You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. This week, we are going to revisit a topic that we discussed before, but with newfound vigor, because... Yes. All right, so in the studio today with me, we have... I'm Chris, I drink beer, and I work in wine. Hey, I'm Pat, I enjoy Roger's cheeses. Jim, communications. Loggers are very much continuing to grow. It's not just a moment. Interest in craft loggers is the highest I've ever seen it. So we're going to revisit one of my favorite loggers styles. We're going to talk about Bach beer today. Bach is back, baby. It's Bach. We're bringing sexy Bach. Dark loggers are coming just like Fast and Furious, Dark Logger episode. Hey, is this a third in our series of Dark Loggers? It isn't because I included a couple My Box as well. So, there's some pale stuff as well. Leave it to Roger to sully the product descriptions and the episode descriptions. Completely undermining the thrust of beer. Plus, we built the last one as German dark beers. So, these are all German or German inspired. So, in a way, it would have to be like German dark part two. Anyway, I'll figure out a way to incorporate a third Dark Logger style. You just give me time. Brow House Boogaloo. I did make sure that there's going to be no overlap. So, we're not tasting any of the Bach beer that we tried in the previous episode, which at this point, let's be honest, it was in 2021, that's like an eternity ago. Yeah. So, we're doing. Nothing important was going on then. It's utterly forgettable. I brought three different styles of Bach today. We're going to start with my Bach since it's always the best route when you're tasting different beers, is to go from light to dark. We're going to taste through a couple of my Bachs, arguably the one that most people are most familiar with. I don't have today because of a railroad strike in Germany. Hofbrau my Bach is not available yet. But I'm glad in a way because the interesting thing about Hofbrau my Bach is that it's a little darker and richer than most my Bachs. So people argue whether or not you should use the term Hellerbach or Hellesbach and my Bach interchangeably. If you were to look at a Hofbrau my Bach, it looks almost like a normal Bach, but it's like amber copper in color as opposed to a dark golden color. So we're going to start off with one of Brof's favorite breweries, kind of setting up a challenge here for roaring table is the other my Bach we're going to be drinking. So it's really going up against the beloved brewery here. So I do think that it has some serious chops though. So with some of the other breweries, it's about as tall order as it gets. But anyway, Brewinger Einger just makes phenomenal beers. If you want to learn about German styles, you can pretty much just pick up a bottle of everything they produce. And it's a phenomenal example of the style. So we're going to start with their Maibach. As far as Bach beer goes, get the beer flowing here while we do a very short background. Bach beer is, again, we always like to emphasize that throughout Germany, it's fiercely regional. It's not people trying beers from all over the country. Like wherever you're from, you drink the beer from where you're from. That having been said, this is a fun example of a beer style that was so good that people in a different part of Germany started to really take notice of it, and they thought, this is quality beer. We want this beer. That is true about German drinking culture. Just yesterday at the Lincoln Park store, there was a big contingent from hacker Paul Lanner that had come over and was visiting in town and they had all these very buttoned up German directors of export and stuff, and I spent a few minutes talking to them in the beer aisle because I happened to be wandering around the store. They mentioned that we have a wider selection of German beer than they've ever seen in Germany. I said, well, it's all because you refuse to drink each other's beer or stock beer from a different town, right? And they're like, well, yeah, pretty much. That's pretty wild. When you look back at brewing in Germany, it obviously goes back very far, and Bach beer is one of the oldest styles that's been around consecutively. It takes its name from the town of Einbeck, which is in lower Saxony, near the town of Hanover. And we're talking way back in the 1300s here. This beer became so beloved that people in Munich were bringing it, you know, essentially ordering it and serving it in Munich. When they were asking for the beer, it was the local dialect produced kind of a mispronunciation of the town name Einbeck to Einbach. The German is instead of saying the name of the town, they were saying a goat. So when you see all the different ways that Bach beer has been marketed over the ages, including, you know, hand-drawn ads from the 18th and 19th century. All goes back to a mispronunciation. Yeah. That's why there's all this Billy Goat culture and Billy Goats are associated with virility and, you know, that's always a great way to sell things to imply that you drink something and you'll be, you know, a vigorous male. Powdered rhino horn. Rhino horn boner pills. Boner beer, huh? What's ironic though is that probably the most well-known Bach style is quite the exact opposite of that. Doppelbock beer, which we're going to be trying the most of today, gets its origins in the town of Munich and it was brewed by monks as a Lenten beer that was good for fasting, which is why you'll sometimes hear Doppelbocks described as liquid bread. And those beer styles then too were far less attenuated than the style is now. So we're talking very heavy, sweet, very rich beers. Nourishing. Let's start with Mybok since it is the season. It's the season for both really. Mybok takes its name from the month of May, but they typically start coming out right about now in the early spring. The idea being that this is the kind of style that people are brewing late in the winter and then loggering it over the winter months and then celebrating the beginning of spring by drinking this beer. This beer is awesome. It's delicious. The first thing I'd say that you might notice about Mybok is the elevated hop bitterness compared to the super malt forward traditional box style or Doppelbock style. Very much so. So the IBU range for a Doppelbock is low. They're typically around 16 to 25 IBUs. And that's up against a lot of malt, so. Right. But yeah, Myboks can get all the way up to 35, which is very high for... Yeah. Beautiful color. It's just got that very sparkling gold. Yeah. Crystal clear. Very fine carbonation. Fine carbonation. I mean, everything speaks to expert craftsmanship on this. There's not a... There's a nice toasty malt character and then there's just, you know, faintly grassy, faintly spicy hops, but the hops I don't feel are that prominent, but it's not an unbalanced beer though. There's some linger on it. Oh, for sure. It's got a clean, bitter finish and the bitterness lingers, but I don't think it's particularly flavorful on the hop spectrum. I don't know. It's very like there's a punch almost, like maybe it's the 7% alcohol. I think it's the 7% alcohol on this combining with the 30 IBUs. The finish is, you feel the finish for sure. Yeah, without a doubt. And that bitterness does lay on the tongue for quite a long time. It's a full-bodied beer. Yeah, despite there. And it is delicious. Yeah, it's great. Very full-bodied beer. It's kind of apropos in a way, since we'll be discussing Doppelbock's, but I had some sausages planned today, but it is a Lenten Friday, so I wasn't sure who'd be observing. So where's my pepper and egg? So you brought us a filet-o-fish? Troubled filet-o-fish? When we get that deep fryer ripping in here, we can, or even an oven for that sake, can work on those. Because what this room needs is more heat. Yeah, and seafood. We have a great access to New York bagel and Bialeri. They make a pumpernickel rye bagel, which is phenomenal. Yeah, it's quite good. It's great with pastrami and corned beef, or it's great with all manner of German and other countries' sausages. So I highly recommend checking that out. We have some of that cut up alongside some smoked cheddar. Cheddar did really well in the last pairing, so I figured this I actually had on hand too, so I didn't have to make a trip out to the store. But from Car Valley Cheeses, this is their apple smoked cheddar. Car Valley, one of... Wisconsin all-star. Stand out in the Wisconsin cheese scene. Definitely check out their stuff. I have to say that this pumpernickel bagel is excellent. It smells incredible. Their bagels are the best. I could just smell this thing. You guys ever... You know the tradition of Russian vodka drinking where they smell a piece of black bread before they shoot? Yeah, I didn't... They don't eat it too? Well, the main thing is to smell it and then shoot it, but yeah, you eat it eventually. That's funny. But I could do that with this easily. Right. So, Einger-Maybach, most Einger beers are available for years only in the half liter bottles, because as we've emphasized before, the 11.2 is for the ladies, or the old, or the children. But thankfully, they've started packaging some of their beer in 4-pack 11.2. You can find Maybach available in very limited quantities. It's just a seasonal one-time deal around this time of year. $14.99 for a 4-pack. Again, Einger, phenomenal brewery. If you're curious about German beer styles, check out their beer. In the last Bach episode, we featured their Doppelbock Celebrator, which is by many accounts kind of the quintessential Doppelbock. It's what gets lauded as kind of the... If you want to learn about the style, try this. The one we're going to try today from Germany, I think every bit it's rival. But check out Einger. If you've been curious about German beer styles and you've been digging pilsners or the Helles style in particular, one way to think of Maibach is as a stronger Helles. And I think depending on how hoppy your Helles is, that is a good way to look at it because the malt... The approach to malt is very similar to a Helles, but obviously the alcohol strength in Bach beers, kind of the easiest takeaway if you were to describe Bach beers, that they're the stronger lagers of the German lager tradition. So they can come in different colors and strengths and attenuation. So everyone's going to be a little different, but around this time of year, definitely look for Maibach. Some local breweries are starting to make them. So that's what we're going to try next. I'm just going to point out before you move on that after having a little piece of this really rye forward pumpernickel and creamy cheese, this is a very food-friendly beer. I mean, it almost tames the bitterness that we were talking about on the finish and makes it creamier, sweeter and maltier up front. So if you are a Hellas fan and don't like a big punch of hops in the context of food, I think it's quite transformed like most things are. Yeah, totally, man. I'm glad it's working as well as it is. Something that I think is one of the things that's going to really capture people's interest in exploring classic styles as breweries are starting to give them a try is remembering how great food and beer compare together and can make each greater than the sum of its parts. So when you're enjoying classic styles, they are awesome to try with food. Yeah, we say the same thing on the wine side. It's food, it's part of the table and sometimes improved by that experience. So up next, we have Roaring Table Mybok. Roaring Table is up in Lake Zurich. They are very much leading a charge on classic styles. They're all about English pub ale styles. They have two beer engines, but their lager series has continued to impress everything from big, rich Baltic porters to crisp and clean pilsners and helles. They, I think, did a excellent job with their Mybok, so I wanted to get this in front of you guys and see what you think. If I have one critique of Roaring, they're very simple in their descriptions and backgrounds. They need to start talking about their beer a little more. They're just letting the liquid speak for itself, and it's great liquid, but all I really know as far as the background on this is it's 6.6% ABV featuring German Malt and hops. It's heavier on the palate. It tastes stronger and richer than the Eijinger, but what's the ABV? 6.6. And the Eijinger was what? 7. Yeah, funny. The Eijinger drinks lighter and fresher. Yeah. I think the Eijinger is definitely more hop character and more attenuated. Like you really feel the Eijinger wears the strength on its sleeve, like it's a strong beer, whereas this, I think it would surprise some people that it's 6.6% ABV. Nice bready malt character. Yeah, for sure. I was going to say that you're right. I think the Eijinger is better attenuated, and this is just leaving some of that little more sweetness and richness and mouthfeel behind. And I don't think it's terribly shy on the hops. I mean, I think it falls into an appropriate realm for Maibach. Yes, for sure. It's definitely on the drier side and balanced. Again, it's funny. I think if, for people that haven't had necessarily a ton of options available to them when drinking Maibach, for years, there weren't that many. Hofbrau was the main one. Capital was a popular one. Capital and their Doppelbock's Capital, whatever happened to them? Yeah, they really led the charge with Bach beer in particular, with the Tunnel Fire and their Maibach and their... The blonde Doppelbock was a favorite of mine. I mean, I used to go every single year to Milwaukee to the blessing of the Bach Festival. It was amazing. We need to go to the Bach Fest in Cincinnati. Have I shown you the video of that? Yeah. It looks wild. All right, put it on the trip tick with Persimmon Fest and Paul Manst. Paul Manst, the person. I feel like I'm getting the totally opposite from you guys, which is the first sip I took, there was almost a citrusy copiness to me, and then I thought it was drier on the finish. But then after I ate some food, I felt like that kind of changed a little bit, but I still feel like it's to me, it is a lighter beer to me, I don't know. The hops to me seem less noble and maybe more like, maybe it's sapphire or something newer, like a Huel. I don't know if I go this far, but it sapphire is, or sapphire, sapphire, whatever you want to say it. I think there is that citrusy quality. No. But the Eyinger has that grassiness to the point of like, sometimes when people drink some lagers, they almost borderline think it's like a light struck character, and they're like, is this skunky? And I think some of that can be from a heavy dose of noble hops, especially if you're not used to it. For sure. I mean, one thing I was thinking about the Eyinger, the first smell I took was just its essential lageriness, was, you know, it has that kind of yeasty, yet crisp and herbal smell to it. Just kind of spot on. It smelled like a lager. Yeah. There's some florality to this on the nose. It's pretty nice. But anyway, I think a well-made beer, you can get this. Four packs, 16 ounce cans, $12.99. Again, Roaring Tables putting out some really nice beer. Their brewery, you should check out both at Binny's and visit their tap room to try some beer on draft, especially cask. Yeah, get that beer engine going. In absence of Hofbrau, we are going to now talk about a beer style that was born in Munich, because the people of Munich kind of made Bach beer, one of their beloved brews. It was Monck's, at an Abbey that has ties to the Pollenner Brewery. They created a beer that would serve as something to drink during the Lenten fasting period, and in honor of their lord, they named the beer Selvader, which means savior. So, again, this style took off like crazy to the point of everybody started brewing their own versions of Doppelbach and just calling them Selvader. So, in one of the first examples of a lawsuit in the 19th century, the Pollyanna Brewery finally won trademarking of that name, and they are the only brewery that can label a Doppelbach as such moving forward. So, if you've noticed when shopping, if you've been curious about Doppelbach and you started to look at them, you'll notice that a lot of the naming tends to end in A-T-O-R. So, that is kind of a nod to, all right, if we can't say Selvader, we'll just drop a couple of letters. So, craft breweries, of course, have gone the whimsy, silly route. But then the German ones, some that come to mind would be things like Spaten, Optimator. Of course, Eiger Celebrator, which we already mentioned. Combernator from Allergauer was one. Generator, Metropolitan, RIP. Then in the American. Yeah, and the American vernacular is all sorts of goofy stuff. Oh, so with their dominator, Doppelbock. Archobrow, Coronator. Yeah. So anyway, the beer that we are going to try is what I think is one of the finest examples from Germany of the style, readily available and one that ironically does not use this convention, does not use an ATO. Ah, Weihenschtefaner Corbinian. So this is instead named after Corbinianator. The St. Corbinian who founded the Weihenschtefaner Brewery or Monastery, not the brewery. Chris, is that the parish that they blessed the box at up in Milwaukee? Yes, that's correct. Is it? Corbinator. The Corbinator. Making beer. So this is a great one. The Doppelbock style, if you go and pick up some Pollyanna, one thing that's worth noting is that the color and the body and the flavor is not unlike Hofbrau-Meibach, for example. It's like amber in color, you know, 7% alcohol or so. It's almost sort of a bizarre standout, even though it was the originator. Is there a beer called originator? There has to be. Most Doppelbock looks something like what we have in the glass here, where it's a very dark beer, dark, dark chocolate in color. Yeah, very deep brown. And what the style has become famous for is that this is kind of one of the original. This term isn't used so much by beer geeks anymore, but for a while, you know, you guys remember this extreme beer was a thing like, oh, I'm into extreme beer. So these are things like Imperial Stouts and Barley Wine. And it was the beer that was just bringing the most flavor, big strength, often, you know, the kind of beers that you'd open with friends or like they things you might sell her. So Doppelbock for a while had kind of a beer geeky moment and kind of more now just a more of like a restaurant or a food type of thing. It's really sadly doesn't have kind of the popularity that it used to. But I think we're starting to see that change as breweries are working their way through the lager spectrum. And they're starting especially to see some traction with dark lagers being popular from the Czech stuff and things like Schwartz beer. I think you're going to see more Doppelbock. The thing with Doppelbock is that because of its strength, they're not the easiest lagers are always a challenge to brew. And there's some pitfalls to making a good Doppelbock. So you need to be aware of that level of attenuation. So how well fermented it is. I feel that when you drink a lot of the German ones, you know, they're nicely balanced to the point of that. Yes, these are rich beers, but they're not cloyingly sweet. You still want this to be something you can drink an entire glass of. And when I say glass, I of course mean a half liter, which is a proper way to drink German beer. So that's something to consider. Americans also always like to push the upper limits of things. So typically the ABV range of Doppelbock is around like seven to ten. Some of the earlier Doppelbocks would go towards the upper end of that spectrum. I've noticed with some of the local breweries that are producing them now, they're taking the opposite approach, which is probably smart. And instead of making these like nine percent, ten percent Doppelbocks where you can run into things like Fusil alcohols and it just becomes harsh with the alcohol note, more breweries are trying to hit the sevens, like the low sevens, which is Absolutely. I think there's a greater danger at that range, too, to under attenuate and have something that ends up cloying as well, because you're using so much malt. And this would be an example of something that is done very well. It's creamy, it's chocolatey, it's rich, but it is drinkable. It's not cloying, it's not over the top. Yeah, there was like a... I thought there was like a raisinated kind of flavor almost. Yeah, a little... Initially, there was chocolate when I smelled it, but then when I drank it... It's chocolate, but there's like all that dark dried fruit for sure. But it's crisp on the finish, though, still. That's the amazing thing. Just enough hop to cut through all that. Not a crispy boy, but it's crispy. And that's why I just think this is one of the greatest ever made, because it can capture all that complexity, yet still, when you finish it, you want to take another sip. There's so many Doppelbocks. And it's over 7%, right? 7.4. Geez. You know this is well fermented, because it's only 16 IBU. So for it to finish, you know, it's not going to go so far as to say dry, but it's totally balanced. Yeah. So I'm glad you guys brought up the dark fruit element. That is, I think, something that the best Doppelbocks pull off and capture. And it's worth mentioning that since we're talking about lagers, dark fruit character is often can be sussed out and be the product of fermentation. But in this case, it is not. So this is from malt selection and brewing. So it's up to the brewer's acumen in how they design their beer and how they brew their beer to capture that. And that's something that I think, you know, is beautiful in this beer. You totally get that fig and plum. So that's what I'm curious to see if when we try some of the locally made ones, if we can find that character, because a lot of the American Doppelbock's can be rich and chocolatey and, you know, capture some of that. But the fruit component, I think, is something that sets them to then a cut above. Your strategy today is just set the bar extremely high and then see what happens. So Weinstefanner, Corbinian, they've never put this in a six pack, which I find kind of bums me out. I'm going to keep prodding them to see if they'll consider that. If nothing else, Weinstefanner started to can some of their beers. That's crazy. So a four pack of these would be phenomenal. As of right now, you're left with the old traditional half liter bottle like they buy beer in Germany. $4.29 for this, for a 7.4% ABV, beautiful Doppelbock, one of the quintessential examples of the style. So as you support your local breweries and learn and taste more about Doppelbock, make sure that Weinstefanner is one of the ones that you try. For sure. One thing we know about German breweries is they're not at all concerned about heritage or history or past. So I'm sure they'll gladly transition into four packs for this. Yeah, they don't even have, you know, the Weinstefanner brewery is like national. It's state owned and it's a brewing school and everything, but they don't have a canning line. So they're like trucking the beer that they can to somewhere else where they can it. So that's ridiculous. I didn't know. Yeah. All right, up next, we have a suburban brewery that only brews lagers. We're going to be trying Goldfinger's Złotonator Doppelbock. Złotonator. The story of this is some sort of dragon that was terrorizing a town. The king said that he would bestow his daughter to whoever saved the town from the dragon. So some guy packed a sheep or they basically did like a Trojan horse with a sheep full of sulfur and hay. And then the dragon ate it and got sick and tried to drink water to put out the burning and blew up. So here's to blowing up dragons. So easy to defeat a dragon. And it was a Cobbler's apprentice named Scuba. Scuba Steve. I always like to have an acronym for a name. Tom over at Goldfinger definitely is one of the people that. Oh, that dreamy Tom talking about him again. So passionate about lagers. And it's fun to just see somebody that's that's so devoted to getting people a better educated and tasting through the different styles. So as we pointed out about the fruit component, he's a big fan of that as well. He was doing like Poonchki pairings with this beer, which I would like to think it was probably with prune, which is one of the quintessential authentic Polish flavors. They do, don't they? That's a dried plum to you kids. They are marketing them that way since prunes have such a like, the only reason people know them is like going to the bathroom. You need to drink prune juice to help yourself go to the bathroom. They are like maligned fruits and other billing them as dried plums. Ever the champion of a fruits honor. You will win the hand of that fair maiden. This I think is a very interesting example of how if you have tried a beer, we are often given- This beer is great. We are often given samples of things and even if I tried a beer in the past and it wasn't for me, I'm always want to see if the brewer has changed anything, maybe it's improved. Like breweries tinker with recipes. So last year, this beer was just too sweet for me. It was like over the top. I didn't think it was well attenuated enough, but it was rich and I could see where people enjoyed it. In fact, Craft Beer and Brewing gave it a 94. So a lot of people loved it. But to Goldfinger's credit, they tinkered it with a little bit to make it more balanced. And I think if you ever needed a better example of attenuation, I believe last year it was because I had some old notes. So at some point, this beer was 7.2 percent alcohol and now it's 7.8. So it definitely feels drier to me, more balanced. I think this is excellent. It is delicious. This is an outstanding beer. It's got everything I'm looking for. It's got that chocolate. It's got a little bit of that caramel, but it has a balance of bitter hops and it's clean and it's still light on its feet. I think the better attenuated is a good call out there in regards to the mouthfeel. Great beer. Really well done. Goldfinger, I think. I'm not sure I'd nail it as craft American craft if I was tasting it blind. Yeah. Honestly, you know, it's interesting. I get a very so another key component that we should mention here with a Doppelbock is that they're often made through the decoction brewing method, which not a lot of breweries do anymore. It's deemed, especially in Germany, the land of efficiencies as inefficient. Yet some breweries still even over there persist like Hoffbrau. Now they make a great Maibach. They make a delicious Doppelbock that they release in the wintertime. And their Dunkle, their Maibach, their Doppelbock, they're all made using the decoction method. So when you brew it, the decoction method, you have to have the right kind of brew house set up to do that. Goldfinger believed in this from the get-go. They have always made beers using that more laborious, time-consuming way of brewing. There's only a few other breweries that Church Street always did it. They were way early to the game, and there's a handful of people that are starting to play around with it now. As we mentioned in previous podcasts, Hopewell's working to their best of their ability with their current setup to be able to do some decoction. But Tom's a big believer. If you visit his brewery and he's there, ask him about it. It's fun to listen to him talk about why he believes in it. I got to meet this Tom guy. I mean, we should probably go out there and have some Kemp's Uncle Pete's. Yeah, I think so. This I salute this idea. It's right by White Fence Farm. Yeah. Travel up, do some fried chicken. And the Downers Grove Moose Lodge is top notch. Yeah. They have Goldfinger on tap, actually. It's one of Brophy's top 500 moose lodges in the entire country. There'll be a printed guide coming out shortly. Anyway, really nice job. I mean, this is this has some other complications to it. I mean, I'm getting kind of a little sweet tobacco note and a little bit of leather. Yeah, I went on too much of a tangent there. The dark fruits big in this one, too. There's a lot of I felt a lot of carbonation. Yeah. In a nice way. I was just going to say it's very well dissolved carbon dioxide. It has a really creamy, fine bubble feel to it. It's really nice. That is because they do natural carbonation there. They have all these horizontal loggering. Thank you, Tom. Try some of the bagel with this because I get kind of that pumpernickel feel to this too, which I really like. Obviously, the bagel's got a garlic thing going on, but- Why haven't I had this bagel before? I've had a million bagels from this place. This is awesome. Oh, this is like one of their best bagels. I feel like we don't get these when they- Clearly, they don't get this flavor when they bring them here. Well, they're big caraway heavy on the pumpernickel. So good. Great beer. Let's stop in, grab some of this while we still have it. Four-pack 16-ounce cans, $13.99. Phenomenal beer. Goldfinger, also worth trying. Their core lineup, they make a Helles, a Pilsner, an excellent Schwartz beer, and a Vienna. And delicious across the board. Yeah. I have yet to find one that has displeased me. They're doing great stuff. Breweries like Goldfinger, Pollyanna, Art History, you know, they're these suburban breweries that are really getting people interested in talking about lager again, which is really exciting. Let's try a beer from the city next. So this is a brewery that's known more for their IPAs, but they've been sneakily, like quietly in the background, been making lager for years. I mean, Pulaski Pills is a classic, so. And the variant, my favorite named Cashmere Pulaski. That's a great one. That is excellent. So Maplewood, reticent that not enough people knew at a Doppelbock where we're skittish to call it that, which I always thought was kind of odd since, you know, these are the same people that have put Keller Beer and Zwickle on things before. So. Household names. Originally, when they pitched this beer, they called it a winter lager. Now they wisely have just switched to calling it a dark lager, probably no doubt in from the popularity of their Czech dark lager. So this is Silver Morning from Maplewood. It is their Doppelbock and it clocks in at 6.8% alcohol. So it's a little lower. An ABV that's kind of like at the lowest end of what you'd consider a Doppelbock. Color wise and everything definitely fits the bill. So let's give this a try. Rich malts, noble hops, warming notes with dark fruit, hoppy spice, toasted bread and toffee. I do salute them trying to kind of give people a time and place for beers and help people out that way. So they definitely say like, this is perfect beer to pair with a hearty winter meal. Again, Doppelbock, amazing food beer. Everything from obviously heartier, richer cuisines, things in the German world, like sauerbraten and schreinhoxen and all manner of sausages. Those crispy knuckle boys. Get that schreinhoxen horn going. But yeah, this is definitely, I think, designed to be, you know, a little bit of a lighter approach to the style. It's a little sweeter than some of the other ones, but not in a sweet and heavy way. But there's definitely some nice like caramel and chocolate. I'd say that that's kind of the... Am I imagining like a smokiness here? Must just be me. I think there's a toasty roastiness to the malt character that can be perceived as smoke. I agree with that. There is definitely a roasted malt character here. I wouldn't be surprised if they probably put a little bit of roasted in there to give it that nice color. And then, yeah, that can for sure be reminiscent of... You don't even need to just actually use a smoked malt to... Man, this is a really good beer too. Definitely a nice soft mouthfeel on this one too. Yeah, it's soft, easy drinking. It's a little sweet up front, but finishes pretty clean. I would say that this is a nice example of bringing a little more chocolate to the fore. When I think of one of their original beers was Fat Pug. That's a very chocolatey beer. I think this definitely... It has a little bit of that spice on the finish. I think some of the noble hops are coming through. For sure. It's a nice lingering, almost... I know licorice can be somewhat divisive, but it's almost got a teeny bit of licorice on the finish. It's kind of nice. Pretty delicious. We're pretty good. Doing pretty well here so far. I mentioned desserts. This can be a really interesting thing to pair with desserts, especially with this. I'm thinking of some chocolate-based stuff, whether it be brownies or chocolate cake, but this could be a really nice pie beer around holidays or if you celebrate things like pumpkin and sweet potato pie and other times of the year. Or pie day. I could see this being really good with that. All right, Roger, what the hell? You're making me try a sketchbook beer. We knew you had to get surly at some point. Yeah. You always told me I should just go to the shelf and grab things. No, I'm going to keep telling you that. This is, yeah, I haven't had this beer in years. But I have to not like something today, otherwise it's not a genuine episode. It's all love. Yeah. Can't be a love fest. Finally, a Doppelbock with a goat on the label. Finally. Roger's been holding out on us. Wait, what's it called? Illustrator? Illustrator, 7.7% sketchbook. I mean, you have to really give them some credit. I mean, their name's sketchbook and they call it Illustrator. That's pretty good. This beer is good too. Jim, why don't you read the copy on that? Read the copy on this bad boy? Yeah, I like when people put some effort in the copy and I think this is a pretty good copy. An Illustrator tells a story. Within this can, you'll find the story of Doppelbock with its rich history and flavors. The pronounced malt and bready aromas, playful notes of toffee along with its smooth, satiating finish will transport you back in time to the dining halls and mountain views of the Bavarian monks who, centuries ago, created the backbeers that I think if we're being hypercritical, there's something on the nose here that's a little either grainy or maybe potentially a little bit acid aldehyde, but flavor-wise, I'm really liking this. It enters the sweetest of all of them, in my opinion. It lands right on the tongue with some sweet carmelis. I like the color on the head. The color on the head, nice off-white foam. It's 7-7, and it doesn't seem to hide that well. I think a lot of that is the residual sugar though. There's definitely more residual sugar in this. It's still very drinkable though. I could still have several of these and disappoint my wife. You don't have to drink a thing to do that. I'm acutely aware of that. Yeah, that brings up an interesting note. We didn't talk about serving temp, so sorry, I just ate some bagel. I need to do the combo here. How many more beers you got? I'm trying to ration my bagel and cheese bites. I got one. They're going to be like the extreme ones moving here forward. We have a Barrel-aged Doppelbock and two Icebox. I'll keep my cheese and bread. You can, I was just going to say, sometimes those beers speak on their own and they're not as much repairing. Serving temp for these. A lot of the times when you drink darker beers, we're thinking of ales and the old adage is like you drink the beer at around the temperature it was fermented. Loggers are cold fermented, so you want to serve them colder and ales can be beautiful at basically almost room temperature, depending on the style, especially darker stuff. I will say that especially with Doppelbock's, if you let them start to warm up, they can be not as pleasant of an experience depending on the quality of the beer. If they're impeccably well-made, they can manage it. But some of the craft examples that I've tried, if there's any mistakes, they're going to start to show up as it warms. If the sweetness isn't in check, they can be cloying. Yeah, exactly. A strong chill on something a little sweeter, really focus it and keeps it in balance artificially. But yeah, it'll really start to show you its true colors and a little warmer. If you stop in our store and buy a bunch of these, which we encourage you to do and taste along with us, consider that as something when you're pouring out all the things, let them warm up and that's the truest test of a brewer's acumen is if you drink something eventually like room temp, see what you think of it then because if it's still great then it's world-class. That concludes our traditional exploration of Doppelbock's. There are many more German ones you can check out. You should definitely check out Einger's, Arco Brau, both mentioned. That's an interesting one that doesn't get enough attention. Dude, what's the monk one that we couldn't get for the longest time? OnDeck? Yes, OnDeck's. OnDeck's Doppelbock is considered one of the greatest in the history of beer, if not the best. I was thinking about potentially pouring that. Sadly, not very readily available. Not many stores have it, but a few of our stores do. Again, hurt by the fact that that single bottle price point is a turn-off, but alternatively, if you put those beers in a six-pack, you end up with the Augustiner scenario where their Doppelbock is great, but it's like 19 bucks a six-pack. Maximator. That's a tour we missed. Maximator. Augustiner. Maximator. Coming up next, we have a brewery that I'm always... I feel like they've kind of fallen out of the limelight for a while. People used to talk more about them, especially for their barrel program. As of late, they, I feel, have been killing it with some of their barrels, some of their barrel stuff. They've been doing some flavor blasted s*** that's been pandering to the pastryarchy. But when they're true to their roots, boom. Oh, Boulevard. Oh, there we go. This one gold at Fobab this year. What? For loggers. For loggers? Oh, that's right. We're doing a logger up. Well, I was thinking about Bourbon County stuff. What about barrel and stuff? Crater. That's the shortest ater I've ever seen it. Right? It's so short that I didn't even pick up on it the first time I read it. And I'm like, oh, yeah, Boulevard is a brewery that if you're not familiar with their beer, you need to check it out. Their Higher Gravity Barrel-Age stuff, they bill as their smokestack series, kind of the beers that you need to know from that series. Six Glass is one of the best American Belgian quads money can buy. They do a barrel age version of that called Bourbon Barrel-Age Quad or BBQ. And then they make a rye wine. So barley wine style, but with heavy rye in the mash bill. Aged in rye whiskey barrels called Rye on Rye, phenomenal beer. No joke, one of the best beers in craft. You say that about every barrel-age rye wine. It is an underappreciated style. Have you ever been to this brewery, Roger? Yeah, I have. It's a cool brewery, right? It is a cool brewery. It's like a series of buildings that was slowly like tacked onto. So there's like weird little four up and three down staircases as you move between different parts of it and like half-sized doors you have to step through and stuff. It's totally like a Willy Wonka brewery. It's wild. I was at this brewery in 2001, if you can believe it. And it was- We definitely can. Oh, yeah, because I'm old. This beer tastes like butter toffee. Yeah. It was a weird experience because I was there during the American Royal barbecue cook-off that they have in Kansas City every year. What a great time to be there. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I'm there- It's a wild story. I'm there with my brother and we're drinking beer and having a great time. We've been eating barbecue for a couple of days. And this sweats. A couple of days. Yeah. They're about to close the tasting room down for a private party that somebody has booked, but we're just kind of lingering around in the transition period. And this whole group of people riding bicycles who are coming from Iowa, they've ridden all the way from Iowa to Kansas City to eat barbecue. And they had been smoking meat on little smokers strapped to the back of their bicycles. That is so awesome. As they rode. The greatest bicycle accessory of all time. I couldn't even believe it. And so they're pulling up and this guy's got this smoker on the back of his bicycle. Like at Goose Island. I know you're listening to this and I know you ride your bicycle to work. You got to get a bicycle smoker and do this sometime. It was crazy. So we're standing there. Now we're outside watching them come in and they're really nice to us. They think I don't know what they think, who they thought we were, but we're just standing there drinking beer. This guy just starts handing out ribs from his bicycle smoker. We're drinking beer and they'd hired like a bagpiper or something. So the sun is going down. There's a guy playing bagpipes. I'm eating this bicycle smoked meat and drinking boulevard beer. I'm like, am I in heaven? What is happening? It was incredible. I love that story. And yet somehow Roger's the bigger Boulevard fanboy. Did the bike like something with did it like no fan any flames? No, but I did ask the guy like, wait, aren't you worried if you like, you know, fell over or something? Hot coals like flying everywhere. He didn't care. That's his level of commitment. Yeah, it was amazing. And it was good. I mean, that's good barbecue. That's great. It was amazing. So with this beer, very much a departure from what we've been drinking today. And it delivers that kind of flavor profile in many of the other Boulevard beers that I just met. Well, mainly in that like rye on rye kind of element in the BBQ. It's that rich caramel, like Brophy said, like a English toffee, Werther's original kind of. It's just so complex and soft. And the ABV on this is 12.5. Shut the front door. And I could just sit here and like it's so well attenuated that it's like there's sweetness, but I'd have no problem drinking a whole glass of this. I agree. You know, all of the best beers today, you know, the sweetness is in balance. And when you get to that finish, you know, there may be some sweet carmeliness lingering around your tongue. But it doesn't taste like it's stronger than Aperol. I think this is pretty well done. Roger is a beautiful beer. Again, it was a one time creation. Grab this while it's still around. Like all Boulevard Barrel Age beers, they are unbelievably affordable. Roger Satisfactory Price Guarantee. $14.99 is for a pack. A nice price guarantee. And you know what, the Barrel flavor is really well integrated into the malt character. Right? I mean, it really is just this seamless ribbon of vanilla and toffee. Yeah. I don't know if you'd even know it was Barrel Aged. I don't know. I think it's there, but it is like perfectly integrated into the beer. This beer is too good. People that dig, you know, I know a lot of people are exploring bourbon for the first time and falling in love with it. Bourbon can get lost in stouts, but it's some of these other styles that get Barrel Aged like Scotch Ales. Very rare to find a Doppelbock, but this is where it's a quad, a wheat wine, barley wines. It really lets, like you said, it seamlessly works together and it's not hidden in any way by roast and chocolate and stuff. So great beer. Check this out. Boulevard Dark Crater. Well done. I was eating some banana pudding last night and this has like a subtle vanilla-y banana pudding like, what? What? Okay, last but not least, I brought something for you, Brof, so that you can talk about fractal distillation. Why the hell would you put an ice bock in a giant can like that? Oh, nice, an ice bock. Got a shotgun in it. That is amazing. So this is a legally made ice bock. There have been a few over the years, but if you make an ice bock, you really should have a distillation license. What you're doing. You're taking a mixture of water and alcohol and concentrating the alcohol while leaving the water behind. Right. Without being able to toss the heads out on top of it, so. Shout out to Brian over Pollyanna. This is combining his two passions. He is now working on distillation, but at heart he is a classically trained in Germany brewer, loves German brewing styles and does a excellent job with them. He has a case. Pollyanna Jötunheimr Icebock Lager, Realm of the Frost Giants. That's where Loki was born, right? Mm-hmm. This beer is definitely a labor of love. The first time they made this, so the legend with Eisbachs here is that. Wow, that drinks its strength, holy cow. That's a spicy meatball. Wow. Yeah. So the legend behind this beer style, it comes from the town of Kölnbach, so I'm sure we know some people that have enjoyed a Kölnbacher beer at one point. Oh yeah. The legend is that somebody forgot about a beer barrel and left it outside. It was unseasonably cold. The thing froze and there was ice all along the edges, closer to the edges of the barrel. In the center, there was still liquid and they figured, well, the barrel's ruined everything, might as well try this stuff. And wow, was it concentrated and delicious. So, both the good and bad thing about this is that when you do this with beer, it is a form of distillation, but there is nowhere for the bad stuff to go. So if you do it once, no problem. But of course people decided that they would just keep jacking up the alcohol, hence the relation to this practice and apple brandy and apple jack to the point where people were making these super strong beverages that had things like methanol in them and were ended up going blind or getting sick. So- Small price to pay. Because of that, you're not allowed to make this style unless you have a distiller's license. So we haven't really had a chance to appreciate this style because of that, but the folks at Pollyanna are giving us that chance. They brew a very strong Doppelbock that's around 8%. This thing is silk. And then take it outside, freeze it, and you're left with the, it was so cold with this batch. It was a negative 15 and it bumped it from eight to 11.75. Jacking it. I think with the name, they're having a little fun that, you know, these beers are usually dedicated to the Christian God. I think what they're doing with this is Jötunheimr is the land of the Norse gods. The ice giants. Again, this is all stuff I learned from the Marvel movies. Oh, of course. I think it's accurate. I learned it all when I was dining in Bohol. Roger, what are those beers that were like 40%, those crazy ones? Those are also icebox, right? Correct. So what happens to those? Are those full of bad stuff? I think so. Okay. So when you are buying them, they're only eight ounces. Okay. So I think it's not enough to really make you sick, and most people are not drinking all of it all at once, but I've never been given a good answer on that. It's a gamble. It seems like a gamble to me. Especially the ones that, of those beers, the 20 and the 30 are delicious. They're very interesting. They're worth the money. They're very good. The 40 and then the strongest one are terrible. So you know what I wonder? Could you use modern spinning cone technology that they use to de-alcoholize beers and wines to just remove methanol? Particularly because we know, right, methanol is more volatile than ethanol. It comes out in the heads first. And lighter weight. So I think if you were to invest in that, you could actually remove the methanol because the way those spinning cones work is the most volatile things evaporate first, and you can set them aside. And sometimes there are things you want, like you can take out volatile aromatics that you want to put back into the wine after you've de-alcoholized or the beer. So I would think that you'd be able to just run it so you get rid of most of those dangerous alcohols and keep the rest. But I don't know. I bet you could. The problem would probably be that a scientist would go in, how many people are enjoying this type of beer? Maybe like about 10. So yeah, I don't know that the demand is there, but I bet science could figure out a way. I think it's pretty obvious, actually. Anyway, this perfectly safe to drink Eisbach. What are we thinking here as far as like flavors and whatnot? Perfectly safe. First of all, it was fantastic with the cheese and the pumpernickel rye bagel. Yes, I agree. It's dessert-like without being cloying. It has a strong tinge of proof on the back end, I feel. You definitely taste the higher alcohol, but it's not out of balance, and it doesn't distract from the drinking experience. It's so rich and luscious up front that you almost need that sharp little stab of alcohol in the back of the throat there to remind you that, okay, there's still a balance here. This isn't just dessert. It definitely wakes you up, because it is silken on the palate, and then you do get that snap and kind of volatile alcohol on the finish. I don't think I'd want to drink a 16-oz. Well, I'd take that challenge. That's the funny thing about the package, is where I think you'd expect to see a beer like this. Is this sold as singles, Rog, or four packs? Two packs. Two packs. The old two-pack pint. It seems like it should be in those little mini cans, the little buddy cans. Right, or little nip bottles. This is a product of the fact that canning lines are these... 12 bucks a two-pack, though. Not bad. Very precise piece of equipment that is a pain in the neck to make any kind of adjustments to. So, since they aren't canning other stuff in 12-oz cans, they're just putting in a 16-oz. But yeah, this would be a lot to drink at once. Like, if you go to their... A beer for Sherry. If you go to drink this on draft, they're not pouring you 16-oz of it, so... I would not imagine that. But hey, that might be a fun night if you drink 16-oz of this. I mean, you never know. A little snifter, I think, is a good idea. You can order either a 5-oz draft of this or a 10-oz. Cowards. I'm serving in a pint. All right, we are finishing up with... Oh, I thought that was the last one. I ate all my bagels and cheese. Don't look at mine. How am I supposed to enjoy this being now? He's got a piece of cheese to spare. I'll give you a piece of bagel. Hey, sir, I'm ever so hungry. When are we doing the gruel episode? Yeah. Please, sir. Jim and I are absolutely going to buy, well, not buy, we're gonna... Expense? Yeah, we're gonna expense every different kind of interesting snack that's sold at Binny's because we have an incredible array of snacks in our stores that have so far been completely overlooked by this fine podcast. And we need to have between Utz and Hers and our various seasonal delicacies. There's so much to offer out there that we need to talk about, frankly. Yeah, Utz, you got Hers, you got Great Lakes. I'm down with those Utz pretzels. Great Lakes was on, Great Lakes Salt and Vinegar was on the podcast. Yeah, that made it. That made it. Pick of the year. Pick of the year. From Ryan. From Ryan. All right, so again, like I said, these are like, Brian is passionate about these and this next project, I think, is hysterical. I don't believe this was packaged at all. So we're drinking it out of a can, I think maybe they packaged. That means it was packaged in a can, Roger. There is no label on the can. I think maybe it was done for, you know. For laughs. For brewery. Oh, look who's pulling out a, you can't have this. But you can. He has to go pour himself some more now that he knows that you can't have this. Yeah, now that I know it's rare, I'd like a larger pour, please. You can if you go to their brewery, which you should. They've installed some. Oh my God, this smells like a liqueur. They've installed some Luker faucets, so go over there, drink some Luker, lagers on Luker and enjoy. Apparently, this caramel vodka. It's funny. It's no garlic Oda V, but you know, few things are. So they took the Jötunheimr. Put it in bourbon barrels. This is over the top. And then they froze that. Oh my God. How strong is this? 14.2. Oh my God. This is awesome, but this is. Wow, the bourbon-y character is quite incredible. Put some hair on ye olde chest. Ye olde chest. I mean, it's like a barley wine. I mean, it's a barrel-aged barley wine. Basically what it seems like to me. It does have some barley wine-esque flavors. I mean, if you blind tasted it and you said that, you know, that's completely fair. We would laugh at you, hysterically. This is bourbon soaked oak. This is Bakken name only. If you want to taste what it's like when you breathe on a Rick House tour, like this is that Rick House smell. It is bourbon-y. Like it's just that oak and bourbon. This is pretty awesome. I like this better than the regular. I mean. I like it better than regular too. Mostly because it's better. Yeah. Not just because it's higher in alcohol, because I don't feel like it doesn't feel higher in alcohol. No. That's a good point. Well said. Like it tastes more, it wears the bourbon on its sleeve. But it does not seem hotter at all. Mm-hmm. Talk about dangerous. I mean, this thing is 28 proof. That's La Cour's strength. Nice job. Did they have a specific name for this one? Brewers at Pollyanna. Yeah. By the hammer of Thor. No, just double frozen bourbon barrel aged Jötunheimr. In fact, 28 proof would make it the higher of the two tax categories for alcohol, for distilled spirits, beverages, and as far as the government's concerned. Again, visit Pollyanna, their Lamont location, the OG one I know at least, is still serving this on draft. Tell them Binny sent you and that we said hi. Well, you can still talk and walk. Yes. Then Uber home. Right. But man, what a beer. Nicely done. That is pretty incredible. Nice. This is a good lineup, Roger. Thank you, man. Doppelbock, as I said in the previous episode, was when I was a yee whippersnapper beer nerd. When I turned 21 and could finally legally buy alcohol, I remember signing up for Beer Advocate and they would be like, what's your favorite beer style? I picked Doppelbock. Nice. You're one of the few people that said Doppelbock. Who is this outlier? That's probably when you first got signed up for the ARP email list. This man's a real toffee enthusiast. It is one of the best candidates. It was at the height. Typical Werther's enjoyer. What's funny is that, and I think this is somewhat happening right now. We were at the height of the extreme beer phase where everyone was all about Imperial Stouts and double IPAs, and it was like the tongue burner double IPAs. Me and a few select friends wore almost as a badge of pride. We're like, American craft sucks. It's like undrinkable, super bitter or super roasty, gross stouts. My palate since developed to enjoy a lot of those things, but at the time hated them and loved classic Belgian beers, classic German styles. I think that now you don't really see those tongue burner double IPAs, or the stouts now are all pastry stouts. But in the same way that the new stouts and the new IPAs are equally undrinkable for possessing no balance, instead of being too bitter, they're not bitter enough. The stouts, instead of being tasting like molasses and hops, they taste like brownie batter in a very ironic way. We're at the exact same point where I think some people that are geeking out about lager and stuff love that it's not a hazy IPA or a pastry stout. So there's well-made hazies, there's well-made pastry stouts, don't get me wrong. But part of why I'm so passionate about this and what I want everyone to do is to revisit classic styles and give them a chance. And I think there's a lot to love with these beers. They've been around for hundreds of years for a reason. So that concludes this exploration of an amazing beer style that you need to go check out. We want to thank you as always for listening and encourage you to leave a review if you enjoyed this on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to tell your friends, your family, especially your mom, that they can always listen to Barrel to Bottle for a fun and informative look at our favorite beer, wine, and spirits. Until next time, I'm Roger. I'm Chris. I'm Pat. I'm Jim. Keep tasting.