. There's a club of people who don't really know what their job title is. Right. I love being part of clubs. There's at least four other people who don't exactly know what their job title is. I think there's at least four other people on this podcast who don't exactly know what their job title is. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Everybody wears a lot of hats. So a couple of months back, we answered a Q&A, and the question was, it might have even been like a year ago, the question was, what are your Desert Island beers? Oh yeah, because it was Greg Hall. Greg, that was last week. Yeah. I'm pretty sure this question was last week, right? So we thought, we're practically in a Desert Island situation right now, so we might as well share our Desert Island beers, right? Except we live in Illinois. Yeah. There's no such thing as Deserts or Islands here. Yeah, the isolation without the tropicalness. So this is our top 10 Desert Island beers, because there's five of us, and we each pick two, in no particular order. So you guys mind if I go first? Go ahead. I'm going to say the one that I said last time, and I totally still believe this. I have in my hand a can of Pipeworks Brewing Company Ninja vs. Unicorn. Got my Pipeworks shirt on today? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's the Germanic Pipeworks logo. Yeah, the lager shirt. Ninja vs. Unicorn Double India Pale Ale. I'll tell you a couple of reasons right off the bat why I like this beer. First of all, I can always get it cold. It is at the cooler box at every Binny's location. And it's always cold. Yep. So every time I'm standing there looking across all of these various beers, some of which I've had it, some of which I've had it, I know that this one's going to make me happy. And that's brings me to my second point. I know this beer is going to make me happy. It's hoppy. It's not in a piney sort of way. It's in a fruity sort of way. But it has cut the way that a juicy IPA doesn't. And it's a hometown favorite. And it's refreshing. And it's, I don't know what like... And you're a booze hound and that's a really strong beer. Yeah. It's like 7% alcohol. And it's 8% alcohol and it drinks like it's 7. 8.0 right on the side. I remember when I used to get this in the Bombers and then they started packing them in four pack cans for, you know, almost always $9.99, sometimes more. Easy to grab every single time. Yeah. Phenomenal beer, great deal. Fair enough. Yeah. It's a good one. It's interesting to have watched the popularity of that beer. I mean, there'd be times where we would run out of it and it's been interesting to see Pipeworks. Or sell single cans out of four packs and stuff because so many people were looking for it. Yeah, but it really is a tremendous deal for being such a well-made double IPA, 8 percent in a four pack, 16 ounce, 12 bucks. We've run it on sale for 10 a lot of the time. Pat, I'll tell you when I realized that this was actually one of my favorite beers, it was at one of those House of Blues beer tastings that we were at. Oh yeah, those were fun. Yeah, always fun. I mean, their goal was to sell tickets and not necessarily taste beer. So, like, it was, they got messy. And breaking away from our Photo Booth and trying, I would try like 40 or 50 beers as quickly as I could. And then I would end up like grabbing a Pipeworks on the way back to the table. I remember one specific time I was like, oh my God, this beer is fabulous. Why am I wasting my time with all of these other beers when there is one of the best beers I've ever had, like on the table right next to the Photo Booth? Yeah, we drank a lot of Pipeworks that year. It used to just be Greg and I being awkward, large beer-dos behind a table at a beer festival, like running a photo booth and just getting cans. Whoever had beer and cans and a set of kegs, we just get cans and just stand behind the table and take a picture in our photo booth. Here's a Binny's hat. Yeah, for sure. Good times. We got to get back out to one of these one of those times. It used to be that Pipeworks, the easiest way to try it was at a beer festival because it was so hard to find their stuff. But if you were at a beer festival, it was always like, actually, the line is not too crazy because everyone is in line for Three Floyds. Yeah, it's true. And I got to tell you, I was a little bit relieved when they settled down. When they first launched, it was a new batch a week and it was always something wild. And actually being able to get this stuff on the shelf all the time is just joyous. If you haven't revisited Ninja vs. Unicorn in a while, it's worth checking out. It's at all your local Binny's. It's reasonably priced. We always have it. It's always cold. You know, and all these local breweries need our help. I don't know if we should talk in these always cold absolutes. That is not a proof of fact. If they don't have it cold, we've got a cold water wine chiller at every store. Put the four pack in the wine chiller. It'll be cold in eight minutes. Okay. Right on. Reasonably though, this is a good local brewer and we need to be supporting all our good local brewers right now because this is a tough time for them and they can't operate tasting rooms, help them out. There's your answer right there. Any reason for you guys to go or we just wrap it up? Yeah, let's just wrap it up. Mic drop. My beers are better. That's a really good beer, good choice like those guys, I have better choices. All right, Pat's up next. All right, so the obvious answer to this question is my beloved Ham's. We're getting the bullsh** out of the way early on this one. Ham's is the most refreshing beer in the history of beer. It is the beer refreshing. It is, and they used to have ads that said, it's the refreshiness. I actually think I have a metal serving tray down in my basement for an old Ham's one from the 50s that says it's the refreshiness. I feel bad for the Wisconsin Lodge that you stole that from. No, I got it at a flea market. Come on. Check this out, Brophy. I am holding a Ham's bottle opener that says, from the land of sky blue waters, it's the refreshingest. Nice. There you go. See? That bottle opener wouldn't lie to you, and I wouldn't lie to you either. This is the greatest beer ever. You can drink lots of them and you won't get too drunk, and it's just really good. Not that you wouldn't find paraphernalia in Wisconsin. That's not a vintage bottle opener? I changed my opinion on that bottle opener. Greg has one too. It's not that cool. No, mine's not. Mine's not Ham's. Mine says- Never mind. Roger, your bottle opener gets its praise back. It says Dubuque Star Beer, product of Iowa, which is, I'm pretty sure that is a defunct concern. Well, I think if there's one beer, I'm going to drink forever. It needs to be a beer that I won't get bored of, but it's going to just hit the spot, and this beer always just hits the spot, man. Do we honestly need to further document your love of Ham's? I don't think so. I agree with you. It's one of the better beers of that caliber, if that's what you're in the mood for. The better question is, why wouldn't you be in the mood for that? So whose inferior beer is going to go next? I'll follow Pat up, I guess. My first beer is Crank Shaft Kölsch from Metropolitan Brewery. It was the first craft beer that I gravitated towards after Goose Island, but before I was into hoppy beers. Plus if you're going to be on a desert island, you want something light and refreshing, which I believe a Kölsch is. I know it's not the most exciting beer style in the world, but Metropolitan makes it very well. They know what they're doing. It is a great beer. Great beer. About to be in cans also. No hams, great beer. It's no hams. It's pretty interesting that for a relatively obscure beer style, Chicagoans seem to have had some experience with Kölsch. I think you can throw some props to Goose Island for that. Their summertime ale is a Kölsch. Salomoth out in Naperville really hit a homerun with their Kölsch. Also solid. Every once in a while, we'll hear somebody talk about, we're brewing a Kölsch, but we're not sure if we should call it that because nobody knows what those are. It's kind of funny here in Chicago, I think we get it. It's a cool beer style. An ale drinks like a lager. Yeah, we have a lot of Germans here. Crisp and clean, but like a soft fruity note that you would normally get out of an ale yeast. It's a great beer, great style beer. Right. In a lineup that is mostly lagers, which is also nice, I think. Yes. Yeah. Rare these days to have only lagers. Working theory, did all of you guys drink American light lager before you got into beer for real? Yeah. Yes and no. Yeah. Yes and no for me. My theory is people who grew up on things like Miller Light and Coors Light, and end up liking the Colch and the Craft Lagers before they like things like Ale and Pale Ale and IPA. I think that was true a generation ago, but now craft beer is so ubiquitous that I don't think people are like when they're trying craft beer, I don't think they're looking for lighter flavors. I think with those older generations, when somebody went for a craft beer, they had to be convinced that it was like, it's just like the beer you love, but a little bit better. Convincing them that the beer they love, but a little bit better was going to be like roasty and dark wasn't possible. So you had to do it with things like Kolsch. You know what? I kind of agree with that. You're right. Because I'm not an old guy. That totally supports my theory. That may be true, but 30 years ago when I started drinking craft beer, most of what was available was English style ales. So that's really the entry point for me. Even though I had had consumed plenty of commodity lagers before that. But like imports or like American craft? American craft. Chris, this sounds like a timely transition to a beer of your choice. Oh, okay. My top choice is a Belgian classic, in my opinion. I've loved this beer for as long as I can remember. It is of course the archetype for the Belgian strong golden ale, and it is doable. It's a beautiful beer, and not unlike Colesh, it has some kind of oddball characteristics to it, in that it is definitely an ale, but it does go through some cold conditioning in the bottle. So you get these really interesting juxtapositions of flavor and aromas. You definitely get fruity, yeasty notes, esters, but also you get really crisp Pilsner-like flavors, especially because they are using some really classic noble hop varieties, in particular, Saz, which you'll find in a lot of Pilsners and Steering Nice spicy hop. Indeed, yeah. A lot of old man-tasting beers. Well, I'm an old man at this point, so it's perfect for me. Those hops are earthy, floral, spicy, and they perform the classic role. Not too bitter, but enough bittering to bring balance. This beer is all about balance. Despite being 8.5 percent alcohol, it's almost impossible to tell that if you didn't know. It's so smooth and refreshing and beautifully made. I love it. The secret ingredient, sugar, baby. Yeah. Like a lot of Belgian. It bumps up that alcohol without adding body to it. Right. Like a lot of Belgian beers, that's the secret. Candy sugar, is that what they add to that? Chris, are you drinking it out of a goofy balloon snifter? Of course. Yeah. You got to have the tulip glass. It's classic. This beer, if you want to study what head retention means when you pour a beer, this is your beer. It's just amazing. The head is just pillowy and fluffy, and it just lays on top of that beer forever and leaves the classic Belgian lace along your glass as you drink. Couldn't be better. Yeah. It's a really nice beer. I mean, it's no crispy tall boy of hams, but nice beer. I love that beer. I've been quoted in the past as picking that for mine. I agree with you, Chris. That is one of the best beers out there. Thank you, Roger. All right, Roger, since Chris peed on your bush, you want to give us your little ride. That's probably because we're both blues fans. I was going down the crossroads to make a little deal. Yesterday, I found Roger there instead of who I was expecting. But I wasn't quite sure at first. I'm like, Roger, maybe he is the devil. I don't know. It's a devil of a fine beer. I've got a devil of a good Belgian beer to match here. I often talk about Belgian beers as my entry into better beer, and I became pretty intrigued by them and read Michael Jackson, the famous beer writer, not the King of Pop book on Great Beers of Belgium, and just really fell in love with the romance Real quick, that book is a must read for anyone who takes beer seriously. True enough. Totally. If you are serious about your beer, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read Michael Jackson's Great Beers of Belgium. Did you guys ever meet Michael Jackson? He died before he could write the Coconut Pudding chapter. It's interesting. I think if people did a little more pleasure reading behind beer and looked at some of the old books, they would see, it would open their eyes to some variety, that unfortunately in the American craft scene right now, it's really getting bogged down with the same old juicy cookies, stouts, and what adjunct did we dump into a beer to make it taste like s'mores or whatever dessert you enjoy. What's amazing about some of these Belgian beers is the depth of flavor and complexity that they coax out of these beers with just using traditional ingredients and then maybe some sugar as well. So a lot of the famous Belgian ales are described as either the double style, the triple or the quad. I'm drinking the Trappist Roquefort 8 right now, which is kind of an outlier. It's not quite a double and it's not quite a quadruple, but it's a dark beer, kind of like on the cusp of tasting like a quad. So it's incredibly aromatic and estery. It's got these amazing dark fruit fig prune characteristics to it, both in the aroma and the flavor of it. It's 9% alcohol, so it's a stronger beer. But unlike some of the really rich opulent quad style beers, this one is a little drier. It's got a little bit of hop character to it. That allows it to be a little more drinkable and a little more in balance. So as much as I love the Roquefort 10, which is another amazing beer that you should definitely try, if I think about which one I like to sit down and drink more often, and would maybe drink more than one of, it would be the 8. I love that beer as well, Roger. I'd like to know when you ever sat down and had a beer and didn't think about having another. It's real tough for me because I think about a beer I might want to drink too of. Yeah. With a beer like the 10, for example, so it's very dessert-like and it's akin to drinking port. If you were drinking a glass of a really opulent vintage port, there's a lot of jammy-ness, there can be some sweetness there too. You're not necessarily going to fill up a whole nother snifter of it. Maybe you are. This has enough dryness and balance that yeah, you'll return to it. But I think with a lot of the beers today, and especially in the American craft scene, I definitely don't want more than one of some of these beers because they're so overly sweet, dessert-like. Yeah. I think the 10 is, I would call, a beer of contemplation. It's very complex, so many fruit flavors, and I think all of the beers from this monastery are fantastic with cheese, particularly wash rind cheeses that some of the monasteries also make, and blue cheese, just like you mentioned, port wine, fantastic pairing with blue cheese or stronger flavors. Absolutely beautiful beers. Good beer, no hams. Wasn't that originally brewed for a New Year's celebration? It was, yes, very astute. They called it the special. I don't know how many more Rogers we can have on this podcast. Just call us thing one and thing two. The one thing I wanted to say, this beer is bottle conditioned as was Duval, and that's something that I think you need to try if you haven't, because the carbonation is just so much different. It's so much more delicate. It creates this mousy mouthfeel that is just amazing. You've never talked about that before. Yeah, I know. I love talking about it. I would back that up from the wine point of view, because it bears some similarity to the champagne process, or maybe an ancestor to the champagne process, in which there's a second fermentation in the bottle. There's nothing like that to provide very tiny, beautiful bead and tight head and creamy mousse. All of those things that you prize in anything that sparkles. Big time. Yeah, the one difference would be no disgorgement with the beers. So what cheesy, lame beer is next? Have fun following that one up. Throwing it down. All right, I'll go next. So I was looking for Hell Hath No Fury in the store, but it only comes out once a year, and that's like if we're lucky enough to get it this year and they never even got it. So my actual number one spot for my Desert Island beer is something that Roger turned me on to. If you asked me a decade ago, I would have said Daisy Cutter. And if you asked me two years ago, I would have said Gone Away, Nay Sanita, Nay Hayoka. But they quit making that one. So my new number one that even beats out Ninja vs. Unicorn is Half Acre's Bodum. That beer rocks. I liked it. And you should totally go back and listen to our Glassware and Ice episode because it was that episode that made me realize just how delicious this beer is. It is so good. It is like all of the notes of a hazy IPA, but it's a serious beer that takes itself seriously. And it too is only 10 bucks every day, 10 bucks for a four pack of tall boys. From Hometown Heroes, Half Acre, it is such a good beer. You need to try it if you haven't. It's such a good beer. Yeah, it is unbelievable. I mean, I would go so far as to say like they kind of stole the baton of the best continually made IPA in Chicago right now with that beer. It's so good. It's so full of apricots and melon and like strawberries and all kinds of fruit, but it still has a crisp bitter cut too. Hop heads, don't miss it. Don't sleep on it. You should have some in your fridge all the time. Right on. Totally agreed. That's the third local beer. We're really supporting the home team. It's an incredible good value. And it's in 12 pack, 12 ounce now. Oh yeah, that's pretty red too. You can crush them all day long. Oh, I don't have the can by me. What's the ABV on this one? It's not super high. I think it's like six, six and a half maybe. By the way, 6.7, a modest 6.7 ABV on the bottom. Too strong, too strong. All right, who's up next? If you're talking Desert Island, you're going to drink 6.7% all day every day? You picked an 8% beer and a nearly 7% beer. I don't think Desert Island is that different from my basement, Pat. Well, I mean, you are stuck on a Desert Island. What else? We got to show up for work? I better take a shower this morning. Those native wild hogs are going to get all after you, Greg. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, I'll go if nobody else is interested. Shoot. My next beer, I have also been drinking for decades. I absolutely love this beer. It's Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. I like a lot of their beers. Awesome beer. It is incredible. This was really something that was a revival in the 1980s. There wasn't really much oatmeal stout being made, but Samuel Smith's came to the rescue and they make one of the most phenomenal versions of this style that you'll ever taste. Particularly the mouthfeel is just incredible. It's so silky and smooth and luscious. Also another beer with a really great head, beautiful tan head. I can't say enough about this. It's fruity. It's got coffee notes. It has such a silky body, as I said, and it's made in a pretty interesting way. It's from Tadcaster in Northeast England, and they still use what's known as a Yorkshire Square. Samuel Smith has some pretty old slate Yorkshire Squares, and the way they work is that you brew the beer, and the Yorkshire Square, which is literally square, has two levels, and as the beer ferments, the foam rises up through a hole in the center from the bottom level and into the top level, and then it's kind of repeatedly washed down to keep the yeast recycling and fermenting, and in the end, the top level serves to collect yeast, so they've been able to maintain a really healthy population Chris, did you listen to our Sam Smith podcast episode? Of course, I did. I don't remember a thing. No, I didn't. No, because that guy was like old stick-in-the-mud brewer from Sam Smith, like had no interest at all in being there. It was kind of funny. Nice guy. If you asked me what a Yorkshire square was, I definitely would have guessed an esoteric British candy. And part two, Roger, do you know what a foam shrimp is? Because I just found out what a foam shrimp is, and it definitely seems like something you'd be interested in. That sounds not safe for work. All right. I gave him the old foam shrimp. Google it later and we're going to buy like a two-pound bag and have it shipped in. Okay. Yeah. The Yorkshire square was a gang who fought with the mods and the rockers back in the day. Right. They were always on key and on the beat. Oh my God, how much can one guy age this podcast? Jesus. I live in the past, Pat. Yeah. That brewery makes so many good beers too. That Oatmeal Stout is just one in an awesome lineup of other fantastic. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. The Imperial Stout is also amazing. Pick a style, they do it well. The Nut Brown. They even brew a good lager. They brewed lagers under the Ayinger name for a while. What? Yeah. It's crazy, but they collaborated with Ayinger to really learn lagering process, and they were sold in Britain under, I think they called them just Ayinger Brau, and they made a corollary, I think to the Jarhundert Bier, an export style, and then also Alice. What's so funny about that? Why are you laughing at Ayinger Jarhundert? We carry it in most stores, at least we used to. Because that's my second beer. Yeah, that's a great beer. Roger, you're evil. You know what? That was on my list too. Every beer that Chris and I talked about was pretty much like on each other's list. I was thinking about doing Samuel Smith's Pale Ale, and then Chris is like, I'm doing the oatmeal stout. Yeah, there's a lot of collusion going on in this Desert Island. I had Jarhundert Bier as one of my top ones originally, for a similar reason to why I picked Duval, is that it's such a balanced beer, and it combines so many great attributes to- Yeah, so let's just talk about it now. So that's my second beer, Ayinger Jarhundert Bier, our 100th anniversary beer. We've been given a lot of love to the Merchant Duvin portfolio. So hats off to their choice in products. Great portfolio. Going back a long way, I mean, they were pioneers in importing great beers to the US. So no doubt that it probably had an effect on the whole either, I don't know the chicken and the egg on it, but they sell both Ayinger and Samuel Smith. So there you go. But Jarhundert Bier is one of their beers that doesn't really get as much attention. Maybe it's too goofy of a word for Americans to say or get behind, but it's a Dortmunder style beer. So you may have tried Dab before or the Great Lakes beer Dortmunder Gold. Very similar to a German Helles style lager. So a little more malted body and sweetness than a Pilsner, not quite as dry as a Pilsner. Then the Dortmund style is like a hybrid then between a Pilsner and a Helles. So it's got a little bit more intensity to it, but there's not any real residual sweetness to it. But this beer is just a beautiful beer. It shows that you can have something that's very familiar looking. It looks like what most people perceive as beer. It's golden in color. Fizzy, yellow. Yeah, fizzy, yellow, golden, nice white, bright white foam. But it's just so impeccably made, great aroma, perfect balance. It's really just a beautiful beer. Definitely, you've probably glanced at it maybe over the years and passed it by, but it's available in half liter bottles. Pick up a couple. I couldn't agree more, Roger. I don't think anyone in the world gets more out of great malt than the Germans, and this beer has such a classic malt profile. It's so good. Yeah, it pairs well with anything too. It complements such a wide variety of dishes. So yeah, I think it's an underappreciated style. The Great Lakes one is excellent too. Give that a try if you've never had that. Totally agree. That's a really good American interpretation. Jarhundert. Who's next? I'll go next. I do have this beer, and this is Bell's Oberon, and it reminds me of summer. It was also one of the early craft beers that I started drinking when they were here the first time. Well, that's way back. Yeah, when was that? I can't remember when that was exactly, when they left and then came back, but like 2008 or 2007. But I go to Michigan quite a bit, not that it's not available here, but it's always available on tap there everywhere. It's just a solid summer wheat beer, a little bit of spice character in there. Holy shit, that beer sucks. There's at least five Bells beers that would pick up before I would choke down an Oberon. Do you guys remember when they first released that, they called it Soul Sun and then they renamed it Oberon? Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember reading about that because I'm not ancient, but yeah, I've read about that in the history books. Jim, do you feel that Oberon's changed it all over the years? Because it's a favorite pastime of people, the bitch and moan about how beers have changed. I was going to bring that up because I feel like there's a bunch of Michigan weirdos who every year are like, oh, how's the Oberon taste this year? It's like the exact same as it did last year, you jerks. Like it's Oberon. I think it tastes always the same. You're dealing with a brewery that has millions of dollars in GCMS equipment and stuff, like Oberon tastes the same. It tastes like Oberon always and forever. That Bell's facility is still- Sorry, Jim, not to shit all over your question. But that's his thing. I know. I remember you. Well, how about Oberon versus all of those other wheat beers? I mean, Blue Moon's Blue Moon and Boulevard Wheat, I think is a benchmark of the style. Then there's the lighter, fresher ones, like what's the- What's 312? Yeah. I drink an Oberon over a 312. Like Who Garden? Who Garden. Thank you, Chris. Yes. Yeah, Who Garden. I also think it's like, what do you want to drink? What are you used to, I guess? What are you not going to get tired of? Ninja versus unicorn, obviously, and boba. Yeah, but I mean, Pat's right about the high alcohol. I think if I'm on Desert Island, I want something light and refreshing, so I'm not going to get logy. Like a hams. Yeah. I think you're taking it too literally. I approach it as you just have one beer or two beers for the rest of your life, no matter where you are, which is why Jarhundert is such a brilliant pick. That's why hams is a full circle of beers though. It makes you think of delicious pork products while you're drinking it. It's got a biblical reference. Noah had a son named Ham. This is life as a bottled refreshing crispy beer, or actually canned refreshing crispy beer. Can you imagine all the access Noah had to brewing water? Dude. I don't know. And he did nothing with it. Yeah. Yeah. Well. Pat, do you eat ham products? Have you ever eaten ham with hams? Boy, do I eat ham products? Does the Pope on the woods? This is one of my favorite pastimes is cured and smoked pork products. We could do a whole podcast. I believe we have a podcast with Fred No, where we talked extensively about cured and smoked hams. There's a lot of hams. You know what, Pat, shut up. You already talked about hams. Is that going to be a second beer as hams? Seriously, if your other pick is hams, I swear to God. No. I have another pick only because you jerks made me. First and foremost. It's up to Belgium. I can tell. If I had thought the number one beer was supposed to go last, we'd be talking about hams more than we currently are. But hams is clearly number one. The rest of those beers suck. Same. But my other beer is- Our number one beer. Is Marriage Parfait Goose from Boone. Yes, Roger. It's pronounced Bone. I say Bone to customers and they look at me and they're like, well, obviously the card says Moops. There's no arguing that this is pronounced Boone anymore. You don't want to be right ever. We had the pleasure of meeting Frank Bone and hilariously, people would call him Boone right to his face and I correct that his name is Bone and he just goes, I'm used to it. No one says Bone. He just doesn't care anymore. Yeah, he just doesn't care anymore. Marriage Parfait Goose, I think, is probably the single best deal in the entire Binny's Beer Department. We can talk about, I thought about picking St. Bernard's App 12 as my second, like a nice big chewy Belgian quadruple, strong, dark, double, whatever you're going to call it. But I really like sour beers. I mean, that's pretty well documented at this point and I really like Belgian sour beers and I like aging beer, whether or not that improves them or not. One thing it almost, in my opinion, at least always improves is classic Belgian style goose. So a goose is a blend of lambics. Lambics are spontaneously fermented beer made from a wheat mash. They include aged hops and goose is a blend of one, two and three-year-old lambics, right? These are aged in wood. These are fermented and aged in wood. Bone Marriage Parfait Goose. This is $9.99 for 375. I bought the last 2013 bottle available at the Lincoln Park Binny's yesterday before we are recording this. This is 2020. This beer was brewed in 2013, bottled in 2016. So I still have this four-year-old beer here. It's bottle-conditioned. My only knock on it is that it's pretty strong, I think, for a goose. It's 8% alcohol, where I think most other goose from somebody like Dray Fontaine or Kantian, I think is usually around six or six and a half, but I'd have to look that up. Maybe I'm wrong. But- Yeah, that's on the high side. Yeah. Is that an artifact of it being part of the Marriage Parfait line rather than his basic line? At 10 bucks a bottle, I feel there's never a reason to buy the Oud Goose versus the Marriage Parfait Goose. You're going to save two bucks a bottle and get an inferior product. Sure, but the alcohol level is lower on the Oud Goose, right? I'll take your word for it. I'm not sure. A little bit. I stopped paying attention to the beer. Like his Framboise and Creek that are just normal. Yeah, those are a little lower. Anyway, this beer, readily available. It's cheap and it will age for decades. Absolute decades. I had a 30-year-old Marriage Parfait Creek when I was in Belgium in 2013, and it was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. I have a lot of these sitting down in my basement, going back to the early 2000s on different Marriage Parfait, both Creek and Goose from Boone, and I think it's one of the best deals in the store, and I have some of these that I don't intend to open for several decades. When I turn 50, I'm going to pull out certain Belgian lambic, and Boone is at the top of the list. I know we all fawn over Dreyfontein and Cantillon and stuff, but those are really hard to find, and Boone is readily available and just as good, and it's inexpensive. Couldn't agree more. It is. This is a beer where like if truly on it, like I know I like talking about the crisp refreshiness, or whatever they're calling it with hams, but if I was on a Desert Island, this is a beer I could drink every day for the rest of my life, and especially if you have a cellar full of different vintages to choose from, it's just the perfect beer. It really is. What's the best buy date on that? They have some pretty hilarious advanced dating. Now, the best buy date, I was told once, I don't know how accurate this is, is June 8th, 2036. And I was once told that that is a Belgian law, where they are not allowed to put a best buy date more than 20 years on a beer after it was bottled. And like I said earlier, because this is 2013, it was bottled in 2016, so the best buy date is 2036, which is 20 years later. Yeah, I can definitely vouch for that. I have some very old goose in my cellar, and they are just beautiful after decades. Yeah, and Frank Bone is just a master blender. He's one of the best. The reason we have goose and lambic now is because Frank Bone is alive. When Jean Van Roy inherited the Cantillon Brewery from his in-laws, he hadn't made lambic before. He didn't know what he was doing. Frank Bone came to that brewery and taught him how to make beer and taught him how to make lambic and to blend lambic and to blend goose. Frank Bone is single-handedly responsible for the existence of the continued existence of the style. If he wasn't around and he wasn't passionate about it, it would have gone the way of the dodo, and we'd be sitting here talking about the world's truly greatest beer, hams. Okay. And that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. When we answer your question for a $20 Binny's gift card, reach out to us with your question via email at cometsatbinnys.com or hit us up on social media at Binny's Bev on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Craigslist. You should say that faster. Which part? The Craigslist part? Sorry, I kind of ran out of gas. So our question this week comes from Instagram, KPG12? KPI shy 12. KPI shy, you think that's a Chicago reference? Is this Campiche? No, it's KPIC shy 12. That's my guess. I think it should be KPG. Okay, KPG12. I have a question for the Barrel to Bottle Podcast. What qualities are you looking for in a beer to sell it, and what is the best way to sell her a beer? The best way to sell her a beer is if it is a Belgian beer, and if it's stored on its side with the cork wet. If it's any other beer, don't sell her it. Yep, I'm with him. I'm with him. Drink it fresh. Just drink it. You don't need to put it on its side. Just drink the damn beer. That is just Pat Brophy lambasting his silly goose seller. So what if it comes in a crown cap? Do you put the crown cap bottle on its side? No, you would absolutely not want to do that. Never. Absolutely not. Pat's giving bad information. In addition, there are a lot of things that have both a cork and a crown cap. So, yep. What I do agree with is that a lot of Belgian ales are bottle conditioned and those have the best aging potential. So a beer that is still living, it still has some yeast in it, is going to transform much more than a lot of the, let's say you bought a bourbon barrel aged stout and has some adjuncts in it. We've seen time and time again when we open those that it lost more than it gained by aging it. You're looking at oxidative aging. Totally. With things that were bright and vibrant to begin with, those start to fade. If there's several adjuncts, one of them might steal the show, which then throws it out of balance. You might end up with if there's spice in it, that's all you taste. A lot of people's preoccupation with cellaring these big stouts, I would say that more often than not, does not deliver the way you hoped it would. Then what are the qualities you were looking for in a beer to seller? That was part one of the question, which is what? ABV, you want to look at above 8 percent or so, I would say, is a good place to start. Yeah, not unlike wine, acidity is very important for aging. So yeah, sour beers have that advantage. I would also throw in some of the stronger English ales, barley wine styles, I think they qualify with the high alcohol and just the richness of the malt character allows them to age quite well. Yeah. You think extra sugar helps beer age longer? Indeed. That's definitely the third time that we've taken that question on Barrel, The Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. So nobody else write that one to us anymore. Although- We're not giving you 20 bucks if you ask us that question anymore. Next time. Next time. KPG, we got 20 bucks. We still get 20 bucks. Yeah. No more. And everybody else write us any other question to comments at binnys.com or head us up on social media, at Binny's Web, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. So that's our top 10 desert island beers. So if you're ever on a desert island, hopefully you're hanging out with the five of us. Well, everybody's a little, you know, isolated these days. So give these beers a try. Yeah. Let us know what your desert island picks are. Same as before. Comments at binnys.com, all of our social media channels. If you're enjoying this podcast, leave us a review on the podcasting platform of your choice. Tell your mom. And support those local brewers. Usually at this point, I'm like, thanks Guest for coming on or thanks Roger for talking about Jackfruit again. Yeah. I didn't bring it up for once. You're welcome. So I guess like thanks Chris and Roger for colluding and coming up with at least half of our list being Belgian or British. True. That's true. Yeah. The wrong kind of Michael Jackson. We have impeccable taste. So that's another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, The Old Man Edition. We'll be back in your feed next week with something good. Until then. F*** you guys. I'm just glad you invited me to join your cabal of middle-aged white men talking about beer. Yeah, we got to get Alicia back on some time. When it comes to cabals of middle-aged white men, this is the least harmful in the history of the planet. That is for damn sure. That's true. Great. All right. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Pat, hams number one. I'm Jim. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.