So what we're going to do here, I'm going to drink some beer and then go take my kids to softball practice? So it's a normal Monday for Pam Robey. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We have a new episode here for you today that's What's New in Beer. Ooh, we love new beer here. Except when it's hazy and IPA and all that other stuff I don't like. Yeah, it's always been a challenge for me to put these together because Brophy and Greg typically don't like what's new in beer, so I'm always bending over backwards to try to find- Also, we don't like what's old in beer. I was gonna say that ironically, they don't like what's old in beer. Yeah, so it's pretty much, you see the rock in a hard place that I'm always in. Poor little orphan Roger there, just downtrodden and beat up. Who's your daddy Warbucks? Well, we have a nice mix today, so I went with local producers, some craft from across the country, even an import here as well. Trend-wise, we're all over the map, so it's a good mix today. Good mix, you say? Indeed. I'm Pat, I season the golf mix here at Binny's Beverage Depot. Hi, I'm Chris, I'm the Wasabi P. I'm Ray, and I'm still homeless, so I'm hanging with these guys drinking the new beers today. Living in a cardboard box in the alley. That's RSR to you, residual sugar, Ray. Still not sweet enough. We'll get you there, baby. The first beer that I want to start with today is from Firestone Walker. We're obviously big fans of Firestone. I've seen some changes over the years as far as their approach to things famous for some old school core beers, things like Union, Jack, Pivo Pills. I was drinking DBA last week. I bought a sixer of that DBA. It's delicious. It can be a real challenge in the beer world to try to figure out if you should be chasing trends or trying to go after a specific style. I think Firestone really hit on something special with this release. It's called XPA. Instead of worrying about necessarily, oh, we need to follow on this one, I think in a way they're leading. It's actually an homage to a trend that's happening down in the southern hemisphere right now. XPA has become a known style. When I heard it, for old school beer nerds like myself, think of Summit Brewing. They made a name for themselves with their extra pale ale. This is an homage to the current new extra pale ales that are being brewed down in New Zealand and Australia. It's really a style that's taken off. I think it mirrors what we're seeing a little bit here in terms of IPA is just people are looking for things that are a little crisper, more drinkable, a move away from the pastry hazy side of things and back towards the kind of beers that you can really put down. I hate to use this word, but crushable is definitely something that's been thrown out there when talking about XPA. Cool can too. Wow, that's dry. Shimmers in the light. Gold can, gold top. It's hard to show me something I haven't seen in the biz before, and that stood out. Judging this beer on its looks, huh? Gold capsule. Kind of a lesson are you teaching our younger employees. That was always a big part of beer in the lager classes that I was doing recently. We were talking about, so why did Pilsner become such a beloved style? It was the first beer that was lager that was beautiful to look at. I always thought the saying was kind of dumb, but it's somewhat true. You eat first with your eyes. Strange, but I get the concept here. If something looks appealing, you're probably going to enjoy it more. Beautiful gold can here, and it's really kind of reflected also in the color of the beer here. It's like sparkling gold. It really does look nice in the glass. Yeah, very clear and bright. Beautiful. And then, part of the reason I'm digging this is that I really enjoy Nelson Sauvin hops. They're one of my favorite hops, so that's one of the featured hops here. Yeah, it's absolutely loaded with that kind of Southern Hemisphere hop aroma. Mm-hmm. Really, really dry and crisp on the palate. I would be hard pressed to even know this was ale. I mean, I'm not getting a lot of esters in the nose or anything. Yeah, very toned down. Yeah, it's a very, very crisp style and really super attenuated. That's what they've been doing lately at Firestone. It's funny you say that they've gone so far as to change the yeast in some of their IPAs to lager yeast. Mm-hmm. So, you could- Cold IPAs? Yeah, they're technically cold IPAs, yeah, but I think like us, they somewhat struggle with explaining that to people. So, to some point, IPAs jump the shark in the sense of there are no rules. You can call anything you want an IPA. So, I guess we've reached the point now where it doesn't even need to be an ale, and you can still call it an IPA, which is I think maybe we need to take a couple steps back. Sounds like you're dismissing my cherry sundae lactose cream IPA. Yeah, and you could argue if one of the defining characteristics in IPA was hot bitterness for the sense of stability, and that's completely gone out the window. There's plenty of IPAs now where there's no hops in the boil. I mean, I guess you could just brew them with lager yeast and say they're an IPA, as we say they are. Well, don't you think an IPA, you should still be able to ship it to India and it would turn out fine after the long voyage from old England? The ultimate test of quality. You must put it on the con TV. It's got to go around the horn of Africa. The current IPAs wouldn't even make it out of the harbor before they spoiled. So I see this is only 5% alcohol. Is that typical of this style from Down Under and their mates to the, what is that? That's East. East, yes. I wasn't sure what side of the dateline I was on, so I was like, wait a minute, is it East or West? Yeah, I think this is, it's still probably more in the pale ale. What's made me laugh over the years is, especially when session IPAs hit the market, is why are we bending backwards to try to figure out a way to rebrand pale ale? If you want something that's like an IPA, but not as high in alcohol or bitterness, you could just make a pale ale, yet marketing is real and getting people to give a beer a chance is a thing. We came up with this session IPA. When they call this an extra pale ale, I don't know if they're trying to appeal more to people that would want a pale ale or people that want an IPA. My guess is that they like that it works for both. If you do dig pails, which Chicago actually has a lot of, well, some breweries more than other places where their flagship is a pale ale. I think we're more receptive to pale ales maybe than other parts of the country because of long standing beers like mainly Daisy Cutter is the first one that comes to mind. But you have beers like, for as famous Rev is for Antihero, I think probably the hidden gem of their portfolio is their pale ale, Fist City. And it's just saying it's a great beer. So lots of other examples too, Pipeworks has some great pale ales. So I think if you're considering buying this beer, and I think you should, whether you're a fan of IPAs or a fan of pale ales, you should give this a try because the hop profile here is pretty cool. Again, it features Nelson and Mosaic and the dry hop, but then it's also brewed with Hallertau tradition, Mosaic and Citra. I think the Hallertau tradition was an interesting thing to incorporate here. Yeah. Yeah, I think you really get that on the palate. So the nose is all about those newer wave hops, right? But there is some bitterness on the finish here and it lingers in that kind of- Kind of piney too. Earthy old world way and there's some piney elements too, yeah. They really like Hallertau tradition and it's interesting, like the demand and the yields on English hops are so poor right now that is really difficult for some of these breweries to get good English hops. So when you had mentioned DBA, that's kind of the Firestone Walker original flagship that we got finally a drop back of again. I noticed the hops there, they said that they made it with some Hallertau tradition. So I asked Matt about that. I'm like, is this correct? Sometimes people just have typos on their website because someone went into the HTML and copied the wrong thing. He's like, lately we've been using a little tradition in it because we want a noble S character, an old world character, and sometimes it can be difficult for us to get enough of say like an EKG to pull it off. Is this the second Saxon invasion? 1066 lookout. Yeah, it's a real problem in England right now with the classic varietals are just not doing well in the warmer weather. The nice thing is that if people here are starting to make things like ESBs, bitters and milds, they should just swap out these new more tolerant varieties because tradition be damned, who cares? But over there, if Hook Norton is going to brew their bitter, they're not just going to be like, oh yeah, we just subbed in this new hop that grows better. And no, no, no, there would be none of that. We've been making this one way for the last 240 years. There probably aren't a lot of breweries that are willing to do that with a flagship year round beer, right? Just say, hey, you don't swallow. Yeah, I mean, we're going to use what's available to us and hopefully you like it. And if you don't, you'll have to wait till the old hop comes back around. Yeah, it's a weird situation and I think it's been pretty difficult. So I think most of the home market that needs it and can't just swap stuff out is buying up most of it. So it'll be interesting to see moving forward some of these new varietals. I think Germany is experiencing the exact same thing and having the exact same problems with breweries that have recipes that are hundreds of years old. They don't want to just switch something out, but they're going to have to start having some tough decisions here and maybe blending at first, you know, incorporating some of a new hop. Are they trialing any new hops just to account for climate change and planning in different places? They are. There's tons of them. It's just getting the people to adopt them, especially over there is very challenging. So American brewers, this is where you can step up to the plate. We've always been good at not being afraid of trying new things. And, you know, people used to talk about our hops, especially those limey Brits. They wanted nothing to do with our Pacific Northwest grown hops. But, you know, ironically, some of the rootstocks and rhizomes are probably going to save your old school hops. And now everybody wants a lot of the flavors of the new hops grown here. So another question about hops in the Pacific Northwest with the recent freezes they had up there. Is that going to is that going to impact the hop harvest like it does the wine harvest? I don't know for sure. I'd have to look into that. I would imagine it might not be good. It might be still too early yet that it might not have affected it. Washington's far more, at least the most of the wine areas in Washington are far more desert and hot than British Columbia. But they do the one problem they do have is with the frost. That's the major factor that Washington wine growers have to account for. Yeah, and I think counter to like the maybe common belief about climate change is it's not an even thing. It's not just everything's warming up. It's unpredictability that's becoming a real problem in a lot of places. Sure, the global temperature is rising, but inopportune frosts are becoming more common across the globe. Late frosts that people aren't expecting. It's a weird situation. It's going to be very, very interesting in the next 20, 40, 60 years. To wrap up on Firestone Walker, one other thing that I thought was neat about this, we always end up with craft beer in America, especially talking about hop varieties, and it really steals the conversation a lot of the time. What I've always tried to get people to think more about is malt, and both independent or small maltsters, but then just unique whenever somebody is using something that's like heirloom or something that's a little off the beaten path. The core components here are very common, not anything too crazy, but I did think it was interesting and worth noting that Firestone Walker identified the purveyors for the three core grains in there. They use raw, craft, two-row, great western white wheat, and briece carapils. I think it's neat. I think that's something that those companies deserve some attention. They're talking about a couple of family-owned companies there that have been around for quite some time. We should be thinking more about grain and the malting process when we appreciate why we like certain craft beers. Hopefully, we see more of that. I hope more breweries do that. We in our collab did recently with Goldfinger and Pollyanna, used a bunch of Sugar Creek malts. It'll be fun to see if people continue to do that and talk about it because hops just have had the spotlight on them for too long. And at some point, it's like there's not enough to say about some of these varieties. We've really beaten things like Mosaic and Citrate of Death. They're great. But let's talk about some of the other components of beer that make it special. So maybe grain is going to be the next thing people start talking about. Yeast has gotten a little attention lately with the thialized yeast, especially here. Omega is all about that. Local company Omega Yeast in Chicago. So anyway, I wanted to give a shout out to Firestone for doing that and to say, you know, more breweries should talk about ingredients besides just the hops. Hey, Roger, how much wheat is in this? They don't give like percentages, but. That's interesting because I thought I detected a kind of dry wheatiness to it, but no haze at all. No, no, not at all. I think it would definitely be here to just lighten, and keep everything really light, maybe 10 percent or something. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty interesting. Great beer. I hope they keep making it. 11.99 a six pack. I thought an excellent out the gate effort from Firestone this year. Thank you. Let's hit up our second beer here. This one, some similar, we were talking about German hops in the last one, as well as wheat. This beer has both. Brof, you were asking about this. Hell yeah. We are going to be trying the Braupacht Collaboration Beer between Winehen Steffaner and St. Bernardus. Excellent, I was gonna buy some of that today. Two of the best breweries out there. Hell yeah, they are. This is really gonna be fun. I'm curious to see what you guys think. So let's pop this open. This was brewed at Winehen Steffaner, famously the oldest continuously running brewery in the world. They can date back that they've been brewing there since 1050, which is, or 1040, I'm sorry. Their competition is since 1050 over at Welton Burger. For this beer, St. Bernardus, a famous Belgian brewer who for many years was contract brewing, essentially the brews of West of Letharin, one of the white whales for old beer geeks. A Trappist beer that has very rarely been sold legally here in the US. For the most part, it was always something you had to know somebody and get some brought back for you. But when the authentic Trappist program came into being, part of that was that there had to actually be some monastic connection on-premise when you were making the beer. So they no longer could brew for West of Letharin, but essentially, the recipes, the practice, everything remained the same. They just needed to come up with a new brand, and St. Bernardus is what they went with. It was a nod to near the area of where the brewery was, there was some- A dog kennel? No, there were some, I think it was around like the late 1800s, a sect of monks had was escaping, kind of like the secularization over in France. They settled near something and called it something of St. Bernard. So it's kind of a throwback to that. So it's not necessarily like one of the Trappist or Abbey breweries, but it's a nod to those styles. So beers made in that way. They're pretty famous for their Triple. And I think this beer was an attempt to capture the lighter side of St. Bernardus, along with melding it then with Wein-Hahn-Stefan, or a soup most famously well known for their Hefeweizen. This incorporates the Wein-Stefan yeast, barley hops, but then also there's some Belgian hops grown in the area around the St. Bernardus brewery. I was kind of surprised that they, I guess, when you have a brewery like Wein-Stefan, they're gonna want to use their yeast if it's brewed at their place, but I don't know, for whatever reason, when I hear Blondale, that's so associated with Belgium. Wait, wait, wait. So what does this say? This is triple, Bernardus, triple in character? No, I thought, I think so in a way. I think there's an element of it there. But they're just calling it a Blondale. Yeah, they're calling it a Blondale. It's super spicy and esthery. But it's almost like it's got that spicy Belgian ester to it, but there's a bit of that hefeweiss banana character too. There's a lot of banana and a ton of clove. I'm just getting a lot of clove on the nose. Yeah, I'm picking that banana, particularly in the palate too. It is spicy. My first sniff I thought of, and this may sound weird, like a heavily spiced sausage. I know. Yeah, I can see that for sure. But yeah, there's that kind of hefeweiss and fruitiness on the palate. It's really interesting and you definitely get the sense of wheat here again, but it doesn't seem like a German wheat beer. It has almost the same character as the last beer in that it tastes grainy wheaty, like Wheaties almost. Yeah. Well, it's also, I guess, part of what they would say too about this is that it's not hefeweiss and hazy like. Oh, not at all. It's clear. It's got the slightest, slightest little bit of haze to it. Well, I mean, people make the crystal style, but. Yeah. What's the alcohol on this? 6.5. That's sneaky. Maybe on the finish a little bit, maybe some of that accentuation of the peppery clovey is maybe from the alcohol, but in a way, it reminds me a touch of their Weizenbach. There's a little bit of that Vitis element here, but. I can see that. Definitely the spice, I think, is what comes through the most. I almost was wondering if they added coriander to this because of how spicy it is, but I believe it follows the Reinheitskabout, so I don't think there's any additions of anything. Be interesting if they had pitched both Belgian and the wine stuff on yeast. Yeah, I'm wondering what they did. Maybe they fermented it at a slightly different temperature than they normally would their yeast, and that is what threw some of the different phenols. I think it will appeal to people who dig hefeweizen beers. It definitely has enough of that character. Sadly, there aren't as many people that maybe even know a Belgian blonde, but Belgian strong golden, we definitely still have some drinkers that love things like Duval. But like a left drinker, that's a Belgian blonde. Again, I think they would enjoy this as well. I think it's really interesting in that I think they actually created a hybrid here that tastes like an amalgamation of the styles. It really does. Yeah, it's strange. A lot of times people set out to do that and it either leans one way or the other. It's interesting that you pointed out coriander, Roger, because my first thought, I don't know when the last time you guys had it, but one of the only Belgian wit beers that I will actually drink is the St. Bernardus. That's a great one. You can get it in cans now. It stays very fresh, but it has that witty coriander character to it. Yeah, I think so too. That would actually probably be more akin to what this is reminding me of than the triple. Their triple is very spicy, so maybe that's just why I mentioned that. That's just me. They're not marketing it that way. But I think if anything, they probably kind of underplayed the Bernardus connection in this because when you read the copy, it's like, well, it's the White Chiffon Barley and yeast and water and it's like. But that would make sense to play into a Vit beer style, given the wheat beers of the two different countries. Well, it's a German, so some of it could be, we filtered this and that was a big deal. You know, that could be one of the. It's totally different. Did you see this? You can see through it. This definitely seems like a way though, that they're trying to get craft beer drinkers to buy something from the import aisle that's different and cool and people haven't seen before because obviously, so many customers get trapped in the local beer That's true. Yeah. We're going to follow this up with a beer that I think kind of hits some of the similar flavors. I'm curious to see how you think the two of them compare. But as far as an obscure style goes, this is one of my favorite styles that no one makes, that I'm hoping this will start to catch on and people- Pastry Sour. Who are these nobodies? This is a Belgian style single. I thought you were going to say strawberry cream cheese Berliners. This is Belle La Vie from Maplewood. This is a playoff of their Belmond Triple. Belgian single. Very similar. Good old table beer. A Paterspere. So anybody that some old school beer nerds like us, Orval is one of the most revered. I feel like if you've never had an Orval, you're really doing yourself a disservice. If you can find some fresh versus some that's aged a while, it can be a very different experience. This was definitely inspired by Orval. However, there's no bret component to this. But as far as the design of the beer. I don't know what to think of this beer. I don't know what's the purpose of this with no bret. It's just like this kind of half fermented gloppy thing. So I brought up Orval because I just happened to be there, and they said they were inspired by it. Orval is not necessarily a Belgian single. They need to be inspired harder. So you're seeing this through the lens now of you want an Orval right now. I would love an Orval right now. Thank you. Let's go get some Orval. So again, I think they want to get people who enjoy drinking wit beer, Weis beer, wheat beer to try this. That's why it's so cloudy? Yeah, there's some wheat in here. I was going to say that the single style is a long way from Orval. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I probably should have just not said any of that. Do you know what they're using to hop this thing with? I could phrase that like an English sentence as well if you need me to. It does not say on the can. They're all over the place. Like some of their cans, they tell you everything that's in there, which I love. All this tells you is that it's five and a half percent alcohol. I went on their website too and I didn't see anything. Because a couple of sips, I got some citrus character, which seems fun and somewhat out of place with a Belgian single. But then it's not, it doesn't, I don't know. I'm not picking it up every sip. What I think this brings to the table is that there's a little bit of that fruit, fruit ester without being a banana bomb. So like this is less banana to me than the Weinstafan collab. And it's lean on the finish. It's dry. You know, you were saying it's like half fermented. I disagree wholeheartedly. Well, I think there's dry. There's definitely a cereal component to it, which I think is probably what they intended. So you either like that or you don't. I think that component has run, is a line running through all of these beers, that kind of cereal wheatiness that I've been getting on all of them. I also get a bit of a almost like lavender like lift in the nose. It's interesting. I had Cracklin Oat Bran for breakfast this morning. I could see that like float one of those in here. That would take it up a notch. Cracklin Oat Bran, those are the little squares. Yeah, like the square O's kind of. That would be a very good snack with this beer. Yeah. Someone should do a podcast on that. It's one of the highest fat cereals that's on the market. Rod's, don't ruin my good cereal for me. Come on, man. It's fat and cereal. I didn't even know it was a thing. All right, how about some honey nut cheerios with this beer? That'd be good. Oh, Rod's just busting out a cider now? Come on, man. All right, now we're going to completely change gears and try some cider. This is from one of the most exciting cideries that I've tried in a while, Storm Along Cider. Exciting cidery, huh? That's not something I thought I was going to hear today. This is their unfiltered, definitely an unexplored avenue for all the people that like fruity stuff. It doesn't get juicier and fruitier than to literally drink juice. For any of you that are all about the fruit and hazies, there's definitely some crossover these days in the cider community. These guys are not really as flavor blasted as some that are trying to- Oh, some big chunks just came out. Yeah, those are the flavor crystals. It's literally called unfiltered, so you're going to have some unfiltered goodness. Do we have the apple source? Are they that hardcore? Yes, they are. Hardcore, you say? Dun-dun-dun. This is a mix of a lot- This is really tasty. A lot of these are actually- This just tastes like apple juice. More common, more modern apple cultivars. This is trying to not appeal to the cider geek. This is trying to appeal to the everyday normal human being. This is supposed to be appealing, juicy, a little tangy. There's enough acidity here that it's not sloppy, but apples are Macintosh, Honeycrisp, Gala, Empire, Cortland, and Macoon. That's what it tastes like because there is no bitter, sharp apple in here. Yeah, unmistakable Macoon. Cortland, I totally get the Cortland. I get the Honeycrisp. It's very aromatic. I mean, it smells like fresh pressed apple cider. Like, unfermented. Roger, this tastes delicious and it looks disgusting. I mean, mine looks fine. You got what? You got the top of the can. I got the bottom. Two little specks and you're like, can't handle it? Yeah, pretty much. This is the guy who would drink, you know, Cascade Sours. The chunkage would float out of that and he'd be like, whatever, it's fine. The moldier the cork, the better. So this I wanted to have you try as an example of just that they're doing stuff that's a little more approachable, but their portfolios is varied. And some of the other stuff definitely leans into heirloom heritage. They have a cider called Boston Heirloom, which is a mix of Baldwin and Roxbury Russet. So that's definitely more, you know, dry, almost medium dry, very good cider. So they're doing like single offerings as well. I think they did an Ashmead's Kernel cider, so, you know. Get all the Ashmead's Kernel again. We talked about that last time. I know, right? Yeah. So I would put this in a juice box and put it in my lunch. It's pretty hard to believe that this has any alcohol in it. You're not wrong. It's juicy. It's 4.5, so it is more of a sessionable. But their Massachusetts is where Stormalong is from. They do some spiced ones that people are really falling in love with. So like winter things with sweet dessert spices. Pastry ciders. I mean, that's something that it's kind of shocking. It hasn't been more of a thing in the cider community. It is pretty indicative of that they can move at the speed of a tortoise. Well, remember the old JK's Winter Cider from Michigan? That was great. That was definitely like caramel, apple, cinnamon, like apple pie. Right. I'm surprised there aren't more apple pie-esque things. I mean, this cider, if you just added cinnamon and nutmeg to it, it wouldn't- They just leave the apple pie market to the moonshine guys now. Well, I'm pretty sure this is what the Pilgrims were drinking when they couldn't drink water, so they had to drink cider, so this is pretty much what they were drinking. Ran out of beer, then they had to drink cider. Storm Along to their credit is trying to tell that story in a way that a lot of cideries won't, which is silly, where if we have farmers that are actually growing some of the heirloom bitter sharp cider apples again, they take for granted, I think because of the industry, they talk amongst their peers who know the story and forget that 99% of people don't, but they even mention prohibition and how detrimental that was. If you think about prohibition killing a lot of the breweries in this country, cider became an absolute afterthought. So many apple orchards are completely chopped down during prohibition. There is no market for the type of cider apples that don't have eating value so much as cider production. I picture Elliot Ness and his crew with the same ax as they were chopping up the barrels with chopping down the trees. No, I mean, you joke, but literally that's part of the whole hatchet wielding prohibitionist thing was they hated it from a standpoint of that apple trees provided a way for people to make their own alcohol at home, too. They didn't want apple trees because people would just make their own hard cider and get drunk off of it. So does that mean Johnny Appleseed has been stripped from our history books? Johnny Appleseed in reverse. If you're interested in cider, take a look, search out for some Storm Along. We're getting more and more of their offerings and they're excellent. You should check them out. This one's a little on the sweeter, probably a little sweet for you guys, but they have plenty of dry stuff. I like it. Minus the way it looked. Very juicy. Very juicy, very pleasant, broadly appealing. All right, just because I always have to sneak in something ridiculous. I thought we were already into this. Oh, boy. I was debating doing this last, but we're just going to go for it. So this is from who I often like to call the Oppenheimer of the pastry movement. The original flavor blasters. We have become death. We are about to drink a beer that is a collaboration between the brewery and an ice cream company called Perry's. Nice. Ground zero, you might say. This is the newest effort from Southern Tier. This is an orange twist. Smells like baby aspirin and a dreamsicle beer. I had a rainbow cone yesterday, which of course has orange sherbet on the top. Of course it does. What about that Palmer House? Did you get down on that Palmer House? Oh, yeah. I love the Palmer House. This funny, you mentioned orange sherbet. That's how they describe this. Orange sherbet with vanilla going through it. They use the Perry's ice cream shop vanilla extract. It finishes dry and bitter. Why? Like bitter orange peel bitter. It's really interesting. Smells like ice cream tastes like beer. That's a weird. Bitterness is really strange. Dichotomy here. I don't know what this is. This is my first time trying this. I never expected that this is the kind of thing I like Roger bringing. Right. Stuff he hasn't had that. Well, I can't even wrap my head around this. It just lingers with the vanilla and candied orange and then bitter. It's just so bitter on the finish. This is wild. I think you're supposed to make a float out of this. I think we need to drop some ice cream in this. That would probably be good. Well, one thing that I will say, and I'm wondering if maybe this is accentuating the bitterness, this is 8.6% alcohol. Southern Tears kind of discovered that people like to drink their beers and get wild with them. They're pretty much all their stuff now in the four pack series is mega alcohol. There are hops in here. What is happening? Explain this to me. I am baffled. I don't know, dude. They don't really elaborate on it that much. I think when for IBU, they literally wrote low. So I think the bitterness you're perceiving is probably from the flavoring is quote natural orange flavor. So it's probably made in a way that they extracted some bitterness from like the pith of the orange. It is kind of pithy. Yeah. I bet they wanted, you know, an orange that was natural tasting, which this doesn't taste too fake. It's not like orange crush. My only guess is that it's from the orange flavor. I've got my spine of bitterness. Is this supposed to be like the spring pumpkin, pumpkin, I'm sorry. They have all sorts of, lately, it's been like very pastry oriented. Like, Chris, you're an aficionado of American, old-timey American desserts. I am indeed. Are you familiar with the Tasty Cake? Tasty Cake, little prepackaged cakes. Yeah. So it's basically like a little Debbie type thing, but it's regional. So that was their last beer that was like this, mega alcohol. And that was a lot. It was hard, hard to, I mean, I could maybe drink this. The Tasty Cake beer was intense, but they've had some pastry-esque things that are great. Their Girl Scout cookie things, which was kind of a thin line to tap dance on between like, do we really want to make things that are evoking, you know, cookies that children sell. They're thin-minced out for that. And they had, they're not even called Samoas anymore. They made a beer called Samoa This. That was phenomenal. That's probably one of the best beers they've ever done. It's also one of the best Girl Scout cookies. The best Girl Scout cookie. I would have said that. So like, I wanted to hedge a little. As much as I poke fun at Southern Tier, like when they do a beer right, it's phenomenal. But they're always trying to, you know, find some new over-the-top thing to do. And again, I think the emphasis has been on, let's make things that are dessert-esque, but also really high in alcohol. So that if you only drink a little bit of it, you're still, you know, going to feel it. But on a spring evening, this rises out of the most sincere orange grove. All right. Well, I don't know. Worth trying, I guess. Watch his reaction to this. The next beer that I have is one of Pat's favorite breweries, the non-alcoholic version. What is this? This is your beloved Blackview Porter, but with no alcohol. To shoot some non-alcoholic Blackview. What has the world come to? All right, so non-alcoholic beer is come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, a lot of different ways that you can end up at a seemingly the same place. What's cool about this is that I think the best examples of non-alcoholic beer is a beer that is legitimately been made and then had the alcohol removed. To do that typically requires a lot of advanced technology that costs a ton of money, but Deschutes saw that this is category is just continuing to grow their world famous porter. This is essentially that beer with the alcohol removed, and I've tried a lot of NA beers. It's pretty tough for me to get excited about them. For people that are new to beer, I think it's a little easier for them. But if you've been tasting beer for two decades like I have, they often fall short. I thought that this came pretty close. This tastes a lot like Blackpup. I was going to say the nose is still really pleasantly chocolatey. It smells really good, almost Tootsie Roll-esque. The thing that drives me nuts with NA beers are the ones that are like they manipulate the yeast so that it doesn't really ferment the beer, and you end up with these warty tasting, you know, it ends up tasting like unfermented beer, which is very And this has more body than the cheap old school examples. It does. It feels a little thin at first, but there's some creaminess to it that is provided maybe by really nice carbonation. It's pretty good. Yeah. There's a roasty, grainy note to it on the palate, too. Obviously, with the alcohol missing, it doesn't have the structure that the regular beer, the full alcohol beer would, but I mean, I think flavor-wise, I agree, it's definitely reminiscent of it. I can't go all aboard and say that it tastes exactly like it, but as this kind of thing goes, I think, yeah, nice job. I could drink one of these. Yeah, I think this is one of the, if you're interested in NA beer, I think this is one you have to give a try. What do we sell this for? It is 10.99 a six pack. No, I mean, that's one of the crazy things about the NA category is it's every bit as expensive if not more. It's not uncommon at all for NA beers to be more expensive than beer. Well, especially if you're brewing it like this and then you have to take the extra step of removing the alcohol. You know, it can't be cheaper. And then you have to put more stuff back in to make up for the lack of the alcohol because it totally affects the palate impact. Yeah, I think with this new technology, it's kind of a game changer. It's just the initial investment is huge. Maybe they might be able to do what they do up in Wisconsin at this one facility is they extract the alcohol and then they use it to make hard seltzer. Oh, yeah. They're literally just pulling it out and then making a new product with it. So if you have a market and you get that up and running, it can help pay for this. But I've heard upwards of a million dollars to have this equipment. So it's not cheap. Bells is going to be the next people to enter the game pretty soon. So you're going to see what I wanted to call no hearted. Heartless. Yeah. Yeah. And no baron. No baron. Just because it's back in season, it's new to the shelf, it's definitely not a new beer, but just because we'd gone a couple of months without talking about one, we're going to have a Czech Dark Lager. This is one of the ones that we missed, and we did our whole taste through, because they made theirs a little bit later than most people were shooting for fall and winter time, and this came out in late spring. But just still in Chicago, plenty cold until we have some crazy 80 degree day. You can enjoy a Czech Dark Lager any time of year, but definitely fall, winter, and spring. I might not want one as much when it's 95 and sunny in the middle of July. But this is Maplewood in Dark Trees. This is one of those that I enjoy, much like off-color. People loved it so much that they basically never thought they would have to brew another batch. Everybody was like, what happened to it? It's gone already. So beloved that it's inspired people asking them to re-brew or brew more. Probably should have done this before the NA. It's definitely lighter, soft. That's good. It's got a bit of a creaminess to it that I don't often get in a lot of lagers, but part of that I think is the really well-done carbonation. Yeah. I mean, the foam on this is nice and creamy. It is indeed creamy. It's chocolatey. It's not particularly roasty, I feel. The hops, I would like a little more hop bite to it, I suppose, just in flavor. It finishes with a clear crisp bitterness, but there's not a lot of hop flavor, I don't think. I'm not sure how in style that would be anyway. Well, when we were tasting through these, the interesting thing is that a lot of the Chicago ones especially, they seem to have taken inspiration directly from Ufleku, which is somewhat unstylistic to the other Czech darks in the Czech Republic. It's famously more roasty, porter-esque, drier. This I would say is more reminiscent of the handful of Czech examples that we have in stores, minus there's not any diacetyl, which I am happy about. But when we tried things like Samson and Lev and Brow Check, they definitely were more chocolate and fruit forward, had almost no perceivable hop flavor aroma. It was definitely like a softer, sweeter style. And then you have something at the other end of the spectrum like Art History Veritas, which has got this big burst of those super sauser hops that are very herbaceous and spicy. And then it's got roast character. This is a great example of how this style can be interpreted in many different ways. And how even two local-ish breweries in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs have taken pretty different approaches to it. I do like that it finishes so clean for being somewhat of a sweeter style. It's not super over-the-top sweet, but it's definitely rounded, but it finishes really clean. So it's not cloying, which is one of the things I don't like about that sweeter style so much. They can be kind of cloying, so yeah, this finishes clean, and I could drink a few of these. Nice. Good job, Maplewood. I agree. In my opinion, this is very moderately sweet and does finish very clean. I don't want people to think that this is a very sweet beer. No, it's not at all. No, there's just a touch. There's just a creaminess that goes hand in hand with a bit of sweetness. Agreed. I think the creaminess for me is what really stands out, and it's supported by just a hint of sweetness, but it really, really cleans up. I mean, honestly, we often joke about how clearly this town has a sweet tooth, and we've looked at the direction that stouts went. We're a candy town. Mm-hmm. So I think part of what the appeal of this style is is that it delivers some chocolate, some semblance of sweeter flavor, but without being heavy or cloying. Or it's the same reason that, again, an equally obscure, what I never thought in a million years would catch on. People are brewing dark milds, and people are loving them. You know, who would ever think? I mean, it's for the same reason. It's like, oh, this is dark, it's flavorful, but it's not knocking me on my ass. Like, I can drink a whole pint and then order a second pint type of thing. We had to replace Blomers with something. Yes. Well, at only at only five percent, you can leave room for some Besherovka shots. There you go. Have we ever tried that on the podcast? I feel like that's been left out. You didn't do it with your your Czech Dark Lager? No. I mean, we never we never I never brought it to a tomorrow episode. We should do it in like maybe a what the hell does this taste like? Sure. We're going to finish things up with a nice little nightcap. Nice, I saw this on your desk and I was curious about it. We're headed down to New Orleans. Last beer here is from Ailsmith. Hey, that's San Diego, not New Orleans. This is the Ailsmith Speedway Stout New Orleans Cafe Edition. Oh, because they can't use Cafe Du Monde legally? Well, does it have chicory in it? Yeah, Cafe Du Monde definitely popularized chicory coffee, but yeah, it is definitely a New Orleans staple, is coffee with some chicory added. So Speedway Stout, one of the world's great imperial stouts. I would say it's one of the absolute best that you can buy. On our shelves, they've started to play around with doing variations on it. So a lot of the times it will involve unique one-off coffee varieties. They've done the barrel-aged version, which is some of the best barrel-aged beer we've ever tasted. So this caught my eye being a huge fan. If you listen to the podcast, we love New Orleans food and drink culture. We've done many an episode talking about Cajun and Creole food, drinks, beer, cocktails. So one thing I don't think we've ever done is talk about the coffee culture down there. It originated as a necessity to stretch coffee further, to add some chicory to it. Adding some of that chicory root is definitely a unique flavor profile that people fall in love with down there. Loaded with it. It reminds me of that old dogfish had chicory stout. Right on. I also get a strong note of black licorice in here. Almost tastes like brewers' licorice was used. Very, very chocolatey, lots of coffee. Almost minty, lots of chicory. It's got that nutty chicory character. It's more chicory than coffee. Yeah, roasted chicory. I'd rather have more coffee than chicory, personally. I'm wondering if maybe the... So they didn't elaborate on what the coffee varietal is. I'm wondering if maybe some of it's just that the type of coffee roast or bean is maybe accentuating it even more. Because I get the chicory. I wouldn't say that it's definitely the only thing you get, though. Yeah, it's not a one note beer. It's just I find that that's just a very strong flavor. Where's my beignet? Yeah. Ailsmiths, spoiler alert here. If you've been watching our beer collab, every once in a while we tease out who we've been working with. The Ailsmiths collaboration is nearing completion. So stay tuned and keep a close eye on the beer buzz for that. We are going to have our own barrel-aged Speedway Stout coming soon. How exciting. Aged in a Malort barrel? Buffalo Trace barrels. No Malort, thank God. Coward. Maybe they should do the Shickory in the Malort barrel. That would be a real tour de force. There's a mintiness to the bitterness here that actually kind of reminds me of Mentabranca. Yeah, I get it. Not so over the top, but. Because it is a strong, bitter, Shickory flavor, but there is a vegetal note or an herbaceous note to it. It's not as toothpastey as Branca Mentabranca. It also kind of reminds me a little bit of some like a birch beer, a sarsaparilla kind of. Yeah, a winter green kind of thing. It's an interesting beer. Yeah, it is. Anyway, if you really hate pastry stouts, this one's for you. Yeah, it's pretty dry. Kind of the anti-pastry starter, right? It's 12% alcohol, so it's kind of sneaky strong for... I could put a whole one of these down, no problem. I do like the dryness of it. 12% is crazy. I can't believe this is 12%. Yeah, that's what makes it dangerous because you could suck this down like it's import Guinness and you wouldn't even think about it. See, it pairs well with Binny's, I know what's up. Yeah, not surprised. Well, as soon as we get a... We don't even have a toaster oven or a stove, but if we could get a deep fryer, maybe we could start... And about 10 pounds of powdered sugar. Yeah, we need to... Why do you guys need a deep fryer? Why not? It's for the podcast. And these are all in stores now, huh, Rog? Yeah, all of these are in stores now. The Maplewood, I think, just came out, so that one might not be as easy to find. The Belle Vee. But everything else, yeah, you can find in our stores. Black Butte Non-Alcoholic is just hitting now. So again, there's a few things that I suppose you might want to ask first. But Brau Pact is a one time deal. The Weinstefoner. So grab that while it's here. But we always have the solid lineup of St. Bernardus and other Weinstefon. Maplewood, the Dark Check came out a little while back. That's, to be honest, part of the problem with what's new in beer is that so many of it is just one and done. There's not as much, oh, hey, we introduced a new year round offering. Yeah, yeah, of course. Although every once in a while, you get something like that. Three Floyd's has a new IPA, which is the first thing they've done like that in quite some time. So there's a few exceptions to the rule, but that's become the Chicago model is turn and burn, release a new in quotation marks beer every once in a while. So a lot of the local breweries have adopted that. So it's a lot of just in and out, in and out. But for some of these, they've been beloved enough that there's always going to be some kind of Ailsmith Speedway, whether it be the traditional or a variant. The Maplewood Dark Trees is coming back each seasonal time. There's a bunch of different Storm Alongs. So definitely a lot of good offerings from each of these breweries that you can check out next time you're at your local Binny's. Cool. Appreciate it, Rog. Yeah, man. Thanks for everybody joining me here today. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Tell your friends, family, tell your mom thanks for listening. And until next week, I am Roger. I'm Pat. I'm Chris. I'm Ray. Thanks for tasting. Or no, keep on tasting. I always mess it up. Keep on trucking. Keep on trucking, Cheech. Say keep tasting. Keep tasting.