Welcome, everybody. It's the Craft Beer Republic. Thank you all for coming out. Yeah. I am Greg. I'm a host, producer, whatever you want to call me.
Very excited to be here. So thank you for joining. Thank you to Jerry of Daughters of Nankasi for getting this all organized. Yeah, Jerry. Yeah. And most importantly, thank you to Jen and Aaron for coming in on their day off like
crazy people. Thanks for, I don't know why you're here, but thank you. Really appreciate you coming in on your day off and hanging out and drinking some beers.
Our pleasure. Does everybody have a drink or is a drink on their way? That's the only prerequisite to be here is that you must have a beer of some sort in your hand. So thank you guys for being a lovely audience today.
If anybody has any listener questions, I think all the papers have actually been filled out, but there is a QR code over here that you can scan and ask and they will be sent to
my phone via magic. So feel free to do that. All right. Now that everybody's got a drink for all the people who are not listening live on the podcast, we are at Fluid State, which is my favorite beer garden in all of the area.
You guys? Yeah. Thank you. How about that charcuterie board? Come on. Is there a better charcuterie board in like the whole Ventura County? Thank you. Right answer.
Yeah, exactly. You all get your $20. And there's always fun beers on tap, of course. And you guys, Jen and Aaron just celebrated six years here at Fluid State.
Yeah. We're close to six and a half. Yeah, it was like three months ago. We're six and a quarter years in. Yeah. Congratulations on that. Before we...
I'm going to get this music out of here because boy, is that obnoxious when you're here in person. Let's dig right in. So Jen, Aaron, co-owners of Fluid State, founders, laborers, pizza pimp, head chef?
Exec chef at this point. Yeah. I'm not in the kitchen a lot. Okay. So I can't claim head chef, but I'm definitely still guiding the food and guiding the menu, making sure we're still staying in the groove that we've carved out.
But you still get to do all the fun stuff like the testing, like, oh, do these toppings work? I will let you know. Yeah. I'm a little quality control. I'll sit here at the bar and I'll order things and I'll get feedback from people that are
tasting it and make sure we're doing the right thing out here. So in a way, it's a better position for me to be in. Yeah. You get to eat it, not make it? Yes. Yeah. It's like more of a surprise. Like, surprise, pizza. Yeah. And Jen, what are you doing these days around here?
Just like yelling at people or? Hopefully not. Oh, I mean, not yelling at people. Yeah, that's the goal. I misspoke. No, I was a career bartender for a long time.
So my area of expertise is the bar part of things. And I'm still the acting bar manager. And I do orchestrate that beer list up there.
What the hell, a beer list? Yeah. That is definitely my baby and will continue to be as long as we're doing this. But yeah, I also have an office job. I'm at a desk a lot.
So you know, I... Desk with beer? Yeah. Well, fortunately, a lot of that work can be done with beer in my hand. So that makes it much, much more pleasant. That is the way to do things. All right.
I want to go back, find out about Fluid State, find out about you guys, your background, especially in the craft, but the alcohol industry in general. We have some listener questions. Thank you guys so much for submitting some listener questions.
But before we start things off, I think we should start with our first beer because my whistle is dry. Yeah, definitely. So you picked out some important beers to Fluid State.
Yeah. Not the beers as much as the breweries. But the beers speak for themselves. Definitely. So where should we start? I think we need to start with Silva Pils. OK. Our brewery that we're talking about is Silva Brewing, which is a smaller brewery, much
smaller than what Chuck was doing before. Chuck Silva is the Silva of Silva Brewing. He was the brewmaster of Green Flash Brewing for a long time. And he's the one who put them on the map and showed the world what San Diego West Coast
IPAs were about, along with his fellow brewers down there. So he was instrumental in that whole movement in San Diego. Before Green Flash sold off and went through all of its things, Chuck had already decided,
he and his wife MJ had decided that they wanted to leave the massive brewery situation and actually leave San Diego and move back closer to where Chuck's from.
I believe Santa Margarita is his hometown. And so they moved up to Paso. He ended up finding this great little space and started his own brewery with his name.
And he's the kind of guy, we love these stories where brewers who worked for other people for a long time and really cut their chops and also earned their notoriety in the beer
world, they get to break out and actually do their own thing for themselves. So that was exciting when he started several years ago. And we just recently figured out a way that we can get it to us.
So he's also making wine. He's doing all sorts of things. But what we have here is his West Coast Pilsner called Silva Pils. Aptly named. Yeah. Fun fact about Silva.
We accidentally stumbled into Silva Brewing the first week they were open. We didn't even know what it was. And we were always in Paso. Like, oh, brewery, let's go in. And it was a Silva Brew.
I was like, you mean like Chuck Silva's Silva Brewing? Like, oh yeah, that's the guy. I'm like, well, I'll be damned. Yeah, he's a legend. I've heard of him. Yeah. Once or twice. Yeah. Well, actually, and Chuck is one of the main reasons why I know so much about beer.
He's one of the key people who taught me a whole lot. I met him when he was with Green Flash and Green Flash broke into the New York City market. And I was working at a beer bar of note called the Blind Tiger Ale House in the West Village.
And we became instant friends. And then we would bump into each other at conferences and things. And he's a wealth of knowledge. So I would just be the lucky one sitting next to him during some, you know, yeast discussion
or dry hopping talk. And he'd be in my ear. I'm listening to the guy on stage. And then Chuck's also adding information. Well, this is how I do it. This guy's wrong. Yeah.
So he's a great guy to know because he's super friendly. He knows his stuff. And if you ever make it to Silva Brewing and you get to catch him, I don't know. Did you get to see him when you were there?
I did not. It was late at night. He had already bounced for the day. And I didn't even know what that place was until they told me. So unfortunately, I did not get to see him. He's due for a visit here. It's been a while.
Chuck, are you listening? Yeah. So let's talk about those pills. All right. So why did we pick out the Silva pills for today? Well, this, you know, for obvious reasons, Chuck being a good friend of ours, of course.
And so we wanted to pick a beer that was represented a certain style as well. It's a West Coast Pils. He calls it that. It isn't, I don't find it to be quite as hoppy as like a Timbo or quite as close to an IPA
as some of the West Coast Pilsners. Yeah, I was just going to say this. Usually in this day and age, when somebody says West Coast Pilsner, what they really mean is a Pilsner made with modern hops and more, you know, fruity and mosaic and citric
kind of stuff. And this one tends to actually taste like a little bit more old school. Like a lager. I mean, exactly. It's a lager. It doesn't taste like an IPA that drinks like a lager, basically.
Right. Yeah. West Coast Pils a lot of times is like hoppy AF. Yeah. It's like what you want your West Coast IPA to be. Just a smidge lighter. Which I love. Don't get me wrong. Oh, no, that's great. But I also appreciate this. It's also gorgeous.
I wish you could see it. Everybody is out there. Everyone in the room can see how clear and beautiful it is. As it should be. And it's just super clean and a great representation of what Chuck's doing now.
Yeah, this is delicious. Thanks for sharing. Cheers, you guys. Cheers. All right. So we're going to get into some background of you guys. But first, let's get into a little background of Fluid State. It's been here, like we said, six, almost and a half years.
I stumbled in by accident one time. I didn't realize that you guys were brand new. It was like 20, I think it was 18. It sounds like you have a pattern. Of stumbling. Yeah. Where you stumble in right after these amazing places open.
Is stumbling the pattern? Oh, yeah, absolutely. It just happens. Stumbling is a guarantee. Somebody wanted to do a little like pre-wedding beer crawl in Ventura. And they said, all right, let's end at Fluid State.
And I said, what the F is Fluid State? And we had a lot of pizza and beer. It was fantastic. But all right. So you guys, like I said, six and a half years almost. Let's talk about first the building. You guys got like the coolest building in Ventura.
Yeah, we feel very fortunate with that. So that goes back a little bit before we had found a building. And I was still trying to convince Jen that she even wanted to do this. Because I'm the one that had the restaurant background.
And Jen had the bartender background, which had probably seen a lot of restaurants come and go and not work out. Did you ever convince her? Yeah, here we are. Sort of. Spoiler alert.
Yeah, twist my arm. I fell in love with the wrong guy. No, I never had aspirations to own my own place. I'm going to need something stronger. I loved working for other people.
I loved working for establishments I could believe in. I didn't have to like go out in the world and forge my own path this way. But then I met him and he needed to do it.
Apparently he's convincing. So I was a salesman for Ninkasi at that time. So yeah, I can be a little convincing. I managed to get Ninkasi into a lot of places around here. At a sabre, but that's another story.
We lived right up the street. And so this building just kind of stands out. And when I came in here to sell beer to the people that occupied the space before us,
I realized that it wasn't going to work. It didn't work selling them beer. And the business wasn't going to work. Two-fold. Right. And so I just decided I wanted to be in this building,
even though I really hadn't leveled with Jen on that yet. Because I was still working on the whole, we're going to do this little small space and it's going to be me behind the kitchen, you behind the bar, and we'll have like one or two employees.
And it'll just be like a really manageable thing. That's how he got me on board, was the idea of not having any employees. And I was like, oh, I might be able to do that.
And then that place on Seaward we were looking at fell through. Yeah, that fell through and simultaneously this place closed as a restaurant. And so I dedicated myself to get this place.
So essentially my beer territory was huge. It got suddenly a lot smaller because I wanted to meet the people that owned this space. And so I was just doing laps basically every day.
I was by here like three or four times. And finally I saw the note in the door and somebody was trying to take equipment out of the back. And long story short, I finally figured out who the landlord was, made contact with them.
The owner of this place was Frank Anasakanam. But Frank was our point person. And Frank was, well he's passed away, but was this 85, 86 year old.
He was 87 years old and a former restaurateur. Opened his first restaurant incidentally in Manhattan Beach in 1959. So this guy was an old timer. He was an OG guy in the restaurant industry.
He also says that he opened the first hibachi restaurant back before you could get soy sauce in regular grocery stores. He was interesting. He had emigrated from Korea with his family to Hawaii and then came to California to go to college.
And then stayed and decided he was going to open up restaurants. And then he was the kind of guy who then did open a handful of restaurants. Wasn't a restaurateur after age 60, but had managed to buy a bunch of buildings.
And so that's where he was in his life with all this real estate. But he had decided he really wanted to believe in the businesses. And so that's when Aaron stepped back in and convinced him.
Well so, being an old restaurant guy, I'm a young restaurant guy. I don't feel young, but compared to him. There was some common ground there.
And so we just basically spoke the same language. Not literally, he was Korean. But I mean, spoke that restaurant language. And I think he saw that in me and us.
And so he basically said, yeah, it's a longer story than this, but let's just, for the sake of brevity, he just decided we were the ones. And so that's how we got this spot.
And it had parking, and it had outdoors seating. You guys have your own parking lot. And we have to thank the failed business before us for spending the money.
Give them a shout out. Spending the money to actually break through and do the demo, to just expose what this building really had to offer.
We had a full year of build out, and we didn't have an unlimited budget. And so we were able to do this really on a shoestring, believe it or not. Really strategic, with the right contractor.
But we were able, like he's the one who broke through and exposed all the poured concrete walls, and the beams above our heads, and so much that we wouldn't have been able to take on this project if he hadn't done all that.
So, thanks to that guy. Thanks for not being a great business owner, but being a great wall knocker downer. We were really able to come in here and focus on the things that were really important to us,
which was this bar, this horseshoe bar that Jen designed. None of this design is what was here before. He really, actually, he was good at demo, not good at designing a restaurant.
It didn't work. So we had the vision of the horseshoe bar, so that it could be conversational. And we knew the moment we saw the building that we wanted the beer list to be splashed across that expanse,
wall to wall, so that one of the first things you would take note of was the fact that we took our beer seriously. So, obviously, we have full liquor, and we've got great food, and people figured all these other parts out too,
but the beer list, we wanted that to be front and center, and it is. Yeah. Well, and you're so into the beer that you even have a sign that says, the last time the lines were cleaned. Yeah. Beer nerds love that.
Yeah, thank you. That's fantastic. I do have to give a shout out to Corey Thomas, the guy that was our contractor during the whole thing. He just kind of got our vibe, and he was actually the one that came up with the idea of those beer signs.
So we didn't, you know, you've seen every beer sign imaginable. They exist already. And so to do a unique beer sign is actually really hard to figure out, and that was 100% Corey's idea.
So thank you, Corey. Yeah, we knew where we wanted it, but we didn't want to cover up all that beautiful wood once he finally figured out this technique. But the whole design of this place was really a creative brain trust between Aaron and Corey.
I have an art background and everything, but sometimes you can have too many cooks spoiling the broth. And I just was like, okay, you guys speak a language, and you're figuring this out. So I would come in and say, yes on that, no on that, and just let them go.
And it turned out like this. We're so proud of it. Yeah, it's fantastic. And this is in a... Yeah, give it up. And the building is a registered landmark. Yes, it is.
It's built in like the 30s, I think. It was an old insurance building. Yeah. So like a bank, it had a safe. People think it was a bank, but it was back when... It looks like a bank, yeah. It was back when all the insurance policies were on paper records, and so they had to be kept in a safe.
So we have a basement here, which is, of course, kind of crazy for California. And we even have a mezzanine. I mean, it's a big building. And yeah, the thickness of the concrete around the area where most people order is because that was the former safe.
So, yeah, just sort of... Yeah, it's very stable. It's a very safe building, as we found out. We found out a couple of times. The Thomas Fire and earthquakes and all the things that have befallen us.
This building, in fact, during the earthquake, these lights didn't even sway at all. It was just like everything just kind of stayed together as a unit. It survived Hurricane 2023. If there's any natural disasters, run to Fluid State, get a beer, and you'll be fine.
Yeah, you don't have to tell me twice. So I know you had another place lined up as a smaller place. No employees. Sorry, employees. What really drove sort of not just the visual design, but the design of the menu and the beer?
Was it, oh, we got the building, now here's our idea? Or was it here's our idea, let's build a building? Yeah, so I'm a big believer in fitting your concept to a certain degree to the building itself. I think buildings actually speak.
And so spaces speak. I think it's a big mistake to force a concept into a building where it doesn't fit and there's no flow. And so our initial concept wasn't too dissimilar to this, just a lot less.
It was going to be edgier. It was going to be called Hail Gluten. And then we get this building and the first thing was like, we've got to start filling out paperwork.
And this is not a Hail Gluten. We've got to come up with something else. So we had to go to our computers and spend an afternoon just digging for ideas.
And then we came across a list of physics terms and fluid state came from that list. And it was like, gosh, this sounds good. And then I was a little concerned that it was so focused on the liquid that it wasn't honoring what Aaron was going to do with the food and the pizza.
And so I kind of was like, yeah, it's too bad it's not just a bar. That would be a good name. And the next morning we woke up and he's like, you know, I've been thinking about what we were talking about.
I really liked fluid state. And I was like, are you sure? And he's like, no, I think they're going to figure it out with the food. I don't think we have to mention the food in the name.
And he's right. I mean, sometimes to our dismay, our food sales keep going up and up and up. And yet, yeah, they figured that part out. And we can embrace the fluidity of the name fluid state.
Do you find that more people come in expecting to get beer and then, hey, there's food? Or is it the other way around? I think it started like that for sure. Our sales were initially like 75% beverages and 25% food.
And now it's about 50-50. OK. And that's been gradually changing over time. We kind of hope it stays 50-50. Somewhere around there. As people see the pictures of the charcuterie board, it's going to further.
Yeah, it's a problem. And the wings are. Give me those wings. But we're both like-minded on this. We like things that aren't completely obvious up front. It's fun to us when people have to kind of figure it out a little bit.
And then they've got a little dog in the hunt. It's like, what's going on here? It says fluid state. It says nothing outside other than that. And they walk in, they see the beer. And then all of a sudden, they look at the menu.
And they say that we have full liquor. And our margaritas are good. And so it's like- They see a pizza go out. Yeah, a pizza walks by. And they're like, holy crap. So yeah, I kind of like that.
Where it's not just handed to you on a silver platter. You've got to do a little work. Right. I remember the first time I was here, I came into it and I ordered. And then somebody came out with their pizza. And I was like, I ordered wrong.
Hold on. Let's redo this. I'm drunk enough. Let's get more food. Yeah. All right. So we touched on this a little bit. You guys both have unique backgrounds that really play well into this. Aaron, you're a salesperson for Ninkasi.
Yeah. Which back when Ninkasi was huge. Right. I mean, I guess it was before everybody had a craft brewery. Yeah, that was my first salesman gig. I don't have a background in sales at all.
For me, Ninkasi was a great opportunity for me to do something I'd never done before. Working for somebody that I knew. Let's be honest, the job compared to the job of owning restaurants is incredibly easy.
So it was kind of like a three-year vacation for me, to be honest with you. I could go outside. I was like everybody's best friend. I had beer in my truck. I'd show up to bars and buy people beers and just have a great time.
It's a write-off. Yeah, basically. And so I had a great time with it. And I ran it like it was an actual business because I had a business background. And so I was pretty successful in this area in spite of my lack of sales experience.
I think that actually worked in my favor. I didn't come off salesmanship. Right, used car sales. Yeah, exactly. But previous to that, I had a restaurant up in Santa Cruz County in Aptos called Smoke Barbecue.
And it basically was a wood-fired restaurant. So I did barbecue. I did wood-fired pizza. I did everything cooked with fire. You did a lot. I did a lot. The menu was ridiculous.
It was my first restaurant, my first bricks-and-mortar restaurant. I did things before that. But I made all the mistakes. I mean, I got a PhD and whatnot to do with that thing. He was shucking oysters. We were cutting steaks.
We were cooking brisket. I looked at the menu when he handed it to me because I never got to go to Smoke. We didn't know each other then. But I looked at it and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
This is just a recipe for prep kitchen disaster. And it was a little spot. It was like the Cheesecake Factory menu? Yeah, just worse than that. Just a much smaller kitchen.
I'm sure it all was really delicious. And that's why he couldn't cut back because there were fans of everything. We opened during the first downturn in the economy.
It was like 2008, 2009. And immediately, while other restaurants were going out of business, there was a line out the door and it was really popular. But I just didn't know how to run a restaurant. I didn't know how to, like, from the very beginning, I hired all the wrong people.
I had friends and family. I was just like, you know, never made any money at it. But I ended up learning a lot and kind of dusting myself off, taking that salesman job and then crafting this idea,
which eventually became Fluid State. But he also was making pizza before. I was, yeah. So I've got 20 plus years in the pizza game. I've done, my friend of mine, years and years ago,
a friend of mine and I built a wood fire pizza oven trailer. And we'd go around to winery pickup parties, like early 2000s and do wood fire pizza and do fun stuff like that.
And so, you know, I've just had a love of pizza. I figured out my own dough recipe back before the Internet was very, you know, prolific with recipes and YouTube videos. It didn't exist. So you had to kind of figure it out.
I'm also hearing that you need to have more barbecue here. Yeah. Come on. Not going to happen. Once a year, we do fire up a grill. We do occasionally do it. We do tri-tip. But the thing about, this is another thing I learned,
barbecue is, I love it. I'm passionate about it. But it's the highest, everything's high food costs. It's like, you know, it's so hard to make money at that. And not that I'm money hungry, you know, but.
But you're also not money hungry. Well, you got to have a sustainable business, you know, to stay alive. And so in order to make money in barbecue, you have to charge a lot of money for it. And historically, people aren't willing to pay a lot of money
for something called barbecue. You know, if you're at some of these places. Challenge accepted. If you're at a fancy steakhouse and you get a steak for a hundred bucks, it's like, OK, you know, like, you know, this makes sense to me.
But if you're getting some sweaty guy in black gloves carving brisket, you're like, yeah, I don't know about that. Some people pay extra for that. Fair enough. Now they do. But back in 2008, not so much in California.
So anyway. Let me know when you have your barbecue day, please. All right, before we, I want to find out about, you have a lot of bartending background and consulting. But before that, let's move on to the next beer.
OK, what are we what are we sampling next? So this is kind of a new a new crush of ours. Everywhere Brewing Company, they are in Anaheim and they're fairly new.
Although the owners and the brewer, brewers are not new. And this kind of goes back to our philosophy on why we choose breweries. These guys all have a pedigree. You know, these guys all came from many of them came from the brewery.
In fact, there's a whole bunch of breweries that have just recently popped up. Radiant, of course. And they're all incredible. And so these guys cut their chops in a legit brewery and probably other legit breweries before that.
When we're choosing new breweries, we're always trying to find out what's the what's the lineage of the brewer and the owners? Where do they come from? And that usually helps us kind of move the needle to go check them out. This particular beer is one immediately when I tasted, I fell in love with
because I feel like what's been happening with there's I speak a little better to this, the whole the whole trajectory of IPAs in general. I'm going to hand it over to Jen.
The IPA rainbow. There has obviously been an evolution. One of the things that we have most of us in this room who are paying attention to beer have noticed is how IPA has changed because IPA, once you get the IPA palette,
you kind of pay attention even if you don't always drink an IPA. It's interesting because there's always something new happening with IPAs, whether it's a new processing of hops or a new technique or a new brewery
that's just kind of got a different angle on it. So we, Aaron and I agree, are in the, I mean, I'm sure people listen from all over,
but Southern California is just killing it and California in general. And we have seen this incredible evolution in Southern California of IPAs.
You know, we go back to Chuck Silva and what they, what the IPAs were that gained his, you know, for him to gain his notoriety, they didn't look or taste anything like this, what we're drinking now.
They were often much more amber in color. They're more like that beer. Yeah, well, we're pointing at a beer that nobody can see on a podcast, but This is for the people here.
I think people know what I'm talking about. When you get an IPA and it had different malts, a whole different malt bill, they'd often be kind of a caramelly color.
They'd almost look like an amber. And often they would go really just for the bitterness. Obviously that was a competition in the world. Like who could make the most bitter beer?
Strip that enamel off your teeth. Exactly. And then, you know, just like all the, you know, the palates all changed of the brewers too. And there was just this dabbling and like, what if we lighten this up?
Well, I think, I think also, if you would agree that part of the reason why West Coast IPAs changed was the introduction of hazy IPAs to the IPA scene.
It happened before that. Well, it wasn't happening as much until hazy IPAs. No West Coast IPA looked and tasted like that until hazy IPAs came along. And I think brewers realized, oh, we're kind of alienating people on their palates
with these giant double IPAs that are so bitter that you just can't drink more than one or two of them. And so the style kind of shifted a little bit to where now West Coast IPAs,
the best ones as far as we're concerned out there, are focused way more on the flavor of hops, not so much on the bitterness of hops. And they're much more balance and they're much more sessionable.
And they look more like a pilsner a lot of times than they do an amber ale. And so just for you guys that are drinking along, this beer is called Must Be the Feeling.
It's a West Coast IPA from everywhere. And I misspoke. These guys are from Orange, not Anaheim. I'm not sure, you know, I don't live down there. Fair enough. But five feet away from Anaheim.
The thing I love about this beer is that, so it has some new school hops in it, obviously. You can smell and taste. Hopped with Mosaic, Mosaic Incognito, New Zealand, Cascade, Simcoe, and Southern Cross.
So, you know, Cascade and Simcoe, those have been used in IPAs for a very long time. So what this beer is for me, it's just this perfect representation of that new school West Coast IPA.
But it's like an homage to the IPAs that came before. And it's got enough of that old school hop character to where it, for me, as an old beer drinker, I'm like, oh, okay. You know, that's kind of neat.
And it's almost like a full circle thing that's happening now. I'm noticing that. We're both noticing that. It tickles the West Coast fancy, but it's still balanced. And the thing about these new West Coast IPAs, too, is that they are, because of what Aaron was talking about,
not going for the bitterness the same way and, you know, trying to be more drinkable. It means that it doesn't take as long, and this is just from my history serving people,
it just doesn't take as long for people to get a palate for hops when the beers are like this. Because it isn't trying to challenge you. It felt like you were fighting, like you were like, oh, you have to get to this point.
I mean, I read an amazing article in the New Yorker many years ago about the human palate. And one of the things that stuck with me because I'd been selling beer for so long, even at that point, was that, you know, the idea of embracing sourness and bitterness as pleasurable flavors,
that goes against our base survival instincts, right? I mean, you know, like your sugar is something that babies love, you know, immediately because it's just quick energy.
And so, like, people, I would watch people go for like, they go from bud, you know, to something kind of similar and then maybe lean into like some roasty things or some chocolatey things or some sweeter things
and then kind of had to slowly back into hops. And this is before there were even sour beers that could challenge us in that way. I mean, they were existing, but not in the United States, really.
And so, you know, now it's interesting because there's so many people who just get into IPA right away. And it kind of blows my mind on one level, since it always was like one of those things you had to work towards.
And you don't anymore. But part of it is because there are breweries like this who are doing beer that is so balanced and beautiful and showcasing a flavor that's actually really pleasant without trying to just overwhelm you with bitterness.
I think the perfect example is I've been with my wife for 10 years now. I used to not have to worry about the IPAs in my fridge. Now I do. Now they disappear sometimes and I have questions.
It's a real problem in my house, too. Our biggest fights are over. Don't drink my beer. All right. So let's talk about your background. First of all, I did some digging and I discovered that you were a runner up for 2013 Beer Drinker of the Year.
Yes, I was. Is that a real thing? And people, when they asked me, they were like, was that quantity of beer? And I'm like, no. No, anyone who really knows me and drinks with me knows that, yeah, I'm not a superhero that way.
No, that was a really interesting contest that I think might still exist. But it goes back to my very, very first days in this industry because my first job in both the restaurant world and in the beer world,
that was all a simultaneous start to two careers of mine. And that took place in 1992 when I moved to Denver and I got a job as a cocktail waitress at the Wing Coop Brewing Company,
which is a huge old mercantile building, another really cool building that was turned into an amazing brew pub, the kind of place where the beer wasn't all that great, to tell you the truth.
Yeah, not the best in Colorado. Cool spot though, near the stadium. It was the place where you had to take your friends who were in town. You know, like that was the, it was a destination. It was just gorgeous. So I fell in love with the beer world in Colorado because it was such a great community of people
and they were all so supportive of each other and they actually were making a product with their own hands, paying attention to their craft and making it predominantly for their neighbors. So it was just something really fascinating to me on a human level.
And then, so I got my start in all of this and had moved 20 years beyond that through my trajectory. And then in 2013, exactly 20 years later, I had been pestered by a bunch of beer geeks in New York,
like, Jen, you need to like write the essay. You need to like put yourself up for beer drinker of the year. You'd be great. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I don't need accolades for beer geekery. Enough people know.
And yet that year it kind of made sense because I had had the opportunity to do some fascinating beer things. It was more about beer experience than the year before.
And I had been invited to brew a batch of beer with Jean Van Roy from Cantillon in Brussels. I had gone and been in the catacombs of Schlenkerla in Bomberg.
And so I had just been on the skunk train. I think that was the year. There was all this stuff I'd done. And with Lagunitas, that was their party.
I'd done so many things and it was the 20 year anniversary of the Wink Coop, who happened to be the sponsors of this contest. And so it gave me, you know, it kind of made me feel like I'd come full circle.
And I wrote the essay and, you know, I was a shoe in. I knew I was. They blew me out to Denver, put me up in the Brown Palace, which is an amazing hotel.
They gave me a stipend and I got to see a bunch of friends in Colorado. And then I got to put on a show, which is basically what that was. I was the runner up and I lost to one of my regulars at the Blind Tiger.
This guy named Warren, he wanted it so badly and he'd come in close a couple times. When I came in second, even though I do think I might have earned the title myself,
I was happy for him. So it's okay. I'll take second place. That's fine. You're first in our hearts. Come on. But beyond that, you've been bartending for quite a while, right?
You started in Denver, I think. Denver in 92, as a waitress. I went to North Carolina for a couple years. And what's funny about that, in the beer world, is now North Carolina.
It's a mecca. We went for the beer industry and there was nothing going on. I moved for a boyfriend who is still a dear friend of mine who was selling beer back then.
He has a type. Chefs and beer sales guys. Good looking beer dudes. But I didn't belong in the South. That's all I need to say about that.
I had an idea about going to New York City for the fashion industry. But obviously I needed to earn a living too, while I was getting my degree. So I got into bartending again. I bartended there for 14 years.
Once I got my degree, I lasted in the fashion industry for about 10 months. And then people were like, oh, so you're leaving New York? I'm like, New York is not the problem. It's this industry.
So after designing men's and unisex accessories for Old Navy for about 10 months, I quit that in a ball of fire and went back to bartending with renewed and greater conviction.
But beer had not taken a hold. So I had to wait. I had to be much more patient until there were actually... There were some beer bars and they were doing a good job.
But people just didn't know what I was talking about. Are you responsible for Old Navy performance fleece? No, but I killed it with the backpacks. I made them so much money that fall.
Those commercials still haunt me. Performance fleece. But you were among the first in New York to really focus on beer. We talked about this before.
Which is what we're getting, factions anomalies. The next beer we're going to drink. I was an anomaly in that I knew so much about beer. I was from Chico, California is my hometown.
Any good breweries out there? I wasn't a big beer drinker in high school. Sierra Nevada's logo was just indelible on my brain.
I had seen this industry that I loved and was asking, when's the beer festival and who are the breweries? People were like, they used to have one of those. But that brewery closed.
I had to explain the concept and I was like, I have to be patient. But when it finally started, when Captain Lawrence Brewery opened up in Westchester, that's when I saw things start to shift.
He had actually trained at Sierra Nevada. He was from Westchester, brought what he learned out in the world in the Pacific Northwest and in Northern California, brought it back to New York and started Captain Lawrence.
I had one of your experiences, Greg. Did you stumble? I just randomly stumbled upon one of the very first kegs that he had sold to a beer bar in the East Village called DBA.
I just happened to take a couple friends there. I tried that beer and I went, wait, what is this? I was like, something is shifting. I told Scott Vaccaro for years, he's the owner, brewmaster,
you were the one who marked that change in New York City. But then, of course, just like Colorado back in the day and some of these markets like Los Angeles, once it starts to move, then it's a snowball effect.
That took place. They needed me for a while. I could actually connect people to the right beer for them. There weren't a lot of bartenders who were like me that way.
I felt like I had a purpose and a place there. By the time I ended up deciding to leave, I felt like it was in pretty good hands. There were a lot of people who had embraced craft beer and knew what they were talking about on the service end
and could be the advocates for these amazing breweries that the market really needed. People didn't even have the vocabulary to ask for what they were looking for.
I had a handle in helping to educate people, even though maybe they didn't even realize they were being educated. New York, you're welcome. We got her right here.
Do either of you have any experience brewing? Home brewing with... Not professionally in any way. As long as it's not a Mr. Beer Kit. We've definitely done some collaboration beers where we're helping out.
What that is is drinking beer and watching the professionals work. It's my favorite day. It's a lot of waiting around for something to happen. It's really not.
I've sat in on lots of brews. I have no interest in actually brewing. I want to be an advocate for the people who've made that their passion.
I actually brewed a really, really bad beer one time. It was a wee heavy. It was wee bad?
It was a lot bad. The brew kettle that I was brewing on was an old keg, which is pretty common. There were lines carved with a dirty screwdriver
on the inside of the keg. For your gallon markers. For some reason, I thought the fourth line was the fifth line. I only added four gallons of water to this thing.
What I ended up with was a wee heavy that was so malty and so bitter. I let it age in my garage for probably year four.
It actually started to dry out enough to where you could actually take a couple of sips without feeling a little bit nauseous. That's my one contribution to the beer world.
I actually have one where a buddy and I finally got around to trying to home brew in New York one time. We made what I called ugly baby IPA.
A beer only a mother could love. Any home brewers in the audience here? We've all made those beers, right? My most expensive beer is the worst beer I've ever made.
Boy, was that a disaster. Why such a love for craft? Obviously, you have a background in bartending, in restaurants. You were selling beer, but why such a passion for craft?
It's the people in the industry. That's what it is. Yes, we like to drink beer. Of course. Really, what it boils down to is while you're drinking the beer,
the conversations you're having, the people you're meeting, the community that is around it. That's really why we're in it and why we do what we do. Yeah, absolutely.
Long before I met Aaron and I was in this world, I've been saying the same thing. That was one of the things we agreed on with all of this. It's way more about the people.
Yes, I know my beer. I'm pretty opinionated about it. But it's so much less about the liquid and more about the humans behind the liquid.
It's always when I would try to connect people to beer, it's also like I'd try to throw in a little information about the brewery or the person behind it. Just to give it a human aspect.
Because people weren't making that connection back when I was first getting people on board in New York. It was like they were still just looking at it as this isolated thing
that they didn't understand in a glass. And it's like, no, but if you start to know about the humans, then it kind of brings it to life in a different way. To that point, this beer list that Jen mostly organizes,
but I have a hand in it too, it's really based on our relationships in the business, not so much the hype that is around breweries specifically. We happen, those often line up where our friends are also
somewhat of those hype breweries, but we're not seeking the hype first. We're seeking the relationships and the people that have been in this industry for a long time. That's really our focus. Well, that's where I was going to go to next.
I don't know if you guys here and at home listening know this, but Aaron doesn't just order kegs from breweries he likes. He drives around like a crazy person all throughout the state. Very crazy.
Developing relationships, getting kegs. Talk about how you work on these. You get kegs that never leave a tap room. That's kind of our niche.
If we can help it, most of our beer that we have on tap are beers from breweries that are like that, where they essentially do very little distribution. If they do any distribution at all, it's right outside of,
it's self-distro in a radius around their brewery. I pay attention to that. A lot of the breweries that we go and travel for are the breweries that I'm like, I see what happens out there in the beer world
and I cross-reference and I talk about who that brewer is. We do our research and then we go down that road by sitting in the tap room, tasting, getting to meet the people.
It's a lot more about that. We want to have a relationship with them first. We're not just asking right away. One of the things Aaron hasn't mentioned about his previous restaurant, Smoke,
was that he wasn't an expert going in on craft brewed beer, but he took that seriously. He ended up taking that seriously before most people in Santa Cruz were doing that.
Between his connections up in Northern California, having been in that position, and in Santa Cruz in particular, he's the one who's, in fact, a mutual brewer friend,
is the mutual friend who introduced us originally. We have Luke Taylor from Corralitos Brewing to thank for all of this, this room does. If he hadn't introduced the two of us, this never would have happened.
Aaron had those connections and I had other connections from all my time. Between the two of us, we got to start Fluid State from a starting point that most beer bars don't get to start.
That's one of the things that was a big question for us when we first had this idea. We're obviously old timers in this industry, and there's a lot of beer bars and a lot of places that are opening up
that don't have the heritage that we have in the industry. We had this thought of, does that even matter anymore? Because in an age of,
this is going to be controversial, but in an age of beers that were coming out for a while, like lactose, sour IPAs, and stuff like that.
You can say it, 450 North. The people that are drinking those beers are people that don't have a palate for beer. They're like beer for babies.
It's like, okay, that exists out there. Those people are making money, those people are successful, at least on the surface they look like they are. We had this thought of, what we're going to bring to the table here with our relationships
and all this big stuff that we're talking about, does it even matter anymore? We really did have that conversation one time. Is this going to just sound really like we're just better than everybody else?
We don't feel we are until I'm talking about it. But the point is, we do have that history.
We did want to have a place that highlighted those relationships. It turns out it does matter, which is nice. Because we took that risk. Of course, we do carry a lot of those
quote unquote hype styles. It's just when we're getting a pastry stout from RIP Brewing, we just trust that those guys know,
they're going to give it the right application. All these adjuncts, there are a bunch of breweries who we deal with, they're doing it in this way where it's still in balance.
It comes back to balance. It's the best representation of a hype style that Aaron and I can find in our opinion. This is all our opinion.
We are imposing our opinion through Fluid State onto the people who walk in this store. We make our margarita the way we like our margarita. It's not like, okay, there's no sours mix here.
When it comes to our ciders that we have on the list, we always have a couple cider or now hard kombucha, seltzer type alternatives. We don't like sweet really that much.
It took a while for the, that's part of what Aaron was talking about before when it came to people figuring this out, what we were doing over time. It was like people were hesitant at first
and maybe we would have a beer and then they started to look at the pizza and trust the idea of the pizza. Then they got word that maybe the margarita wasn't so sweet and they were like, oh, maybe I'll try one.
Then it started to broaden in this slow way. The cider drinkers were real slow at first. Yet then they started to realize, oh, they kind of have the palate I have.
Sure, the angry orchard people don't drink our cider. I don't know if they're coming in. They're still angry and they might be down the block. But then we gained the confidence
of the people who started to understand. It's almost like a movie reviewer whose opinion you start to fall in line with. Let me just add to that, which is kind of our philosophy on this business.
It's kind of like, my opinion is when you try to make a place that takes everybody into consideration, you kind of make a place for nobody. Because it's okay to have an opinion in this industry
and to kind of like, this is the niche we carved out. We realize that it's not for everybody, of course. The guy that's drinking Bud Light, he's probably not going to...
We might have a style that he would like, but he probably won't believe it. And so we're not for that guy. We're not necessarily for the people that want a sweet cider. Yeah, I don't think he's going to drink
the Mango Tangerine Cherry Dream. But he might drink the Hellas. He won't know how to pronounce it. But the point is, my philosophy is,
I think it's good business to decide this is the path we're going to take and kind of stick to that and not waver. Because of course we had a lot of people...
I mean, we could talk for hours about that. The big thing was no TVs. No TVs. That's the one that we always go back to. And Aaron and I are so proud of the fact
that Fluid State is... Current Fluid State is so close to what our business plan was when we had to write a business plan, when we kind of had a shell of a building
to work with and our vision. Because we decided our philosophy was let's try to be as true to our vision as possible. And if we have to, we'll open it up in concentric rings
of what we can compromise that's not going to kill us or take our souls. And we really haven't had to make too many compromises, if any,
because Ventura supported what we thought they might support. Yes, thank you guys. Thank you to this room. So building on all of that,
I love that you guys have picked out just the styles you like. You're not going to... It's hard to recommend something you don't enjoy. So it totally makes sense. Have there been breweries that have come to you and said, we want our kegs in your establishment?
You have to name names, unless you want to. And then you go, nope, sorry. Well, yeah. So one thing that came into play with that, of course, that happens for sure.
But me, having been a beer salesman, I have great respect for the people that are on the streets trying to come in and sell their beer. So we always treat them with respect.
We never go like, yeah, that beer sucks. We're not ever going to... We understand the struggle. We understand how hard it is to do that job. So usually, actually,
Jen is usually the one that has to give them the bad news. Well, I'm the one who's dealing with the reps. And those are hard conversations.
But I think that they're important for, out of the respect that Erin and I have for their job, I just don't want them wasting time. If I'm wishy-washy and I'm like,
oh, well, not right now, I don't know. And then they just put me on their list and they show up every month and then it's this awkward conversation. So I usually try to just have...
I tear the band-aid off and I say, yeah, you know, there's nothing wrong. Well, if there's something wrong with the beer, I'll tell them. But I'll be like, there's nothing wrong with this beer.
But one of the things I use that sometimes it sinks in and sometimes it doesn't, is I kind of reference that wall of the beer that we have. And I'm like, you want me to carry this IPA
and look at what it's going to stand up against. I'm like, we've got Rip wannabe Wallaby up there. It's like, you know, it's not going to be good for you or your beer
or me or my customers if your beer sits there languishing on a line because the other beers it's sitting next to are fresher and more unique and something.
And I'm like, there's so many other bars who are looking for distro and their customer doesn't have the same sort of discerning palate.
And so it ends up being this kind of conversation where most of the time they come out going, okay, I get it. The other conversation we have to have is with independence in brewing. Because we have, there are plenty of breweries
who in the six and a half years, we carried them and then they sold. And we hold no grudges. It's like, hey, if you're going to sell, make a bunch of money and cash out,
that's your choice and that's fine. But we made a conscientious decision before we opened about how we feel on the subject. And we don't need us anymore.
And so we really do stand our ground and carry independent breweries. And that actually goes for venture capitalist owned, those options too.
Because then it got kind of hairy with that too. I get it. All right, before we get to, we have a lot of listener questions. So thank you guys, everybody who submitted. Before we do that, we have one more beer to try.
Let's try it. Okay, so this beer is Faction Brewing Anomaly. It's a particular style. If you guys are drinking this, it's one of our favorite versions, probably our favorite version of this style.
This is a blonde milk stout on nitro. It's got cocoa nibs, it's got coffee, it's got lactose. Sorry, Anis. It is just, the reason why it's called Anomaly
is it tastes, if you close your eyes and drink it, it actually tastes like a stout. But it's kind of amber blonde in color. It's a weird one. Well, Aaron was going to talk about not the first version.
Who are you giving credit to? Noble. Yeah, and not just Noble Aleworks, but when Evan Price was the brewmaster of Noble Aleworks. Evan Price of Green Chic Brewing,
if you guys have had that beer here. One of our favorite breweries on the planet. And one of our favorite people in the industry too. And an incredible talent. And he's another one who worked for other people
for a long time. He was with, I believe it's called Taps? Fish and Brew House, something like that. He was winning awards for them. And then he moved over to Noble in Orange County
and kind of put them on the map before he ended up leaving and starting Green Chic. And again, now he's doing his own thing for himself. And we're so happy for him and support him.
But when he was working for Noble, he is the one who created Naughty Sauce, which is kind of a famous blonde milk stout on nitro.
And so he sort of, I mean, I'm going to give him credit, though he might argue with me when I see him later this month at the GABF. I think he invented it. And it definitely was a beer in Southern California
that turned heads. And so then it became a thing. And now our friend Roger Davis up at Faction, and he did Anomaly, is his.
And we love it. Yeah, it's just a little less sweet and has a little more bitterness from the coffee and the cocoa than Naughty Sauce. I think it's just more balanced. Again, we go back to balance.
Naughty Sauce is a fantastic beer, but it's a beer from years ago. I mean, I don't know. 2012. I was going to say 10, but that sounds like a long time ago. I could be wrong, but I found 12 somewhere.
I was like, wow, it's been around forever. So anyway, what was happening in beer in 2012? A lot of different things. And so beer has gotten better, I think. Better, more balanced.
More balanced. And so that's Anomaly kind of represents. But they're dear friends, and he's talented. And we love when we get to have Faction beers up here because they are other people who worked for other.
There's a theme here. People who've worked for other breweries for a long time. He was with Drake's and Triple Rock in the East Bay. He worked like Claudio worked for 21st Amendment.
She was behind the bar for years. And then the two of them as a married couple, they decided to finally do their own thing. They ended up acquiring a hangar next to Hangar 1,
and next to St. George Distillery, which is where Hangar Run spun off of. But on the former Naval base. So their trajectory, their journey to actually get that brewery open was nuts
because they're dealing with government property and they're opening up a brewery. And it was just crazy and continues to be crazy for them sometimes. Yeah, and back to the beer.
I mean, this is exactly what you said. It's that more balanced version of Naughty Sauce. It's not so sticky and sweet. The coffee shines through a little bit more. It's delicious. This is really good.
This is the first time I've had this one. All right, we got some listener questions, some audience questions. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to screw up some names. The Drainies asked,
if you only had one beer to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh, come on. Also, what's your favorite Beatles album?
Okay, Jen, you first. Rubber Soul. That's my favorite Beatles album. No, what's the beer? I'm avoiding that question. I don't want to answer that question.
Let's broaden out. How about Style? It'd be a lager. The rest of my life. I'm still an IPA girl, a West Coast IPA girl.
I want to drink beers that are the best representations of the style that I can find. But if you were going to go back to something, I'd go back to IPA.
This one comes from Kevin. Kevin says, what would your final meal be and what would you pair with it? It's such a hard one. I think I would probably go with a roast chicken.
Like a really, really good roast chicken with crispy skin and mashed potatoes and gravy. And a nice crispy salad. And what beer with that?
Probably Helles Lager. Jen? A liter of Helles Lager. Don't cut yourself short. Whatever Aaron's cooking that night.
Roast chicken. I guess it's a chicken. This comes from, I think this is Black Pan. It says, what is the maximum seating capacity of your mustache?
One. Good answer. That was close.
You can see the blushing through the mustache. Jen, do you think beer has the power to save the world? What am I, like a Miss America candidate?
Don't forget the wave. All I know, I don't know about that. But all I know is that beer obviously draws communities together.
This comes from The Deez. What do you think it is that contributes to Fluid State's ferocious popularity? Charcuterie Board? It's a lot of things.
And that's a great compliment. And believe me, we don't take it for granted. But I think it's all the things. It's like the beer list and the bartenders and the pizza and the charcuterie board.
And it's not any one thing. It's like kind of how they all work together. And I feel like Fluid State can be a place you can make it for whatever you want.
It could be a date night. It could be a family day. It could be 30 people can walk in here and actually find a place to sit. It's kind of choose your own adventure kind of thing.
And so there's something about this concept where it's whatever you want to make it. And that's why it's popular, I think. I think you nailed it. We'll start with Jen, both of you. Should IPAs be hazy or clear?
Clear. I'm a West Coast girl, you know at heart. And I love the beauty of a nice clear IPA that's in balance like we were talking about.
Yeah. I've never been a fan of the style, the hazy style. So I'm definitely in the same opinion. There have recently been some hazy beers that have surprised me.
But the problem with that style has been historically it's just an excuse for poor beer making. I mean that's just an opinion obviously. That's some of the breweries.
Now the breweries who we carry are not making, those are not Axton's. But that fluffy... I've actually asked a couple of brewers of note.
I'm like, so let me ask, is this where your mind was? Where I tasted their first, some of their first hazy IPAs. And I was like, I tasted it and I laughed because I was like, I know what was going through his head.
I don't know if I can swear. Oh absolutely, fucking lutely. Oh fine, like fuck it, I'll do one. But fuck you guys, I'm going to do it my way.
And it ends up being basically a West Coast IPA in disguise. And sure enough, the hazy IPA drinkers like Aaron's talking about, a lot of them really like, they're so attached to that and what that means to them.
But they're open to like really good brewing even if it is a little more bitter and it has a little more hot presence. And so it ends up being like this like compromise that they make.
And those crack me up. Those are some of my favorite hazies are from the people who don't want to make hazies. This one comes from LD. For Jen, what is your favorite fluid state fact?
That we had to stop making pizza on day three, day four of fluid state after a year of buildup because our mixer broke. Actually, there was a lot of reasons.
That was a convenient excuse. There were lots of reasons. But we ended up doing, we were a tri-tip. So going back to your meat thing, we ended up being a tri-tip restaurant for five days in the first week we were open.
That's a fun fact. It ended up being very serendipitous. The day the edible article came out on us, they had a great picture of a pizza on the front.
And just talking about the sourdough and hyping all that up was the day we couldn't make pizza. And so people came in here pretty pissed off. And they were just like, what is up with this place?
Oh, fluid state, okay, just going to change it all the time or whatever. We had a real problem with our sourdough starter. Because I was experimenting at home with this starter. And it was lovely.
Everything was great. I was making loaves of bread and pizza. And it was awesome. And then I brought the starter into our brand new commercial kitchen, which was a construction zone.
And if you know anything about sourdough starter, it actually feeds itself from the yeast and the bacteria that are floating in the air. It develops this homeostasis. And I brought this beautiful starter into this desolate wasteland of fluid state.
And it just basically was like, fuck you. I'm not doing this anymore. And so I had to... It's kind of nerdy what the process was, but essentially I couldn't make good pizza dough.
And so I had to kind of re-give the starter some love and actually just kind of feed it and make it happy. And that took about five days. But the Hobart did break. The Hobart did break at the same time, but that was the convenient excuse that I put on social media.
Don't believe anything on social media. That's a lot quicker explanation. It really did break. And it took five days to get it back. But the thing is, that morning I made dough by hand. The mixer was broken.
I would have kept doing that had the dough been a bit good. Makes sense. For both of you, real quickly, Star Wars, Alien, or Terminator?
Star Wars. Alien. Alien. This one, I think, purposely comes from anonymous.
It says, when will fluid state have ranch? I have forbidden errand. I will take credit for this.
He makes great ranch, too. He makes great ranch, I'm sure of it. I've never had it. But I'm like, the truth is, we can't. Because ranch is a crutch for bad pizza.
Oh! And there are too many people who just do that. It's like that whole adage of adding salt to the soup before you've tasted it.
It's like you don't know if it needs it yet. I'm a little less of that opinion, although I think the strategy on our part to not do ranch initially was the right one.
Now I'm feeling as though we could have some really good ranch sometimes. Maybe we make it like a special day. Where we, come on out for Thursday Ranch Night, everybody!
Yeah, yeah. And so, it's just, yeah. But, I mean, I actually like ranch. But good ranch. Not the ones you buy in a bottle. No, that doesn't count.
But like the original recipe of ranch, originally from Santa Barbara, that's damn good salad dressing. So, you know, like, you know, never know. Well, there you go, anonymous, whoever you are. Maybe when Jen's out of town.
Yeah. You'll always know when Jen's on vacation. Ranch is missing. Ranch is seriously on the menu. Sounds good to me. All right, we're going to wrap it up with some very quick rapid fire questions.
We're going to go Jen, Aaron, each time. Very quickly, first thing you can think of, what was the first beer you ever drank? Black Label. Carling's Black Label. Lucky Lager. Favorite beer and food pairing?
I'm honestly not good at food and beer pairings. Pepperoni pizza with calzone olives and a West Coast IPA. Sounds amazing. Wednesday night, what are you drinking?
A can of IPA on my couch, but it's an IPA from like Island Park or everywhere. Like whoever is great. But I usually like reserve that for after dinner.
Clearly. Pinot Grigio. All right. Throw in a wrench. Throw in a wrench. It's so hard.
What is your beercation destination? I want to take Aaron to Brussels because he hasn't seen it and I really want to go back and have that experience again with the Belgian beers.
Yeah, I want to go to Germany. I just want to drink lagers. I can't do it anymore. Until they carry you out. What is your favorite non-beer, but also non-restaurant, non-beer hobby?
What was that question? Favorite non-beer hobby. What do you like doing that doesn't involve beer? I thought you said hoppy. What's your favorite hoppy? I don't understand what that is. I've been drinking.
No, me too. I'm hoping to get back into sewing. Okay. I have this fanatical love of old cars.
And so I am constantly either working on one currently or looking for one to buy and work on. And so if I could just do that all the time, that'd be a joy.
Work-life balance. Favorite guilty pleasure beer? This is where we find out that you love PBR. I don't know. There isn't one that I'm hiding where I'm like, oh, I don't want anyone to know.
But I do own a PBR t-shirt that I don't wear all the time around here. For obvious reasons. So maybe that was my weird little like, hmm, somehow I'm hiding PBR.
I've never seen her drink a PBR. Maybe while in Nashville. I think you get shot if you don't drink one. It's the law, actually. I'll happily buy a case of glass bottles of Modelo.
I'll drink the shit out of that beer. Favorite hangover cure? You know the goodies in a little paper fold?
It's an aspirin in powder form. So it looks really weirdly illicit. That stuff does sort of work. Do you snort it? No, no, no. You just throw it down your gullet.
It's like crazy. And that one goes back to the 90s, like my early Colorado days, where that was like a hangover cure. I mean, for me, it's more hydration. So I just like, you know.
We've hit that age where hydration is the key. Electrolyte it. Yeah. You guys get hungover? I don't like to brag about it. No, I'll just lay on the couch and wait for Jen to get up and complain and ask for water.
That's my cure. All right. And finally, what is your favorite word or slang for being drunk? I guess I use hammered a little more than I use any other.
But I feel like I've got some clever ones somewhere in my receptacles and I can't. Yeah, same. Wasted. Buzzed up.
Shitter. Classics. I mean, you can't go wrong with a classic. All right. That is everything. I want to thank everyone for coming out. Please. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Once again, thank you to Jerry of Daughters of Mankasi for setting this all up. Thank you guys for coming on your day off. I don't know what's wrong with you, but I appreciate it. If you guys listening at home haven't been.
Thank you, Greg. Thank you. You guys haven't been to Fluid State yet. We're in Ventura. It's 692 East Main Street. It's on the corner of like where all the outside this stops, which is like easy to find.
The 692 East Main Street on the Grams at Fluid State on Facebook. Fluid State Beer Garden. Did I miss anything? Nope. Thank you so much. Thank you, Greg. Thank you for the beer. Thank you, everybody.
Hope everyone's staying hydrated out there. And on that note, good night, everybody.