Welcome to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about beer. And we're very excited today, because if you've been listening to some of our previous episodes, we've been on kind of a logger kick, and I'm very excited to inform you that we're going to keep that rolling. And we're going to do so by talking about a Chicago beer brand that hasn't been available for almost a century, but it's back, and we have a very special guest here to discuss what made this happen, how we can take a taste of history. In today's episode, we have Chris. Hi, everybody. I'm Chris. I do wine, but I drink beer. Pat. Hey, it's Pat. We're talking about a beer that's not hams, so I'm entering this with some cautious tone, but I'm curious to try this beer anyway. Refreshing-er. Well, the hams is refreshing-ist, so we'll see how this goes. Refreshing-er-ist. Then our very special guest, Laurin Mack, the descendant of Mr. Conrad Seipp. Laurin, welcome to Barrel to Bottle. Thank you, Roger. I'm so glad to be here with you all today. What a treat. I'm really glad you're on a lager roll. That sounds like a good roll to be on. Yeah, I think we're so excited for your brand for a lot of reasons. I think it's exciting to see the story of this. We often joke that a big part of selling anything is storytelling. The story for this brand is great. It's really, I found it fascinating. But then in conjunction with that, beer in Chicago right now is tripping over its own feet. We're seeing people brewing the same stuff over and over again. When we get a chance to actually talk about beer, beer beer, the boring old beer with hops and malt and water and yeast, we particularly get really excited about it. Now that I've had my first old man rant of the episode, let's talk about the beer at hand here. Could you just give us a little bit of background on what inspired this idea to bring back Conrad Seipp Brewing, having disappeared essentially since Prohibition was repealed? Yeah, it's a big question and it's got a lot of answers, and I'll spare you the two-hour spiel. But the short version is, I think, two-fold. I recognized that Chicago is just this fantastic beer town. You can get any kind of beer here, made here or brought in here. It's just a really exciting place to be if you love beer. But it seems like what we were really missing was this connection to our very rich brewing history. And that just didn't seem right. Other cities have that connection, and I wanted to be able to help fill that gap. And I realized that I was not uniquely, but one of the people who might be able to fill that gap well because of my relationship to Conrad Seipp, who was one of Chicago's first brewers, and certainly one of Chicago's most successful brewers in the 19th century. And so with that, it just seemed like this is what I needed to do for Chicago, for beer brewing. That sounds a little bit grand, but- It was your civic duty, we'll say. I think it's a great idea because it's almost like a story of what might have been if it weren't for prohibition because Chicago had this great brewing tradition and it was almost completely wiped out with a few breweries remaining after prohibition. And every brewery in Chicago completely disappearing by 1978. So you're bringing back a chunk of history and we appreciate that. Well, it's been such an absolute pleasure, excuse me. And I feel so honored to be able to revive the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company and to work with Metropolitan Brewing to bring back the extra pale. I love history and to be able to not let history go is something that I've been doing my whole life. So this feels like a very tangible, delicious way to do that. So when you mentioned Conrad, for our listeners, you are the great granddaughter times four? It's hard to keep track of all the greats. There are three greats, so think great cubed, great great great granddaughter. Okay. So I'm really curious, what was it like growing up with this? Was the brewing history of your family, I mean, Conrad was literally one of the beer barons that you hear about so much in history. Ironically, the Miller, Coors and Budd of the world tend to steal all that thunder. But Sipes was one of the biggest, it was the leading producer in the entire country at one point, correct? At least for a couple of years? Yes, in the 1870s for at least one, maybe a couple of years, he was the leading brewer in the country. As we mentioned, prohibition unfortunately killed the brewery, but was it something that was your family always still interested in beer, or did anyone end up either working in beer or home brewing? Yeah, I really appreciate that question because it makes me look back and just examine my life and discussions with family members. To tell you the truth, there really hasn't been much interaction with beer since the brewery closed. At least, I shouldn't say that because I'm not sure how things were in the 18, sorry, in the 1930s and 1940s with my various family members. But in my lifetime, there has not been a big connection to beer other than people really liking to drink it. Our family did marry into other big beer families. Through marriage, we've stayed involved with beer, but there was no one who was home brewing that I know of or really pursuing it professionally until now. I have some historical questions about the Seipp Brewery here. My Chicago brew history is admittedly lacking. This brewery was originally started in 1854, is that right? Correct. Do you know whereabouts it was located? I do, and because I have a very weak mind, especially this afternoon, I can't tell you exactly just because I don't remember the address. But we do know where it was located. It unfortunately, within about a year, burnt down. Conrad had purchased it from Matthias Best, and it was not made out of bricks like the Three Little Pigs house. It burnt down, which was a big bummer, I'm sure for him. It was a really tough time because he also lost two children around the same time in infancy. I think it's good to remember that Conrad Seipp came to America, probably not speaking a whole lot of English, came before things were really heating up with the Civil War. It was not an easy time. He was trained not as a brewer, he was trained as a carpenter. I think he may have met some people in Rochester, which is where he landed. He met the Bartholomew family, I think, there, and they were a brewing family who brewed in Germany. I'm just wondering how human relations go. They said, hey, good luck out there in Chicago. If you ever want to talk about brewing some beer, let me know because he got here and he drove a beer wagon, and he tried to run a hotel, and then he decided that he'd give brewing a hand. I think it's interesting to see how relationships and where you go and where you end up really affect things. He turned into what was a very good brewer, for sure. I've lost track of the question already. Where was the next brewery? So he rebuilt on South 27th, and what is now Cottage Grove. It was right on the lake at that point, because they hadn't done the infill that they did, which turned out to be a great location, because it was outside of the Chicago fire line. So everything else went up in smoke, literally. His competition went up in smoke with the Chicago fire. And his brewing company, which was already doing well at that point, was left to supply a lot of beer to Chicago as the worker is rebuilt. That's fortuitous. Very cool. I would say that location was really key, because A, the fire missed them, but B, they had their own water intake from the lake. And, you know, Lake Michigan is an endless supply of great brewing water. And they also had, by the 1860s or mid-1850s, the Illinois Central was building their railroad line right along the lake there. So, I mean, becoming one of the major brewers in the country with distribution, I think that was absolutely a key. With water access and rail access? Yeah, that's huge. It ran right by the brewery, and there's even a little spur line for the breweries to load cars. So that was pretty key, I think. Absolutely. So, is there any record of what styles of beer they were producing then? I mean, outside of probably, I would assume a German style lager, but is there any kind of record left? Lots of records, and that's what's so helpful to us, working with Doug and Tracy Hurst and their team over at Metro, is that we're able to use the clues that Seipp left behind and then build off of the brewing knowledge that the Metro team has. Conrad was a prolific marketer, so we have a lot of just references to what he was making. We don't necessarily have the recipes written in beautiful German handwriting saying exactly what was in the beers, but we know he described the beers at the 1893 World's fair. They released a little site, it's I say little because it's literally quite small, pamphlet that shows all these really great pictures of the brewery and describes at that point, five of his, what I think are seven brands, and those brands keep expanding as people keep sending me more information about stuff that they're learning. So we know that he made a beer called Extra Pale, which was a Pilsner, and we have a very specific, very Victorian description of all of how these beers are meant Sounds legit. We all need those things. Man, I'd love to go back in time and see that brewery or live then and see this brewery, but then I remember there's yellow fever, and most places don't have plumbing. I'm okay hearing about it from you. Maybe for a day it would be all right. Well, thankfully, they reversed the flow of the Chicago River in the 1880s, so at least it wasn't dumping sewage in there. It's interesting, you can remember how long ago, or appreciate how long ago we're talking about, when you read the copy from that booklet, and it's kind of sad in a way you could literally never print that again because of today's laws about what you can say a promise a beer can do for you. But clearly, there's this concept of water is probably not necessarily super safe, or there's definitely that bent around that turn of the century where healthful things was really the rage. You look at the serial wars at the time and everything, but the way you're reading this description, I actually have one here that I want to read. Oh, good. So I have to ask you, do you plan to brew the Columbia? Because of all the descriptions, the Columbia was my favorite. So I'm going to read that. I love it that you say that, Roger. Is that named for the Columbia Exposition? Did they brew that for that? I will say first that we are thinking about the next brand that we want to make. It's so great to have you guys here today because you can lobby like Roger just did for what brand you'd like to see next. Nice. We're just starting to do some more historical research to learn more about the brands like we did with Extra Pale. Chris, it's my hunch that it was related to the Columbia Exposition, but I don't want to say that for sure because I don't know it's just simply a hunch. I'm so lucky that I'm good friends with, I call her my guardian angel in the beer realm, Liz Garibay from the Chicago Brewseum, who is just such a great asset to have as a human being, but also as a beer historian. She's helping me just look into these and see what these different brands are like and what we might want to drink next. Can I make a couple of historical comments before you read that, Roger? Sure. Number one, the 130th anniversary of the Columbia Exposition will be in 2023, so maybe you want to release it then. For sure. It's a wise way. I also want to point out something really weird. October 8th is the 149th anniversary of the Chicago fire. This is a turning point for the brewery, and next year will be 150. And I'm thinking you should re-release the Salvatore, but name it something else, because you'll run into problems with Paul and her. But it means savior, and you were Chicago's savior by supplying beer in the wake of the fire. So what do you think about that? One year from today, I want to see that bottle. That is brilliant. Wow. We're doing it. I love it. My consulting fee is in the mail. It's worth it. That's a great idea. They'll send you a bill for one six pack. One six pack. I'll take it. So yeah, I think that's a great idea. I was going to second from what I've read. It seems like Salvatore was kind of your most renowned beer, a beer that definitely made it across the country at a time when there weren't necessarily a ton of beers that were. A lot of beer was just locally consumed. So it must have been a beer of merit for people all the way out west. I guess it was quenching miners' thirsts and whatnot. So I like that idea. One of my favorite quotes that I read, and I'm totally paraphrasing here, but basically it was like something to the effect of Conrad Seipp and his Salvatore beer did more for the temperance movement out west than any other organization. That is a badge of honor. Absolutely. Put down the whiskey bottle, everybody. Pick up a beer. Yeah, that's great. It sounds like Salvatore is obviously, at least for that one, you know it's a Doppelbach, which might have been a little tough to jump right out of the gate with that style. I think it was probably a lot smarter to go with a Pilsner like you did. The Columbia, I'm thinking is a stout, but I don't know. Maybe since it's more of a German lager-centric brewery, maybe it's like a, I don't know, a Bach beer maybe, but not a Doppelbach, or maybe even a Baltic Porter. I don't know. I'd be really curious to see what Liz can figure out about that. But here's- Maybe it's a Schwarzbeer style. It could be, yeah. It sounds like it had some strength to it though, besides being dark in color. Okay. So this is courtesy of Liz, by the way. So this is how I ended up finding this from that pamphlet. So the Columbia is likewise a beer made from pure malt and hops, very dark in color, and of unusual strength. For convalescents and persons whose bodily infirmities have rendered them physically weak, there is no better tonic and no better health restore. To the worker with brain and muscle, it is equally valuable as it is an absolute repairer of the daily waste of him who sweats with his brow and frets with his brain. Wow. That's the beer for me. It sounds to me like until we implement an equitable single-payer health care system, you kind of owe it to the nation to make this beer. I think that is the new health care system. Everybody gets a pint a day. Of Columbia? Is it Columbia or Colombian? I believe Columbia. Yeah. Wow. You got a lot of options here. Yeah. Then that's just a cup. There's also in that pamphlet, they talk about a Pilsner that's separate from the extra pale, export and just a lager as well. So a few more lager options. I would imagine that some of that as you do more research, will probably have to do with like ABV differences. Some of it might not be necessarily that they flavor-wise are a ton different, but definitely when people consumed a lot more beer, it was a little more important if something was 4 percent versus 6 percent. Yeah, that is something that I take for granted is how much more beer people were drinking. I just learned from the historian up at Black Point Estate, which is the director, excuse me, not the historian, which is Conrad Seipp's summer home up on Lake Geneva that is now a museum, that Conrad Seipp was, I think, a pretty fair employer from the point of view of he very rarely had brewery strikes. The one time he had a brewery strike, it's because the workers wanted to have more of an allocation of beer, and he quickly capitulated and was like, sure, absolutely. I think that it's probably good to have that beer be pretty low in alcohol content so your workers could keep doing their job. Some of those rations were pretty hefty back in the day. Do you know what it was? Not off the top of my head, but it seemed awfully hefty when I heard the numbers repeated to me. It's a motivated workforce. Something that's kind of amazing to think about with this is just how big this operation was at the peak of production. I was reading in a book that at one point there were 280 employees. When you factored in the Brewers, Malters, Coopers, Bottlers, etc. 260 horses, 140 wagons. I mean, that is just a major footprint. Something that I think today's drinker that's so used to visiting local Chicago breweries that can be in these tiny little spaces. I mean, this was a chunk of the South Side to have this massive operation from truly grain to glass kind of deal, too. Yeah, I really was struck by that as well. Just looking at pictures of the brewery, it takes up an incredible amount of space. And then when you think about all of the logistics that have to go into just distributing your beer when there aren't trucks to just pile everything into, you got to make sure the horses have the right shoes on their feet and everyone's getting fed and it was a really big operation. I'm sorry that the brewery is not there still, but the space where it was is currently standing empty. I don't know if you all have been down there lately, but it's where the Michael Reese Hospital was, and that obviously was torn down. Why don't we try your beer since we've been talking about it so much. Yeah, I'm thirsty. We've all had it before, but let's taste it together, and you can tell us a little bit more about what it was like to essentially try to reformulate something that no one had tasted. I think that's one of the most fascinating things about this project is that we've seen other retro brands come or a brand that's been around, and we'll talk about redesigning the recipe and going back to an all malt recipe or trying to capture that, but you're really faced with a unique situation here where there's nobody you can go talk to and ask, what was this like? Totally. Well, cheers, guys. I'm glad you have a chance to try it again. So in general, though, we can talk about the pre-prohibition style being generally malt and usually an adjunct like corn, and then noble hops, of course. Is that the starting point that you came from it at? You got it. Noble hops. We used Saz and Cluster. When I say we, I mean Doug Hurst and his brewing team of geniuses. Those guys are like the local masters of lager, though. So you couldn't have you couldn't have gone to a better source for help with this. I know. I feel like the luckiest gal in Chicago for that. And that they were willing to work with me was especially great. Yeah, I think every last one of us proves of that choice. Doug Hurst is just such an extensive knowledge of German brewing styles and German brewing styles in America. So we knew actually, because we not only did we just know that it should be Saz and Cluster, but also on the label for the extra pale, it says made with Bohemian hops. So obviously, they must be referring to Saz. So that was helpful. Then we also knew that at that time, Americans were using what we had, which was six row barley. And that in order to make six row barley not horribly proteiny, we had to lighten it up a little bit with some corn. Also, as you know, rice was used. And I think that the corn, frankly, I know people don't love the idea of having adjuncts in their beer, but it just really makes it taste good and gives it that sort of roundness. I agree. Important to remember that it's flaked maize or corn, as opposed to using something like a corn syrup. Right. And yeah, it definitely serves multiple purposes to be used in the beer. It's not just kind of when we think of adjunct grains as, oh, these are cheaper or they're going to make it lighter in body. Like you said, it's integral for using six-row barley. It's cool that you use six-row. I mean, I know some people have done these pre-prohibition loggers and maybe haven't bothered to go that extra route. But yeah, corn definitely can have its place in a good beer. There's a beer, I know we're talking about a beer with Wisconsin and Chicago Connections and I think most Chicagoans have heard of New Glarus Brewing and their beloved spotted cow that we get asked for non-stop. I mean, that famously is brewed with corn as well. So good beer can be made with corn, and I think this is a nice example of that. One thing that I think we really should emphasize with this is that a lot of people, it's important to remember that this is a pre-prohibition Pilsner and that it's not necessarily going to taste like most of the Pilsners that you're familiar with. My first reaction to this beer was, wow, this has some significant body to it and some pronounced flavor both on the malt and the hop side. I mean, this is a hoppy beer. It's just not obviously the kind of hops that we're used to in today's IPAs and pale ales. But there's some hop presence here for sure. Significant. It's that classic German noble hop grassy spice thing going on. I love it though. Yeah, it's full-bodied for what it is, but it's by no means a heavy beer and it helps that it's like, I love the four and a half percent alcohol. I was at another local craft brewery, just released an American adjunct style lager, and I had a can of that and I was, oh, it's great, it's five percent. On the side, he's like, it's actually a little over six, it just came out higher and the labels were already printed. Then it ruined it for me because I like having things that are five percent or less, and this just nails it. Yeah, it's very well-balanced. You definitely get that floral spicy sense of the hops and the nose. I get like a little streak of, I don't know what to call it, maybe a steely note from the hops. It provides like a spine for the malt, and I think that's a really nice balancing act there. I think you even get a little sense of the corn on the retro nasal. It's there, but I think it's really good. This retro style beer is really hitting you in the retro nasal. All the time. I think that I have this written down some places, but I really wanted this beer to be accessible to everybody. What I mean by that is I just find Chicago to be an accessible city where we all have our own relationship to Chicago. I think this beer is great for people like you all who are really just beer experts and know all these different things. I also wanted someone who didn't know anything about beer to be able to sit on their porch with a pizza and be like, hey, this tastes great. I'm really excited that it's able, I think, to cover both of those realms and just be a good beer to drink. That's what we're going for. I think a lot of beer drinkers, especially some older generations, are going to love what I hear a lot of people describe as a bite, but they're saying it in a good way. Beer used to have a real bite to it, and it would stay with you. Essentially, I think they're talking about this classic, that cluster hop character. Cluster hops were 95 percent of the hops grown in the US, as recently as the 70s. I mean, this is the hop of American breweries. This was extremely popular because it's so shelf-stable and tolerant. You can keep it for months without it degrading, even at room temp. So a lot of classic American loggers really depended upon this cluster character. And it's an interesting hop. It provides a clean bitterness. It's really not akin to even the classic, when we say classic American hops, half the time now we're talking about things bred in Oregon and Washington in the 70s and 80s, not something like this, which has more of a noble continental character. But yeah, I think Chris was spot on with some of the descriptors he gave. There's a floral character to it that I like that is a term that I think some people are afraid to use because they misconstrued floral with like perfumey, but it's not. It's really a nice nuanced element to this that is one of the many pieces that I think is going to help people realize that, wow, this beer is accessible in the way that it looks like, quote unquote, beer, like a golden lager, but it has a lot more flavor, be it both from the hops and the malt. So that was what I really got. That's one of the things that I really got excited about it, is that I feel like sometimes we're backpedaling and trying to get people to not think of lagers as boring beer, and this is a nice example of they don't have to be, and they aren't, and if Right. It makes you want to sit out in a German beer garden on the south side, in 1890 or something and knock a few back. Today would be a great day for that. Hey, Laurin, do you have any other family members involved in this project? I have lots of wonderful family members who are supportive and who are involved in lots of helpful ways. But I am, for right now, the primary person who's doing this, which is great in many ways, and I'm so appreciative to everyone who helps friends and family and just new friends like you guys. It's just a wonderful thing for the community. I think when I say the community, I mean, I think it's a great way for people to find a sense of community and to build community. Because I really want people to drink a sip and think about the city and think about where they're living at that moment, and think about their own history, and think about their own family heritage. Just all about just having a nice time together and enjoying a good year. Let's be honest, who's holding out on you? Somebody didn't really think you were going to do this. Somebody's got some of the family heirlooms and some dusty old trunk somewhere. I know. It's so true. Every time I open a drawer, I'm always like, there's going to be the recipe lying right there. I've mentioned this before, but maybe you guys can help me out with this. We do have a few bottles of beer. I have the Hollander, and there's a couple of other unopened bottles around too, with a little bit of liquid in it left. I just feel like, and I think maybe it was a dogfish head that did this, there has to be a way that we can figure out what was in there and get a better idea. Totally. You got to get that to a lab that has a gas chromatograph or a mass spectrometer. Spectrometer, yeah. And either of those things, essentially you're beaming a beam of particles at the substance itself, it breaks it up to the molecular level, and then it analyzes what molecules make up that substance. So in like really high-end craft brewery sensory labs, they'll use these to isolate distinct hop aromas at the molecular level, so they can maintain consistency. I'm talking places like Sierra Nevada and Bells utilize these. I mean, there are millions and millions of dollars worth of lab equipment, but like this can be done. I mean, people have done before. That's how, you know, you mentioned Dogfish Head. They did the same thing to a shard of pottery, essentially, to figure out what was in that drinking vessel of pottery from ancient Mesopotamia, wherever they had that old like honey beer that they made. It's cool. You know, someone similar to the scientists in Twister are going to be in it for the science. And I'm sure you can find someone that might volunteer to do this for you. Absolutely. I see Roger really was a fan of Twister, too. It was a great movie, underrated movie. That's so good to know that you guys say that it's possible. I was sort of was giving up hope, but I won't anymore. As a whiskey drinker and writer and like purchaser. Yes, sure, it's possible. I'm not a PhD in this though, but I know it's been done. That's all I need. I've got to tell you all that I have a new project going on right now, which is to make some t-shirts, which is always exciting when you have no art back around and try and figure out what people might like to wear. But this all comes from a mug that eBay is such a great place because you can get so much of anything on there, but you can get some great sip paraphernalia. Our family had just passed down, I guess, some cool old sip mugs and the mugs said on them, just a little better than the kind you thought was best. I love that. I've always loved that. That's awesome. But I didn't really totally understand it because I was a little and it didn't make complete sense to me, but now I really understand it and I really understand it because what I learned not only was Conrad Seipp just a flowery Victorian in his language, but he was also friends with Frederick Pabst up in Milwaukee. Pabst was a pallbearer in his funeral, and I think they had just a friendly rivalry. So you know how Pabst renamed the best brewing company after himself, after marrying the brewer's daughter, and he had a slogan, he who drinks Pabst drinks best. Did I get that slogan in the right order? That's excellent. So the running theory is, the rumor that I'm passing along today is that down in Chicago, Seipp was like, oh yeah? Well, how about this one? Just a little better than the kind you thought was best. So I love that idea that this friendly brewery, lobbing back and forth of jabs at each other. I just also think it's a really great slogan. So that is still our slogan, and it's being turned into some t-shirts that hopefully will look good enough for people to want to buy. I'll buy one. That's amazing. I love the particular form of humble braggadocio that is, or just a little better. It's awesome. On top of that, they must have had a serious rivalry because I think it was the Colombian exposition where Paps decided to change best select to blue ribbon because they had been winning a lot of blue ribbons. It may be apocryphal, but I think they claim to come out on top in that one. I think that, I mean, if I may represent the family, Chris, the idea is it's like everyone's a winner, everyone who enters gets a blue ribbon. And so Paps was like, Oh, it's like the San Francisco spirits Competition. 93% of all entries win a medal. So we'll let Paps stick with his blue ribbon, but let's keep in mind what's just a little better. On that subject, can you talk a little bit about the label and how you came up with? So I know it's inspired by traditional label artwork from the period, right? Yeah, absolutely. It was a real joy to work on the images for the modern day company and the labels. And I had the benefit of working with some really great designers, starting off with a group called True Story, and then finishing up with a group called The Stout Collective, which specializes specifically in beer work. And we just went through a process, along with all my friends and family, who had voting in the decision-making process of, first of all, what we wanted to start with is some just basic foundational stuff. We didn't want to change the logo hardly at all. And as you guys can see on the label, that was very much what the logo looked like from the beginning, meaning the bullet with the S made out of barley. We just cleaned it up a little bit. Yeah, I'm looking on Google right now. I searched for that mug when you brought up the mug, and I'm looking at all this old sipes, you know, Breweriana, as it would be called. And it's like spot on to the old one. It's a hard word to pronounce, Breweriana. But we really tried to make it as close as possible while cleaning up the barley S a little bit, because it started to look like a woolly worm at times in the old days. And then we also realized we needed to make the sipes legible to the modern eye, because if you look at the old sipes slogan, not slogan, but just cursive sipes, it starts to read like leaps if you're not used to reading 19th century cursive. So we took out the S and put in a modern day cursive S, which I think, although I hate not having to be the exact, I think it's important for us to be able to recognize how to read it and how to say it. Yeah, you got to build that brand. Yeah, exactly. And people need to be able to read what they're buying. So those were the foundations. And then working with Stout, we were able to, I think, draft what was a great label based off of the label from the packet that, or the pamphlet that Roger was just referring to. You can see a picture of the extra pale in there. And what I think is a really lovely label. The label, I think, changed in the night, in like 1910 or so. I'm just making that up as a random date. But it became, it turned into a label that looked a lot more like the Budweiser label. And although I think it's a cool label, I didn't want anyone to get mixed up with what we were doing and what Budweiser is doing. So I stuck with the one that I think was from an earlier period. The bottle caps on the first run here are plain. Those are kind of, I think, sometimes an underappreciated canvas. And if you wanted to do kind of like some retro renditions of some of the older slogans and designs, I think that'd be cool to could always change up the bottle caps. Totally, Roger. That's a great idea. And I think there were some pretty cool designs on the bottle caps. So I need to take that as the next step. Good idea. So we didn't get too much to the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin connection here, which I would imagine is essentially your strongest tie to Conrad and your family's history. And that's kind of another whole different fascinating arm of the story. So if you could just share with our listeners, you know, what that was like going up to Lake Geneva and the property up there. I think it's really interesting. I'm so glad you brought that up because Lake Geneva is such an important place in my heart and in my family's life. Conrad in 1887 bought 26, 27 acres on the south shore of Lake Geneva on a rise. And he built a house, a summer cottage for his family. I think, as you can imagine, Chicago gets pretty hot and it was probably pretty dirty and busy in the summertime even back then. So he wanted a place that he could go and enjoy or that his family could enjoy the summertime. And unfortunately, he died very shortly after the construction ended. It was built in 1888. They built it pretty quickly. And it's a beautiful Queen Anne style house that was originally called the Villa Lorelei. The name was changed to Black Point due to anti-German sentiments in the war, during the war years. And the house and the property has been in, our family, until 2007, passed down from generation to generation. When my great uncle, William Peterson, Uncle Bill, gave the house to the state of Wisconsin. And so we have all, I say we, meaning everyone and all of the descendants of SIPE, have gone to Black Point to enjoy nature, to enjoy each other, to enjoy music. It's just a really beautiful place. And for anyone who hasn't been yet, I really recommend taking the boat tour, which is how you access the museum. That's how our family got there, originally in the old days, was we took the train to Williams Bay, which is a town across the lake, took the steamer to the house, and then walked up the hill. And you can still do that today. In the months of, I think, it opens in May and closes at the end of October. It may be closed now. It's because of the season. And it's open to the public to learn about the family and to learn about Conrad Seipp and to learn about beer and the influence that it has on the Midwest. Very cool. So I did. I think that's actually how I really got connected to Conrad originally, was just going to his house and seeing his stuff and sort of thinking, gosh, who created this? And then as I came of age and started drinking beer, it started to make more sense. And then just learning about Chicago brewing history, things really started to click. And here we are today, thanks to people like Liz Garibay and to Doug Hurst and Tracy Hurst, we're able to make this come alive. Unfortunately, while you can't see any remnants of the brewery here in Chicago, if you visit that property, you can, correct? Correct. Wow. Roger, you guys know everything. There is the lintel to the brewery. I thought of it as the cornerstone, but I think the lintel is the proper term that says in German, the Seipp and Lehmann, because Lehmann was his original partner, Brewery, and it says that in German. I don't know German well enough to be able to tell you off the top of my head what brewery is, Brow House, maybe. Brewery. It's beautiful and it's still very much intact, and that is a really nice way to remember that there was an actual brewery where there was actual material from. Yeah, that and you're literally, people always use that phrase, walking in the footsteps of history. If you're walking around there on the bricks, it's the bricks from the brewery as well too, right? That's the rumor. That's what my grandfather and great uncle said, so I believe what they say. I wasn't there to see the bricks brought in, but knowing my family, he was trouble letting go of anything. Obviously, I'm reviving a 100-year-old dead brewing company. I can't imagine they would have left those bricks there to rot in Chicago. I'm sure they must have brought them up. Well, hey, Laurin, thank you so much for joining us here, answering all of our questions. I think you clearly know you have three fans and us. We really think it's neat what you're doing. We're excited to see which beers you bring back in the future. Well, I can't thank you all enough for having me today. It's just been plain old fun and I really appreciate your support and all your great ideas and everything you've taught me. So I can't wait to keep this going and keep drinking beer together. So thank you. Conrad Seipp has proven to be a formidable challenger to my beloved Theodore Hamm. Wow. That's high praise. The highest of praise. We could set up a tag team with Valentine Blatz and somebody else. Anyway, thanks, Laurin. It was great. That's another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed what you heard, please let us know, reach out, give us a rating, tell your friends, tell your mom, everybody that enjoys beer, wine, and spirits to give our podcast a listen. Until next time, I'm Roger. I'm Chris. I'm Pat. I'm Laurin. Keep tasting.