You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Welcome to 2026. Yep. My name is Roger. I work in beer here at Binny's. Also in the studio today, we have... Jim Communications. Chris, I do wine-related stuff. Lexi, communication, social media stuff. Well, as we find ourselves in January, what is all the buzz as of late? Non-alcoholic beverages. All the buzz is not getting buzzed. Yeah. So the number of NA beers, wine, even spirits has exploded. I figured we would get together and taste through some of the beer options including some of the newest offerings that have hit the shelves. Because beer has always been the thing that I, at least I think of when you think of NA, at least before the last maybe like five or six years. NA beer was the thing, Odools and Old Milwaukee and those kind of beers were very popular. Always at the vanguard of NA. They were the NA beers that people drank when they didn't drink anymore. Yeah. Things have really changed in the last few years. So we've talked, I think we've talked about a little on the podcast. I think even since then it's gotten better. Oh yeah. I mean, in wine, if you talk about wine, we used to carry maybe two, three brands at the most. Now there are dozens. Right. It's crazy. It's wild. There's quite a few that I have chosen just because they taste good too. Just of those. Radical idea. I know. Well, I put together- Not trying to not drink. They're just good. I put together the options have never been better. So, I put together kind of a variety from light to dark to IPA to logger-inspired style. So, let's get to tasting. Let's get hammered. Yeah, Roger handed out spit cups, but then I reminded everyone that we don't need to spit because it's NA beer. We all have these at our desks all day. I mean, it's drinking N.A.'s all day. All right. We're going to start things off with one from Sam Adams. When we did our tasting panel, we had a bunch of our employees' taste-through products from all the different categories. This one did exceptionally well. It's called Just The Haze IPA. So it is trying to be like a hazy New England style IPA. It's won some medals, took home some medals from like GABF. So this is definitely one of our better selling IPA alternatives in the NA category. Yeah. So you said GABF. So the big awards, the beer awards groups now have NA categories, is that correct? Correct. Yeah. Wait, so categories in NA., not just, oh wow. Yeah. I was going to say like beer judging is always pretty progressive, I think. They're always adding categories. I mean, they were like at the forefront of hazy, like with tons of hazy categories. I think the major game changer was athletic brewing. I mean, athletic brewing really took off and made people really think about the category, reevaluate what IPA., N.A.I.P.A.'s could taste like. I mean, athletics exploded so much in popularity that they bought the old Ballast Point facility. Whoa, wow. So, I think the people at JBF. Did they pay like $60 million for that? $4.6 billion. I'm sure they got quite a deal on it. It was in the piliants, wasn't it? It was in the initial. It was. Stupid. They sold, yes. They're just buying this facility. It wasn't like the brand or anything. Okay. So, this won gold at JBF in 2022, and it won silver at the World Beer Cup in 2023. It smells great. Mm, tropical. Yeah. Two-row pale malt blend, white wheat, golden naked oats, malt beverage with natural flavors. So, a lot of these are followed in the new Belgian flavor blasted. Yeah. Which, honestly, this category is probably one of the best to use some of these new hop extract products, these things that are essentially like hop tincture. So, we don't know underline varieties of hops. No. I mean, they're definitely in that new wave, fruity. They taste fruit punch kind of. Yeah, very fruity. They taste southern hemisphere to me, but I don't know. I like this. Yeah, this is actually really good. I'm not a big hazy fan in any iteration, but this is not too sweet, good hop character, nice balance. I would drink this. Not too bitter too, which sometimes that really gets to me. Yeah. Delightful. Hopwise, they're listing citra, mosaics, sabro, and cascade. So citra, mosaics, sabro, those all have some tropicalness. Yeah, fruity. Sabro was really big for a while, and then everybody dropped it like a bag of rocks. Yeah, the sabros were all over the place. I know. It's got an interesting blueberry note, and I could see that kind of picking up a little bit of blueberry here. So a little bit of background. When we talk about NA beers, for the most part, the government labeling is that your ABV has to clock in somewhere between nothing, like 0.0 and 0.5 percent. So NA beers are made a few different ways. Some of them are brewed as a full normal beer with alcohol, and then the alcohol is removed. Then others are, sometimes that's done a few different ways. Or now, a big practice is that people are using this different type of yeast that starts to ferment, but isn't able to ferment any higher than that legal realm. So it's like a suspended fermentation. But if you do that, how do you get a proper attenuation, just less malt, less available sugar? Maybe you don't convert the sugar. It definitely is. This is kind of, again, in the past, it was usually just we're taking the alcohol out. So an argument as to why some of these taste a little different now, a little better now. I think the recipe development is pretty involved process now. Do they, when they take the alcohol out, is there like a machine that they like wore it around in, or how does that work? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like in, so up in Wisconsin, there's Brewery Octopi that does a lot of contract brewing, and they were famous for having this machine. And what I always thought was kind of interesting, like the Untitled Arts NA's, I don't know if you ever heard of those, they also were somewhat well known for their hard seltzers. So they're actually able to take the alcohol out of a brewed beer, and then they reuse the alcohol to spike seltzers. That's crazy. That was kind of clever. Very efficient. Isn't there like a, there's a centrifuge one, isn't there? Maybe this was more on wine, but there's something with a... Yeah, it's used in both. It's called a spinning cone. Yes. And the way it works is it's a vacuum distillation at cooler temperatures, and the liquid is kind of poured in a thin sheet over a cone, and because of this vacuum, you can get evaporation of volatile aromas and alcohol, which happens at a lower temperature in any case than water and whatnot. The magic of that, allegedly, is the first things, the most volatile things come off are these ephemeral aromas, these ethereal aromas. You capture those, set them aside, then you get your alcohol off, then you reincorporate the things you want to keep back in. So that's the spinning. That's pretty cool. As opposed to reverse osmosis, where they're literally taking alcohol out through a semi-permeable membrane. The old way is to be boiling it, right? Well, the very old way. You can definitely boil alcohol away. This happens in restaurant kitchens every day. Yeah. Anytime you're making a reduction sauce with whatever, beer, wine, cognac, your goal is to burn that alcohol off and be left with the flavors. But it doesn't taste the same when you do it further than a product. It definitely does not. When you heat it up, it degrades it. Probably the worst method you could imagine doing it. I'd love to see one of these machines someday. All right, so our next beer is from Go Brewing, which is located in Naperville. They actually ended up partnering up with the folks at Noon Whistle, and formed a whole separate beverage company. Yeah. So a lot of these, their beer is essentially made at the big Noon Whistle facility in Naperville. I can't remember seeing all their stuff when we were out there for a collab visit. So this is called Disarm Hazy IPA. So I figured we would stick with some of the hazy options out there. This is made with Crush, the hop formerly known as HBC586. Sabro again. Yeah, Sabro's had its day. And Strato, which is a really cool new hop. So yeah, give this a try. This one, one thing of notes that's interesting, back when hazies are really taking off here in Chicagoland, there's kind of a controversy of that some of them feature lactose. So lactose is utilized in the brewing world through things like milk stouts. It adds a little sweetness but also creaminess like body. You really want to accentuate kind of that soft, smooth, creamy mouth feel. This has got some lactose in it. And the Sam Adams definitely did not. I mean, there's no hint of that, in my opinion. This has more of a alum type aroma, that kind of chive thing in the nose. Yep. I do get that. Yeah. It's much more oniony. It does seem a little sweeter. Very oniony. Which could be the lactose. There's a little bit of a creaminess. Yeah. That presence is definitely made known. Although it's not extreme, I don't think. No. It's definitely not. I wouldn't even say sweet, but it rounds things off. Yeah. It's pretty light. Very light. The color is like, it looks like grapefruit juice. Yeah. Interesting. The Sam Adams, I forgot to mention, comes in six packs or 12 packs. The six packs are $12.99. This guy, Go Brewing Stuff, comes in six packs for the same price, $12.99. Yeah. If we're comparing the two, the Sam Adams definitely had a fruitier, sweeter take on this style. Despite the creaminess of this one, it's much leaner on the fruity hoppiness. It's leaning more sulfury, garlicky, that kind of thing. One thing that's worth mentioning with NA is also, when I could find it, I'm going to try to share the calories here. Since they don't have alcohol in them, they're typically pretty low calorie. They're either in well within light beer range, which is usually around 95 to 115 calories. I would guess this one is less than that. This one's actually 95. I would imagine some of it might be from the lactose. Yeah, that's a good point. Some of them get super low. There's ones that are 25. That's something to look when you're perusing our shelves and you see the very wide selection of NA that we have right now. That's something to look for on both the packaging or I try to put it on the hang tags when available. Because a lot of people are obviously turning to this with better minded health choices in mind. Low Cal can be a benefit of exploring this category further. It's a light crunchy style. I would pair that with vegetable based foods. Yeah, definitely. Whoa, look at that can. So this is one of the newer ones here. This I was, I have yet to taste this. So I will be trying this for the first time on the podcast. Blue Moon, one of the giants of the beer world, one of the best selling beers in the history of American craft, I guess. Remember when we used to do this song on the street corner in our doo-wop group, Roger? Has anyone seen the advert? I drive past a billboard that calls Blue Moon, Chicago's new orange and blue for the Bears. Has anyone seen that advertising? That's pretty funny. It smells very orangey. Oh, yeah. The orange really pops in this, which is a smart move to put that to the fore. Definitely. Little background. Blue Moon is a riff on a Belgian style wit beer. Belgian style wit beer is the feature. Typically, originally, it was curacao, which is that bitter orange that you may have tasted things like Grand Marnier, triple sec, dry curacao. Very aromatic, yet very bitter orange peel that's dried and then used for its aromatics as like a spice. They would use that in coriander. The riff for with Blue Moon, it was made out in Colorado. I believe it was designed for some sporting team. Maybe the Rockies. Yeah, something like that. I think it was like they needed, and they decided to also add some sweet orange peel. That definitely is what's popping here. It's definitely sweet orange here. I think the coriander is turned way down. Yeah, not as hot doggy. Not as hot doggy. I like it. Yeah, I'm surprised. I'm not a big Blue Moon fan. I like a good bit beer sometimes in the summer, but I've never been a huge Blue Moon fan. But this, I like maybe better than the regular because it's just all about the orange. It is all about the orange. I mean, this almost has like orange crush. Yeah, it might get me into enemy territory when I say this, but I feel like this would make a really fun beer mosa. Yeah. Blue Moon typically makes a really good beer mosa, and you don't really need to add the orange juice here. You're halfway there already. You're already there, yeah. Yeah. It's so dialed up. It's good. I would make a beer mosa out of this by adding alcoholic sparkling wine. That's exactly what I was thinking. This is my orange juice, yes, yes. This is available in six packs or 12 packs, so you can stop by Binnys or you when we've been putting the 12 packs on sale from the Blue Moon family. Some really great savings. If you're a Blue Moon fan, you got to give this a try. If you're just looking for any options in general, as I think we've all established, orange is the star of the show here. It's quite nice. Yeah, pleasant and refreshing. I can imagine drinking that outside in the summer for sure. I almost want to freeze this. It reminds me of a slush. That would be good. All right, this one, it's kind of interesting. Rationale, or rationale. Rationale is a new NA producer. We just started carrying them in 2026. They put out a whole swath of different styles. They've got everything from inspired by like a Mexican lager to West Coast IPA to East Coast IPA. I brought a couple to try from them. And the first one that I wanted to try, I think is really kind of what's sparking the most interest with them. They're doing a Japanese style dry. So they're trying to emulate like the dry Japanese lagers, things like Sapporo. But they have a little tweak on it. I think we've all noticed lately with a lot of these, they're kind of like adding a little something to the NA's. This is called Japanese style dry and it features cherry blossom. Well, that makes it into that Japanese realm a little bit. This was originally, I think, just perceived as a one-off experimental thing, but it had such good feedback and fanfare that instead of just being in a rotating variety pack, it's available in six packs just on its own now. Roger, do you remember the German style diet pills that was made for people with blood sugar problems, that that dry style is based on? Yeah, so- Diet pills. The only reason I know about that is that there was a little beer called Meister Brau, Diat. This company, you guys may have heard of it, Miller Brewing Company. Yeah. They ended up buying Meister Brau Diat. You know what they reworked that into? Miller Lite. Miller Lite. Yeah. When you said diet pills, I thought you meant P-I-L-L-S. Same. D-I-E-T-M-A. Did they realize that that was methamphetamine? Yeah. I was very confused for a moment there. I liked a pair of the two. You can definitely get the cherry blossom in there. Right? So you were talking about how do you make sure it fully attenuates, which if a beer doesn't attenuate it, it becomes too sweet, correct? It will be, yeah, it will remain sweet and wordy. So it's got to be harder than even still to make an NA beer that's dry, right? Well, right. If you're using that method, you'd either have to use grains that maybe some of them aren't malted at all, which happens occasionally, or maybe not convert from starches to fermentable sugar as much with your rest. Or you would have to just come up with a really lean mash bill to begin with. Yeah. I think that's what they're doing. Yeah. But how lean can you make it? Right. Apparently lean enough. Yeah. This also has Saphir hops, which I think is an interesting choice. So Saphir is newer German varietal that has a little more citrus than your typical land race like old school German noble hops. Who made one, was it a major, like Heineken or somebody? Who made one? Becks. Becks, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sometimes also it's a Darling hop of Italian style Pilsners, which are really just Northern German Pilsners essentially. Yeah. But I thought this was kind of refreshing and I like that little something extra that the cherry brings you without being obnoxiously floral. It's definitely cherry blossom though. It's not cherry. It's not fruity like that. It's cherry blossom. You're right. And it is very well judged in my opinion. It's there, but it's not crazy. I'm finding this tasting to be quite pleasant surprise, Roger. And you were dreading it. I believe you said you were going to walk out if you had to do this. I don't think I ever said anything of the sort. I guess too, I feel like sometimes I really appreciate when beers, I know that they could be awful. When you take a chance with weird adjuncts or like it can go so wrong, and especially with things like saisons and things that use spices and floral kind of elements, I'm like, oh boy, this could just be like eating Yankee Candle, you know? Right. But that seems like it would be kind of the easiest way to go when making an NA. Because you can add all these other flavors and kind of make up for the fact that you're not getting the flavor of fermented grain. Right. I think that's the trap of things like this. Yeah, because you want to make up for it, but maybe that's not the smart way to go. Yeah, I mean, it's probably because it's really hard to do. Yeah. Again, that's Rationale Brewing, available in six packs, $11.99. Or Rationale, I'm not sure. Rationale. Yeah, I suppose you're supposed to say Rationale, but it is a play on Rationale. Let's hope we don't get to the question. Rationale is a word. Or Rationale, okay. Rationale and Rationale, they're two different words. What is your rationale for using the word rational? Right. There's some story on their website you can read about the founder and talking to his sons before they went to college about making good life choices. Whatever. He decided to make NIMB so they could party with their friends, but not get go down that terrible college rabbit hole. It says Golden Colorado. Are they bought by Coors? No. A lot of these things are contracted places. I believe they're contracting for our market out of Octopi. Okay. I think they're based in San Diego, actually. San Diego. All right, so this seemed like a gimme of to why not try the new Sapporo. So speaking of Japanese dry loggers, by way of San Diego actually too. Interesting. So don't forget Sapporo own Stone. So now they're brewing a bunch of stuff at Stone. What's that thing called when something tastes buttery? Dicetal. Is there one for like in wine, sometimes you drink a wine that's soy saucy? Yeah. Is there one for that type of flavor or am I- Yeah, that umami, sure. Yeah, a lot. Usually, you'll equate it with really like a tallisized, so like when yeast isn't healthy enough or is stressed from oftentimes being Imperial stouts that are really high in alcohol, you get some of that. So again, I don't know with this how they're manipulating the, if this is removed. Does this say 00? Less than 0.5. Okay. I agree with this assessment. In the nose, I get a light shoyu, like Japanese style soy sauce right in on the top. But it also has an unusual soft fruitiness in the mid palate, that like, I don't know, like soft peach, maybe a little citrus. But I don't know where that's coming from. I get that peach for sure. Yeah. I'm, again, I don't have a ton of background on the process. A lot of these are not super transparent. A lot of it's very proprietary. I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying. Like this is strange. It definitely has a little bit of fruitiness to it. It doesn't taste like Sapporo. I will say that. I don't think it, yeah. I guess maybe I need to have one too. Well, I mean, I don't think it says crisp or straightforward lagerie. There's that fruitiness that- Yeah. Like apples. Like apple juice kind of almost. Yeah. Some kind of palm fruit or orchard fruit, which I don't think shows up in Sapporo, although I can't say the last time I had apples. Well, the hop character here is not as dry. Yeah, for sure. It's still got some bitterness too. Not quite the end, but just before the end and not quite the middle. Is this one that states natural flavors in it? Yeah. It doesn't say on there. I don't have it in the notes. Water, malted barley, yeast, hops, and natural flavor. Oh, there you go. 60 calories. They're putting something in here to- Yeah. You know what it must be? They must be the two grams of protein. Yeah. I think they probably thought that they could add some sort of vague citrus fruit kind of thing because that's so equivalent to hops slash- Right. Yeah. It's like what Jim was saying, like a little bit of compensation for things that are missing. You add a little extra fruitiness. I'm sure this is going to get- They always emphasize with their normal beer, the go-to thing is you drink this with sushi. So almost to your point of the ponzu, maybe that was an aim of, well, if we're going to constantly try to get people to think of this as something you drink with sushi, maybe that fruitiness to this would parallel that. That makes sense. I would drink that with sushi, I guess. Yeah. It is interesting. There's like an interesting combination that makes me keep drinking it. Yeah. It's not completely lacking in interest. Yeah, it does bring you back for more. All right. So Sapporo available now in six packs, 10.99. OK, the next beer is another new one. This brand is called Years. Well, some of the fanfare behind this one is that it is one of the people backing it is John Mulaney, the comedian. They have a great social media presence, these guys. So they have a couple of different offerings. We are going to try keeping these inspired by lager thing going here. This is their Original Pills. This is made with a hop that is growing in popularity, and it's grown right here in the Midwest. We're not necessarily known for many hops, but one of the ones that's grown in Michigan is a variant of Saz, the famous Czech hop. It's called Zupa Saza. Zupa and Sandwich. Zupa. Zupa Saza is a key hop in art history's Pilsner. They're German one. So I became familiar with the hop via them. So when I heard that ridiculous name, stuck with me now. So I will say, this smells like a real Pilsner. Like you get that grassy. I mean, it is the, I mean, Saza is the Pilsner hop. A little dink in there. Yeah. The defining noble hop of Czechoslovakia for sure. I really like this. It tastes like a, I mean, I think it's been the closest in terms of actually tasting, not being able to tell it's an A. Yeah. I was pretty impressed. This looks the part. Yeah. It's got some head, it's got nice clarity, that aroma is spot on. Yeah. Color and clarity. All of that is true. The one thing that is impossible to replace though, is that that alcoholic body. Yeah. That's a little thin. Yeah. It's too lean. Yeah. But I mean, what are you going to do about it? Let's put glycol in it. Yeah. Right. Like xanthan gum or, yeah. Right. I mean, yeah. One thing I think they deserve credit for, like I was saying, there's a lot of people who don't really talk about how it is that they make their beer. These guys are truly transparent on it, and they're talking about how they use this yeast, which is called a maltose negative yeast strain. This unique yeast strain can't ferment the malt sugars that create most of the beer's alcohol. They're really big on saying that the beer is still naturally fermented, though, and that they're not removing alcohol and stripping things away. Interesting. Again, this is new science. The last few years, one of the approaches you can take. Hey, I think they pulled it off with this one. Thomas Dolby approved. What? She blinded me with science. Science. 50 calories. How about that? That's the lowest one we've tried today. I mean, that's about half the calories in your typical light beer. So that's something. Yeah. Well done, John Mulaney. Yeah. John Mulaney probably had nothing to do with actually making the beer. You think not? Good get on getting him to talk to drink it. Okay. So this is available to Binny's and are you for the nice price of 10.99. Nice. Nice. You said a four-pack, six-pack? Six-pack, 12-ounce. Nice. Most of these have been six-pack, 12-ounce. With the exception of a couple of them, you can also get in a 12-pack, 12-ounce. Jim Spied this. This is a brand spanking new addition to the NA Offerings. We are about to taste through. Local Pipeworks Brewing has created a non-alcoholic version of their famous Ninja versus Unicorn, which is a double IPA, right? So, this is an NA double IPA, huh? Which doesn't make any sense at all. We'll see. Which some other companies have insisted that it's a thing. We were really kind of head-scratching, but you can essentially think of it as more hops. So, even though the alcohol is out of the equation, you do use a lot more hops in a double IPA versus a single traditional IPA. Is there any dry hopping happening here? Got to be. Yeah. As far as I know, it's all the same processes. Same type of hops, dry hopped. I've never had this. We're experiencing this for the first time as well. Who's winning? Ninja? Unicorn. This tastes more like, I would say, like the volume 2 era of NA beers where they're kind of warty and they weren't being unfermented beer. Yeah, there's a little, I mean, obviously, a lot more hop character in it. Yeah. This is exactly what I was expecting it to taste like, to be honest. Yeah, I think it's okay. It's solid. The interesting thing I think is this has the richest body of anything we've tasted today. It actually feels a little bit more like a beer, just texturally. Which makes sense, because I was saying, like, it definitely has that wort taste, which isn't... For sure. I've had them a lot more grainy than this, but like, yeah, that is one benefit of having that kind of under-fermented is that at least you get some body from it. It is grainy, a little husky in its grain. Yeah. The nose, though, has a little bit of that raw hop kind of... You definitely get some hop. Oh yeah. I was going to say that the hop character in the nose is not... Like sticking your face in a bag of fresh hops. As a non-hoppy beer enjoyer, this is exactly what I... If someone were to blind taste test, I think maybe I would pull it out, that I'm like, something's off there about the mouthfeel. But I think flavor-wise, it's extremely close. It definitely has a dank cannabis-y interesting quality. Yeah, I mean, it's... Ninja vs. Unicorn is, if I remember, kind of a darker color than this. Not much. You don't think so? Really? I mean, this looks like, again, I hate to use it again, but this looks like grapefruit juice. Yeah, it's a little paler, I suppose. Stylistically, this beer was kind of a revelation, I think, when it came out. It was kind of a... Not a hazy, it wasn't a hazy, it wasn't the first hazy. But I think if you compare the current hazies now to Ninja vs. Unicorn, Ninja vs. Unicorn feels like, I don't know, arrogant bastard almost. Yeah. Well, yeah, because it had bitterness. I think... It was maltier. It's a maltier beer than the current hazies. What it shared in common was like dry hopping. I mean, it was definitely very aromatic, but it still had like malt and hop structure. It wasn't just juice. And they weren't going for hazy at that point. That wasn't a thing. I think what Pipeworks is probably going for here is more like just giving, entering the category. And if you look at this from the venue or from the viewpoint of like, how does this compare to the normal one? Yeah. It might not really work. Yeah. But it's just like a decent NA beer. Yeah. Interesting point, Roger, because I was just thinking exactly that thing. Like, do you think that this is a wise marketing strategy? Because they're so famously brewing different things all the time. Is it good to ride on the coattails of their most beloved beer to enter this category? Literally putting a saddle on that unicorn and riding into the sunset? Right. Or should they have come up with a... They should have come up with a different branding. I mean, because they have so many different ninja versus unicorn spin-offs. Yeah. That's what I would have done. Yeah. Incorporate something with unicorns because they've done that a million times. Right. But... Can't they just do a different something? Maybe they will. Blank versus unicorn? Yeah. Could have been some other... Yeah. Then they've done a ninja... I mean, they have a... Yeah, there's a bunch of different ninja versus unicorn thing, variants, things like that. So... I mean, it's a pretty angry looking unicorn really. Yeah. It's because they took the booze away. All right. Available at Select Binny's $1,199 a four-pack. Flying off our shelves according to the beer people next door. All right. So, speaking of old school IPAs... West Coast. I have another one from rationale. This is their West Coast IPA. I was pretty impressed with this beer. Or any product. I guess they're not. That is a big debate. Do you call them beers or not? I think you can call them beers. I don't know. Calling it like an India Pale Ale or a lager. Branding is good. There's kind of an argument about that these days, about whether or not you use the word ale or lager. Maybe we're mincing. As long as you make it clear to the consumer, it's non-alcoholic. I think it's fine to give them a point of reference as to what they're trying to make this. Yeah. I think it would be silly to divorce this from the idea of beer, lager or ale. A lot of them now are labeled like dark or golden because they don't want to let them say like lager, ale. So this is Amarillo Cascade and Chinook. So some old school. Little more color. I think it's probably the prettiest of some of them. I also think if you're used to drinking session IPAs, if you like session IPAs, lower alcohol IPAs, I think this is very close to that. All of the IPAs, I think the IPAs we've had today. I thought a lot that the hop character in this one to me reminded me the most of, and again, probably I think you're hitting home with a founders all day. Yeah, because you know. A sea hop kind of. Yeah, but it's also just the body. Usually those are dryer on the dryer side and lighter. Lighter and all that stuff. The overall impression here is a session IPA. Sure. Yeah. Well put, Jim. Session impression. Yeah, the session impression. With your sabrosif, Jim. Let me start a new podcast. The sabrosif. That's my username, sabrosif420 on the message boards. Muy sabrosa. Little bit of mall character, citrus, little pine. Available at Binny's Near You, six packs, 11.99. Rational. They should start putting these in our military's MREs. Don't you think? All right, we've come to the end of the line. Promised you variety, I have a dark NA beer now. I've been wanting to try a dark NA for a long time. Newer, newish supplier, this is Best Day Brewing out of Sausalito, California, Brewed Under Special Arrangement in Milwaukee, Miliwaki. They elected three socialist mayors. This is Dark Diamond, which is their Mexican style dark. Again, they're not, I guess they can't write lager on there. So again, I- Negro Modelo. This is like trying to be a Negro Modelo type. That lager sensibility. Dunklers. Is a very misunderstood style. It's German based, you know, stylistically, it's essentially a German dunkle. As we learned from the three amigos, there were Germans in Mexico. Yes. And Austrians. Yeah. Broader Mexico, too. I mean, you know, half of our country used to be Mexico, basically. You know, a lot of the brisket and sausages and stuff in Texas are very German. The Kalachkis. Don't they have a Kalachki scene? Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Yeah. Well, how about the Oompa music? Right. I mean, it's the Mexican folk music. Not to mention the Oompa music definitely has that, you know, the accordion, the accordion. And Lexi's over there drinking and we're idiots talking about Oompa music. I know. I think I'm going to interpret that facial expression was that kind of tastes like the real thing. It does taste like the real thing. I like it. I think this is supposed to be a dark beer, but I feel like it tastes more just like a straight up lager and a lager tastes like a really light lager. Yeah, I agree. It's kind of just one step off. Yeah, take the scale and just bring it down a notch. Yeah. That's how NA is operate. But it's still very good. It's still like this tastes I think the least NA. Put a different way, maybe when you're, since we've, since especially through the podcast, we've tried so many dark, dark bloggers. Sure, absolutely. I mean, yeah. This is more like if you blinded someone on this and said like, this is an Oktoberfest, I think people will go, oh yeah. Or get like any German dunkel, like a Eieringer or something. The color is not that off from this. The one thing I would say is I have not tasted this yet, but the malt character in the nose is very good. It smells chocolatey and malty and on the rich side. But I don't think it's as malty as maybe a Negra Modelo. But it's still very enjoyable. I think they undershot the color a little. It could be a little darker, but Negra isn't as dark as most people think it is. The packaging and the bottle are real dark. It's a little darker than this, but this is very much in the family of a Vienna, which is super popular in Mexican law. So think Dos Equis Amber, Victoria. There's definitely a heritage of these amber colored. For sure. Not necessarily dark dark, but darker than a Pilsner. Yeah. But I get hop character here. I get malt character, body. Yeah, this is a real surprise here. I'm impressed. Yeah. I also love the can. It's very fun and youthful. Yeah. I like the branding. There's it tells you the calories and big where you can read it. Like, what does that artwork remind you of? Who's the artist that comes to mind when you say that? Like, the little figures. Yeah. Yeah. And the Christmas album. Yes. I don't know what that is. I can't think of his name, though. Or kind of really early Matt Groening. Yeah, for sure. The rabbits or whatever he used to do. NABer's Hell. Yes. Exactly. Keith Haring was the name of that artist, by the way. So yeah, Best Day Brewing. They make some decent products. I recommend them. We have a variety pack you can check out from them. But this, of all the beers I've tried from them, I think this has been the standout. Don't sleep on this because it is a limited release. I'm not quite sure where they came up with doing this at this time of year. But a dark beer has always been associated with colder weather. So there's that maybe. But pick this up. We have it on sale for a crazy good price. This is normally $11.99. You can get it for $7.99 a six pack. I'd say this is your must buy. If you're on the fence and you're like, I don't know about all this, at least give this one a try. I'm going to go over there as soon as we finish this podcast. Excellent. Well, thanks for joining me for the ride here, y'all. Again, January is when we tend to really shine a light on these options, but we have them all year long. So whatever brings you to the NA Isle, or if you've been curious, the selection and options has never been better. Yeah. Thanks, Roger. Really, I think there have been some strides made in this category just since last year. If nothing else in the varieties, it used to really just be all logger, and then eventually we got a few IPAs, and now I'm pretty impressed with some of the riffs that people are doing, and I think they're bringing a lot more choice to the category. Yeah. The blue moon would be quite delightful on a summer day. Yes. Or with a scoop of ice cream in it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could do that. Beer float. Maybe some sherbet, orange sherbet. I don't know. Sunday morning with the sun shining. Brunch. I would drink that. Great. Well, thanks again for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast. We will be back in your feed with a new topic very soon. Thank you for listening. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a review of the podcast and don't forget to share our podcast with your friends and family. Until next time, I am Roger. I am Jim. I am Chris. I am that. I am Lexi. Keep tasting. Not a drop of alcohol will blame that on you.