All right. Welcome in, everybody. Greg here from the Craft Beer

Republic on a bit of a field trip today we are in one of my favorite

beer cities, and that's Denver. And we're at our Mutual friends

brewing. If you're telling people about it,

call it OMF because you will confuse the heck out of them.

I'm with head brewer, co-owner, and uh, real beer nerd Jan Chodkkowski.

Thanks for joining us, man. Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah.

Thanks for, um, having some beer early in the morning. No.

No problem. Yeah. This is a good excuse to, uh, have

a few. Have a handful of tasters. Yeah, yeah.

It's always nice to tell people it's a hobby and not a problem.

Yeah, well. And our job. Yeah. For you. Job. For me, it's.

It's like a hobby sort of job. Yeah. So it's great.

Well, like I said, thanks for hanging out. Uh. It's early.

We're gonna drink some beers for you guys, walk through a little

bit of their lineup, we'll do some beer tastings.

We'll find out about Jan, uh, his history, his history as a drinker

and some of the nerdy stuff that they got going on here at our mutual

friends. I want to say stumbled. I was told to come in here last

time we were here at Gabf is 2023. Somebody said,

you got to go check out OMF. And we're like, all right, dude,

we came here the day they were doing the awards.

We're watching the awards on TV. That's awesome. And that was cool.

And it was our first time hearing of the place and we loved it.

So I had to stalk you and annoy you to try and get you on the

show the next time. I was in Denver, which is to do it.

Yeah. So this is really cool. Um, if you don't mind,

before we get into some history, can we try our first beer? Yeah.

The first beer we got, uh, today is our Keller Pils, which is

served straight from our Lager tank. So it is, uh, not a unique recipe.

It's actually just our pilsner beer served off the lager tank

before we package it. Yeah. So it gives our consumers who

come into the taproom a unique opportunity to try.

Try some Keller beer straight from the Lager tank.

Yeah, yeah, people often don't even know what that means.

Really? Kellerbier. Yeah. So traditionally, you know,

Kellerbier might be like beer. That was, you know, lagered in

underground or in a cave or wherever Germans might lager a beer for a

long time to save for a little bit, and then served maybe off of, like a

cask or a foster straight from it, you know, like tapping, like a,

like a firkin or a pin. But, yeah. Uh, this beer is brewed with

100% Colorado ingredients. So all the malt is from troubadour

malting up in Fort Collins. And the hops are tettnang crystal

and cascade grown in Pelletized here in Colorado. Wow. Yeah.

And you guys, I thought I read somewhere that you used to do

your own grains like you used to. We used to roast some of our own

malt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was great ideas at the

beginning to maybe try to malt some stuff, but the scale didn't work.

And then the scale stopped working once we grew more for roasting.

So we don't even really roast our own. We don't at all roast any.

Too hard to keep. Up. Yeah, yeah. And it would smoke out the whole

building in taproom, and you just. You'd reek like it for a day or two.

The clothes had to be instantly washed, but it did create a unique

profile to our darker beers, which was really fun.

And I'm sure the neighboring businesses loved those days too.

For a long time there was a coffee roaster next to us, and,

uh, fresh roasted coffee can kind of be stinky, too, so they

masked it a little bit, right? Kind of. Competing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, this is really nice. This is light.

A little bit of effervescence. It's not super carbonated yet, right.

A hint of, I don't know, maybe a little sweetness on there too.

A little bit. Yeah. Like not overly sweet. Sweet.

Very, very crisp. Very clean. Just a hint of sweetness from

not quite finishing up yet. Yeah, it's a fun thing.

We have it on like, uh, not a proper liquor side pole, but another one.

So we were able to pour like, nice foamy head on it, conserve it

in like, you know, mugs and stuff. It's just a fun beer to offer.

We light up a sign behind the taproom that says killer beer is pouring

whenever we have it, because it's not in every everyday thing. Yeah, yeah.

You know, you kind of only see them at maybe places like, uh,

like a beer type of place that Yeah, specializes in German beers and

lagers and that kind of stuff. So it's fun to see out in the wild.

Yeah. Um, all right, let's let's get

into you a little bit. Um, before we talk about OMF,

let's go into your history as a as a drinker.

Where did it all begin for you? Was it, you know, PBR in college

or Miller Lite in high school or. A lot of high life?

Uh, yeah, high school going into college.

And then I do remember, though, that that, you know, like, you know,

the light bulb beer that changed everything for me was just a Guinness

in my driveway when I was like, you know, underage a little bit

probably. You were. Definitely 21. I was 21. Yeah.

And I was like, oh, beer can be totally different than,

you know, American light lager. So, uh, that totally changed my mind.

And then it was off, off from there, you know, just trying to explore

the whole world of beer. It really started when I moved out to

Colorado, though, when I was 20, 21. And when I turned 21,

I instantly started going to like the beer stores out here and trying,

you know, everything from Avery and New Belgium and Odell and all

those all the classics. Yeah. And then exploring all the great,

uh, California breweries and stuff. Getting everything and then,

you know, really kind of found a lot of passion early on in

enjoying and homebrewing. Um, like Belgian style beers.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. There was a great Belgian beer bar

here called Cheeky Monk that I lived a block away from, for better or

worse. It was kind of trouble. It's probably good for them.

Yeah? Yeah. Kept the lights. On. Yeah, yeah.

Well, they had a crazy deal where it was

half off all drafts for happy hour. And so being a young guy and going

into that beer bar, some of those, that was the end of my day.

Sometimes, you know, you go in for three hours and drink

10% Belgian beers. That was it. I could do some damage during

happy hour. Yeah. No doubt. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

So just, you know, really enjoyed, you know, like, all the Colorado

beers and then a lot of Belgian beers early on too. Yeah, yeah.

So as a beer drinker, that kind of was like what I gravitated for.

Started drinking, you know, like lambic really early on to

in my early 20s. I remember buying Cantillon off the

shelf, you know, like, yeah, yeah. That's not where a lot of people. Go.

Yeah. Yeah, especially early on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty good.

And it's not our main focus here, but at OMF.

But we do make a lot of mixed culture beer and Saison and stuff as well.

Yeah. You got some fritters. Yeah,

we have fooders and stuff like that. But then, you know, started home

brewing and, uh, you know, I was a mediocre homebrewer but

found success making, you know, Saison I'd never even made it to,

like, temperature control, fermentation as a home brewer.

Just had a one bedroom apartment. So I was doing whatever I could

there. But, yeah, was, uh,

making some decent Saison. And then, you know, I wasn't

really enjoying what I was doing before I started brewing beers.

So I had a little bit of time in winter to try.

I was trying to get into the industry, and there weren't that many

breweries that were hiring back then. So like, the options were maybe

try to get in at the canning and bottling line at Great Divide.

Sure. Maybe like. Rip. Great rip. Great divide. Yeah. Just got sold.

The brand will live on, but the production facility shut down.

It was really difficult to find a job in the beer industry.

I didn't even really know about brewing school. It was late.

20s. Chinese. Yeah. There was yeah, there was UC

Davis maybe and Siebel and. Yeah. And then yeah, there wasn't that

I didn't even really know about those programs. So yeah.

So I would go around to breweries and see if they had anybody,

if they needed any help, anything. Uh, sweep the floors. Yeah, yeah.

Got to be friends with my now business partner, Brandon,

who was one of the founders of our Mutual Friend Brewing company.

And he's like, oh, yeah, we could use some help in the taproom.

And so I started in the taproom here, worked for free in the back part

time, getting paid in the back, part time in the front,

full time in the back, and then head brewer and then also became

a partner here at OMF maybe five, six years ago. Yeah. Oh, okay.

So you weren't the original brewer. No, no, no,

there was another head brewer. Yeah. To start out the brewery.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. But now we're going on 13 years here.

So yeah this has been my only one and only beer beer job.

And no formal training other than. No, just just learning from the

kindness of other brewers who I have a question they're willing

to help out. Yeah, yeah. Doing all my own research, constantly

educating myself. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, I've heard from just

about every brewer I've talked to that if you've got questions, they'll

answer them. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. We have a great community.

Yeah, yeah. The original crew when I first

started here at OMF, you know, at Great Divide, the original crew

at Great Divide that I knew, um, they were instrumental in helping

us get our beer right and, and and figure out how to make

beer professionally. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah.

And before that, what was your civilian job?

I was a project manager for, like, a house service company.

So house painting, all sorts of odd jobs, going to houses and fixing

stuff and painting houses, interiors, exteriors, whatever they needed done,

basically. So nothing at all related? Not at all. No.

Other than, you know, managing a lot of people. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, I hear some people.

Oh, I had a chemistry background. No no, no. Yeah. None of that. Yeah.

I went to school for marketing so. Yeah. Yeah.

Which helps now that I'm a part of the business actually. Yeah.

Yeah yeah I get to flex, you know, creativity and, you know, designing

and brewing our beers but also a little bit help with my business

partner Brandon who does all of our art and graphic design but help,

you know, awesome name our beers and what direction we want to go

with you know, beer labels and art and stuff and how we want to

market those as well. Yeah. It's nice to have, uh,

you have the marketing side. He has the artistic side.

So basically you're the dream crusher he has. Yeah.

You can tell him like, no, that graphic is not going to sell

beer. Yeah, he never does it. Nail it. He always nails it.

He knows what's going on. He's a better marketer than I am,

too. But, yeah, it's nice to have at least

a little bit of experience in that. Yeah? Yeah. Perfect.

All right, well, speaking of beer, let's let's move on to number two.

Yeah. Sweet. So number two, uh, second beer

we have is called, uh, sunny, and it is a kolsch we just launched

last week. Love a. Kolsch. Yeah. And it is brewed with Leopold

Floor malted pilsner malt. So Leopold Leopold Brothers is a

distilling company here, but they also malt as well,

which is really cool. And so they also make pilsner malt,

and we use that in some beers. And this will be a hopefully a year

round regular core beer for us. Yeah, yeah.

And we rolled it out in 12 ounce six packs instead of our usual

four pack pint. So just kind of like a sunny pun

intended. It's always sunny in Colorado.

The sun is always out. And just an easy crushing beer.

Yeah, you could take it out with you on a hike or a bike,

you know, or take it up with you. Ski and snowboarding in the

winter and enjoy a nice, easy drink and Kölsch. Yeah.

And I appreciate the hell out of 12 ounce cans. Me too. Yeah.

As you get older, you're like, yeah, okay,

I can crush a couple of these. Yeah. Last couple years, I'm like,

do I need to 16 ounce cans? Yeah. Usually just end up opening one

and you're like, all right. Right now I'm full.

I feel like I just drank a meal. Yeah. Getting old sucks. Yeah.

Yeah. Getting old is tough. Yeah. For sure. But this is nice.

I mean, just like the last one. Very clean drinking. Very.

I mean, like you said, just. It's a chuggable. Yeah.

Sunny day. Yeah. If you're going to go tailgate

or something. Absolutely. For sure. Perfect for that.

Very easily put down a lot of these. Yeah. People barbecuing.

Oh my God. Yeah. People I feel like on the Kölsch

train try to, I don't know, impart too much flavor into a

Kölsch like, oh, we're gonna dry hop the shit out of this.

It's like, hey, you guys, leave the Kölsch alone and save that for your

IPAs or something. I'm on a boat. Yeah, yeah, I'm on the same boat

with you. Yeah. Like on board. We we wanted to just make a

straightforward, really enjoyable Kölsch that incorporates some

Colorado ingredients. It also has Colorado teenager, but

German hersbrucker is the main hop in that as well. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Super nice to. Drink. Yeah, yeah. We always like to incorporate

Colorado ingredients whenever possible in a lot of our beers

and most of our beers. So we we partner with a lot of

Colorado malt companies and hop producers as well.

Hop farms tell us get nerdy a little bit.

Tell us about the floor malted and all that stuff and what that

actually means. Floor malting is different than

tank malting, which is how the majority of malt is produced.

So floor malting is the old original old world way of

malting barley and wheat. The grain is steeped in a giant

tank with water and then allowed to lightly germinate, sprout and then or

it's spread across the floor first, and then it germinates and sprouts as

soon as it germinates and sprouts. They kill it with heat and then

kiln it. So okay, during that malting process

on the floor, they're trying to get the enzymes to convert some starches.

Yeah. To convert starches into sugar. And that doesn't normally happen

through the regular malting process. It's the same process.

But floor malting is kind of just its own unique characteristic rather

than a giant tank. Yeah, yeah. So it might be different in flavor

profile than than tank malting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

It's it's a little gentler. Can create maybe some more

nuanced flavors, uh, if they're doing it right. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's just a really cool, classic old, old world style malting. Yeah.

Sounds kind of like roasting coffee beans. Really.

You know, if you do it a little differently,

this way might be the same bean, but you're gonna get different flavors.

Absolutely different outcome. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. Yeah.

It is very hands on process. Yeah. Labor intensive. Extremely.

Yeah, yeah. All those things. Yeah. The equipment is inexpensive.

You just need a floor Really? But yeah. That's true.

Uh, then you need a kiln. All right. Let's go back with OMF a little bit.

When when they first opened, it was I did some stocking a 31 gallon

like basically homebrew system. And is that when you were you were

you brewing on that system or. I was at the head brewer during then,

but I was in the back helping out and stuff so quickly after that.

Yeah, I started on like a big one barrel home built, you know,

like built rack and with burners and stuff. Turkey fryer.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah. Like walk, walk burners. Yeah.

And then quickly went to a three barrel system after that,

realized one barrel isn't going to last too long.

And then after that, a seven barrel Franken brew system,

which is like a dairy tank kind of cobbled together system.

And then now we have a ten barrel fully plumbed system, really nice

traditional kind of craft system. So two vessel mash tun lauter tun and

then boil kettle whirlpool okay. Fire. Yeah.

How hard was it to keep up with that old system?

It was really, really hard. It was really manual too.

So every day. Just we had to dig out from the

top of it with a shovel. No rakes or plows or anything.

It's really messy. It was a lot of work,

moving hoes around every day. You know, every process.

You needed to move different hoes around and stuff.

That was basically, you know, the one barrel, the three barrel and

the seven all operated in the same manner. Standalone heat exchanger.

It was really, really hard. So really scrappy brewery,

the guys who, you know, the founders, they they opened

the brewery with like no debt. Really. So that's impressive.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It didn't cost them very much to

open the brewery. But you know, over time, you know,

it gets worn out and you're like, oh, we can't keep this up.

So we had to, you know, over time we've upgraded a lot equipment. Yeah.

What was the transition like to your current system?

Was it easy to scale up or was it, you know.

Yeah, we've scaled up so little over time that, you know, like it

was really, really easy to do it. And we were really happy to get,

you know, a proper brew house. Yeah I bet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Little automation in. There. Yeah yeah yeah.

It was, it was really nice to to have all that.

When uh, OMF first opened, What was the focus beer wise?

The focus was like kind of ale. Uh, you know, the previous head

brewer was really passionate about using Colorado local ingredients.

So that was always the case as well, working with a lot of producers in

Colorado and then focusing in on like kind of more English leaning,

like dark Brown porter English summer ale. It was, you know, 2012.

So people were still making malty beer.

You know, there was a lot of that still around.

Drinking loaves of bread. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there were the IPAs and pale ales were a little hardier than,

than today's versions. But yeah,

that was kind of the focus then. You know, as soon as I became head

brewer, we started branching out to mixed culture and Saison and

stuff and fruity beers and barrel aged beers and try to modernize the

hoppy beers a little bit as well. Lighten them up a little bit. Yeah.

Lighten them up a little bit early on.

You know, we started you know, we're like, okay, what have we got to do?

Well, let's just start using pilsner malt in our IPAs, which is,

you know, extremely commonplace. Now,

nobody uses pale ale malt in IPA. Maybe they use a blend,

but sure, very rarely. Modern IPA brewers are using all

pale malt in their IPAs, so. And I'm here for it.

Yeah, yeah, me too as well. Yeah. Nice light body in the modern

West coast is crucial. Yeah. Back to our earlier discussion.

Getting older sucks. And it also means I don't want a loaf

of bread with every beer I drink. Yeah, not every beer.

Yeah, I like the clean and the crisp. Absolutely like how it sits in me.

This area, they call it RiNo. Right? When OMF first opened in this area,

was it nearly as cool as it is now? I mean,

it was there all this stuff going on? No, there was very little when

we first opened, you know, the the name of this neighborhood,

you would probably call it Five Points, which is just, you know,

only four blocks, um, east of us. And that's still five points

that still exists. Okay. Over the years, the neighborhood

started to turn over gentrification, if you want to call it.

It was mostly warehouses and auto parts yards and stuff.

There wasn't a lot of residential in this neighborhood.

It was pretty industrial, actually, but there wasn't a ton

in the neighborhood. When the brewery opened,

there was like 3 or 4 retail businesses you could walk into.

There was Larimer Lounge, a music venue a block away from us,

Crema, the coffee house on the corner of our block, and then Walnut Room,

which is a bar venue. Oh, okay. And other than that,

there was nothing going on down here. All the streets were one way.

There was people drag racing down here all the time. Oh, really?

Our parking lot was dirt still before the city made our landlord pave it.

River North was nearby. They were maybe more ballpark.

Their original location at Great Divide was there.

So there were breweries nearby, for sure, but we were pretty much the

first brewery in the neighborhood. That's pretty good.

Yeah, maybe infinite Monkey Theorem, which was a winery, uh, urban winery

down here. But they're gone now. I think that's a name.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Infinite monkey theorem. Yeah.

They might have been open and are open in the same year,

but then over time, you know more breweries came in ratio. Bierstadt.

Odell some have come and gone, you know River North came back to the

neighborhood, which is awesome. Yeah. It's just been insane to watch

the neighborhood grow. And, uh,

we're happy to have as many people stop by the taproom as possible.

We want to share this beer with everybody.

Yeah, and now it's not super far out of the way. It's. No.

Yeah, it's central, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Is it fun having other spots like Bierstadt so close or is it

competitive? It's never. No, it's not competitive in a way,

really. It's only actually helped foot

traffic and bring more people to the neighborhood.

That's how we see it. Yeah. No. It's good. It's always a good thing.

You need, like, a little, uh, ale trail or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

If you were here from the beginning, would you have done any other

than maybe a bigger brew system? Would you have done anything

differently? Proper brew house. That's about it. Yeah.

Proper brew house. You know, like just equipment stuff.

You know, OMF is on the production side.

Made a lot of we've had a lot of learning experiences over the years.

So you know, you got to go through through those to,

to make better beer. So it's tough to tough to say, you

know, like you know like you want to. We always learn from our mistakes.

So we've made a lot of mistakes over the years.

But we've always learned from them, so it's tough to pick them out.

Would it have been nice to have, like, maybe more thought out cellar

and brewhouse from the start? Yes, 100%, yeah.

Uh, other than that, though, I probably wouldn't change too much.

Yeah, that's pretty good. It's been pretty great. Yeah.

Uh. All right. Can we try our next? Yeah. Cool.

Uh, next one is a West Coast IPA we launched last year.

The name is called Stingray Jesus. And it's about the name.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's hopped with Riwaka,

Centennial and strata. I love it. Yeah. Smells delicious.

Really tropical berry forward. Little bit of pine citrus hitting

all those notes and then, like, really dry, crisp body. Yeah.

And this is maybe the runaway beer for us this year.

This might be the leader in wholesale. What's the ABV on this?

Oh, in the sevens. Yeah. Because it drinks more like a West

Coast pilsner. It is so. Crisp. Really light and dry and crispy.

Yeah, yeah. It's got great hop flavor.

All those tropical and berry notes. but it is super crushable and does

not drink like seven. No. Yeah. You know, for whatever reason we

are able to hide ABV decently well at our brewery.

I don't know what people talk to us about that.

And we're like, I don't know what it is. Uh, it must be our water.

I don't know what's going on. That's funny.

I've never been able to pinpoint that. Your new tagline.

You know, we secretly get you drunk. Yeah, totally.

No, no, it can be a problem. And then a lot of our IPAs are

kind of stronger, too. So, you know,

like they're in the seven 7% range. I would have never guessed that

was in the sevens. Yeah, I would have told you.

Five tops. That's that's delicious. Super, super crushable.

Just like the other two so far. Yeah. Um, the berry notes really shine

through on the end. Yeah. Not overly bitter at all.

And then, like we were talking about. So clean.

No malty, bready bloating afterwards. No, no.

Just dry nice nice malt character though.

You can taste the malt character there for sure.

A little bit of honey, maybe a little bit of like Cracker

Biscuit maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just got a nice,

nice character through there. Yeah. To back up the hops. Yeah.

You can't make too thin of a, you know, IP based malt character.

So the malt does have to be there, but.

It needs to have a little body to. Yeah. Yeah. Delicious. Yeah. Thanks.

How do you go about, you know, coming up with these?

You're like, oh, I just feel like having a clean

hoppy something to drink today or what's your creative process when

you're coming up with recipes. Really inspired by, you know,

a lot of try to start in what I want to drink in my head first and

then kind of work that backwards, or maybe what we need in the lineup,

you know, like so we we also have another core IPA,

West Coast IPA called Time Zero. That's a little more old school.

It's still a very dry, not overly malty beer, but it has more piney,

danky citrus leaning stuff than more berry citrus like like

Stingray Jesus more Seahawks. So we need yeah, we need it.

Yeah, yeah, we needed, uh, maybe a modern, really modern take on

a West Coast IPA in the core lineup. And this is what fit always inspired

by what other breweries do you know, as long as it's if it's like a

new beer style, you know, we don't chase trends really too

much at our brewery. We, you know, unless I'm inspired

to brew it, if I'm, like, enjoying this style of beer. Sure.

You know, we'll give it a whack. Try to put our own spin on it.

If it's something that's, you know, a trend where I'm like,

I'm this isn't me. And, you know, I, you know,

so the beer is really all of the beer we make is a really

representation of us. You know, it isn't something forced,

you know? So the beer you're drinking is really

just our mutual friend's beer. It's what you guys want to drink?

Yeah. Yeah, it's what we want to drink.

It's what we want to make. It's what we think.

You know, we do absolutely consider the the consumer for sure as well.

But I've always found it hard to try, you know, try to force a beer in our

lineup that I'm not passionate about and don't enjoy making and drinking.

So when if you can't sell it to people. Yeah.

You know, if you can't be excited about it. Yeah. Then that comes out.

You know, we're really hard at faking the funk too, so. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, talk about not chasing trends. Were you late to certain things?

Like, were you late to the hazy game or anything?

We were probably a little late to the Lager renaissance,

which we've always enjoyed, but. And we've made Lager,

but we never had enough dedicated tank space to make it so.

When was this? 20. A few years ago. We got a 20 barrel or a ten barrel

brewhouse, so we got a 20 barrel conical and a 20 barrel lager tank

just to make our pilsner. Oh, okay. So that we were a little late to

that. You know, we weren't able to keep

up with that production. Sure. And honestly, we're still

struggling to keep up with that. That's what we hear from a lot

of smaller breweries. So making lager consistently,

you know, Bierstadt opened up and we're like, oh yeah, we've had

great lager breweries here as well. You know, they came from doing

Prost and we're like, oh yeah. Always drinking good lager.

Yeah, we don't get to make as much of that as we would like to here,

but we have a couple lagers. We have some smoked in the

fermenter right now about to crash and start logging.

And then, uh, we're also brewing our American

dark lager called rainy tomorrow. Yeah, we're still making them.

It's just not as frequently other other styles. Yeah.

And do you find that they're the ones that go first? Yes. It's hard.

To keep people drinking really quickly.

Especially in the summer, I would. Imagine. Yeah, absolutely.

Um, talking about beer styles and just the beer area around us, it's

been a huge shakeup in craft beer, especially since Covid. Totally.

How has it changed around here? There has been quite a lot of

closures this year in Denver, which has been kind of unfortunate.

A lot of a lot of breweries have sold to larger, you know, groups as well.

You know, hopefully those larger groups can honor the the breweries

that they bought and keep those the beers that Coloradans love

and people from out of state love if they distribute.

You know, it is it is challenging times for sure.

But, you know, we're here to offer our experience of

beer drinking and beer enjoyment to anybody who wants to come by or

anybody who wants to try our beer. In and around restaurants.

We distribute quite a bit of beer here and out-of-state as well.

We distribute to, you know, Washington and Oregon a little

bit and Utah a little bit. And could you come out a little

more west? We used to come to California,

but we've lost all our distributors there. Yeah, yeah.

Not frequent enough ordering. But, yeah,

the beer industry is different. You know, I think I think if you

can just be true to yourself, offer an honest product,

I think that goes a long way. Yeah. You know, as long as you're not

overextending yourself business wise, I think you might probably be in

a good spot. What's more important these days?

Is it the taproom or is it the distro?

Taproom has always been our number one point of sale, for sure,

because we're a smaller brewery. We did 1100 barrels last year. Okay.

And we'll probably be around that this year as well.

But we also focus on distribution. You know we love we love our on prem,

you know, accounts that we have in and around Denver.

It's really fun to go into a great restaurant.

Our sales manager, Corey, does an awesome job picking accounts and

servicing our our on prem accounts. And and then we love being in,

you know, the craft focused liquor stores in Colorado as well.

That was a bit of a shake up in Colorado, where we were a little

bit different than other states where beer, full strength beer and

wine couldn't be sold in Colorado up until a year or two ago.

And so we actually had an amazing amount of mom and pop.

We call them liquor stores that sold beer, wine and liquor.

But we're able if they wanted to, you know, focus on craft beverages

and really curate their selection, you know.

And now that it's open to grocery stores that, you know,

like those mom and pop stores are really having a hard time.

And so they're not able to maybe commit to buying as much craft

as they used to. They're still a lot of great,

you know, local craft liquor stores in Colorado that do focus on that.

But you kind of have to hunt a little bit harder to get really cool stuff.

I read that they opened it up to grocery stores,

but isn't there weirdness around it like it's only so much?

Can go to grocery stores or something like that? It is. I'm not 100% sure.

So like eventually they'll have all grocery stores will be able to sell.

It was a slow rollout, so like they could have like a few spots,

like our chain grocery stores could have a few locations, but I think

all of them can now have all the wine and beer they want, okay?

They can't have all the liquor they want.

That's still rolling out slowly. Okay.

Um, but those stores are pretty impossible for a small brewery

like us to get placement on. They also don't generally stock

pints either. So in those in the four pack,

pint is our best margin for packaged beer. Yeah.

And we still see that as the number one package size for IPA for sure.

Makes sense. Um, yeah. So those are kind of some of the

challenges that have been, you know, coming up over the years.

It's craft beer is always in that ten year, ten, 12 year cycle.

You know, you talk to some people who've been in the industry for

30 years and they're like, oh yeah, we saw this in oh eight.

You know, like big time. The brew pub collapsed in the 90s,

you know, so it goes up and down. You just kind of try to ride the

wave the best you can. Try to be as consistent as those

great divide type places. Totally. Who weathered a lot. Of those storms?

Sierra Nevada. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because of all the change.

Have you had to say make anything that you didn't really want to like?

Oh, now we have to make seltzers or slushies.

We put seltzer on tap for the first time this year. It did okay.

You know, we're just we'll put it on here and there when we.

When we need to. Yeah. And people like it.

They were doing okay with it. It's not something we're known

about at all. So it was just trying to keep

some people in the seats. I've heard so many different

stories of, like, you know, our slushy machine at this brewery

is what's keeping our doors open right now. Right. Yeah.

And other places get so much crap for it because there's such

a good beer place. All the beer nerds are like, what are

you doing? Putting seltzers on tap. Right. So it can be.

No, no, everybody's got to do what they got to do, you know?

So yeah. No judgment. Um, in 2022, we got a really awesome

counter pressure canning line, just in case we needed to make a pivot

in what we make here so we could put anything we want in the can.

So we we also make hot water so we don't have any right now to try.

Sorry, but maybe we could pull some off the tank after.

But we're going to package it tomorrow. That's awesome. Hop water.

So you know you definitely need a counter pressure system to

package hop water. Yeah, because it's really highly

carbonated. It jumps out of the can really fast.

So it's awesome to have that flexibility in our on production

side to be able to do that. Yeah. Have you.

Have you ventured into the na. Besides hot water, any Na stuff? No.

No, we haven't tried any of that yet. We'd probably need to invest in some

other equipment to do that properly. And it's really,

really expensive to do. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I love na beer, though.

My parents don't drink. In fact. So my dad crushes na beer,

and he loves na craft beer, too. So I'm always trying different

na beers we have. Best day. I believe in our in our cooler

for people to drink na beer. We have na options for people to

drink here as well as well as kombucha.

And then we also have, um, holidays. Uh, gluten free beer too,

in our cooler. Yeah. Yeah. The na beer is really taking off.

Oh, it's gotten way better too. Yeah, it used to be terrible.

It used to be garbage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So bad.

Same with gluten free beer. Gluten free beer is amazing.

Holiday. Holiday is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't had that one,

but I've had a few where it's like, oh, this just tastes like normal

beer. They're great. They're one of the better,

better producers in the world. Oh, okay. For gluten free beer. Yeah.

It's amazing all the the advancements and, I guess beer technology.

Yeah, yeah. You guys, your beard. Let's get away from the seltzers.

Your beer, uh, is, like we said, amazing. It. Thank you. It has this.

And I don't know how to describe this.

Even my notes here are garbage for this question.

Has this, like, professional ness to it or, uh,

you know, like, it's just some, some small breweries has sort of like

a home brew taste to it. Yeah. Where? This is definitely not the case here.

First of all, if you can at all describe what I'm saying to you,

you've won $1 million. But also, is there something that

goes into your process that maybe other breweries aren't doing?

Is it you have the best water in the world? Like what? What's going on?

Am I making any sense at all? No. Thank you.

Uh, I'm happy to hear our beer taste professionals, because we we

treat our production, you know, brewing the beer. Very professional.

I don't want to say like, other people aren't professional.

It's just it's, you know, a million little pieces. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So learning over the years, you know, we're almost 13.

We've learned a lot over the years, and we're always striving to

make the best beer we can possibly make for sure.

You know, whether that is from running a sensory panel.

You know, I think that's pretty crucial for breweries to do.

If you know, a little brewery isn't doing a sensory panel,

start doing it. Yeah. Get your taproom staff involved.

Get your production staff involved. Start tasting beer from the previous

batch versus the new batch, you know, or if you change ingredients,

definitely compare those as well. You know,

like just always tasting your beer. You know, also, you know,

keeping great logs of how your brewer production, you know,

it's a lot of it's kind of, you know, stuff that doesn't even

cost you money to make better beer. Yeah, yeah.

Water chemistry is a good one. You know, like,

you definitely want to get your water analyzed probably two, three,

four times a year, if you can. Yeah. Get your water tested because

your water will change throughout the year. Especially here.

Probably more than other places here. More than other places,

for sure, because. Runoff. Snow runoff, different

reservoirs they pull from. Yeah. It could be even, you know,

like groundwater at some point in the year. Yeah.

So it's a million different things. We care quite a lot about quality.

You know, we started packaging beer our own beer.

We were mobile canning through the pandemic. And then in 22.

We got our own canning line. And so we also invested, you know,

like in a C box and a can piercer bottle piercer to make sure our

do's and our carbonation are proper and all set.

So when we started packaging, we really even dialed in more on

quality and making sure our product lasts up on the shelf.

Yeah, especially if you're sending out to those places.

Absolutely. You can't try it. No, you can come in in the morning,

test it real quick. Whatever. You can't try it when it's

sitting on the shelf. Yeah. Making sure you're purchasing

good hops. You know, we actually contract

hops as well for a small brewery. Not a lot of small breweries.

Maybe contract hops. It's a little more expensive

probably to do that. Yeah, but we're getting a consistent

product throughout the year, able to do a little bit of selection

on a lot of our varieties as well. That's that's instrumental too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of hops, looks like we

have a next one. Is our core hazy. It's called Neon Nail.

It's the hops in this are Galaxy Citra and Vic's secret. Once.

Again really tropical sweet sweet fruit notes. Yeah, yeah.

Greg. What are you getting? Yeah, well, I would say for our

listeners out there, this is the perfect color.

We always talk about hazy colors. Yeah.

This is this is what it should look like.

This is on the paler end for sure. I almost personally like a

little more orange, but just really not overly sweet.

Still has some hop character, you know, some hop bitterness in

it as well. Yeah. We've been making this beer for

a long time as well. This this beer has been we've

been making this for seven, eight years probably. Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the nose buds. You definitely get the tropical

notes. Just real, real soft on the mouth.

Yeah, yeah. Soft, soft mouth profile is awesome.

Yeah. In hazies. I really love that. Yeah, it's very important.

Um, enough carbonation to to get it down, but not overly bubbly

or anything like that. Uh, the I'd say the flavor profile

follows the nose pretty well, which is a real nice drinker. Yeah.

Thanks. Is this another dangerous? Like, is this 10%?

Something like that? Is 7.3 okay? Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

You were lying. You like to hide that stuff?

Yeah, yeah. We talked about this a little

bit off air. You guys are somewhat known for

doing some funkier styles, some less popular styles.

You'll do a Roush beer here and there.

You're talking about the footers and the saisons and that kind of stuff,

you know. Do you enjoy the less mainstream

styles? For sure. And I love having a varied tap

list as well. I want to usually, you know,

our tap list, you know, maybe isn't as varied today when you came in.

Apologize for. That. Okay. A lot of times we do have mixed

culture beer Brett beer and smoked beer on as well as all of

this type of offering as well. So we do our best, you know,

to offer, offer, you know, interesting, unique beer styles

that not everybody brews. You know, I kind of come from a

little bit older beer culture where, you know, going into a beer bar or,

you know, a brew pub, they would have all different types of beer.

They wanted to serve a beer for everybody.

And that's I still kind of carry that through, for better or worse,

into our taproom. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it can look kind

of broad our tap list sometimes in our offerings, but it's.

But I'm really passionate about all these styles.

So and it's good for the nerds because like, we'll go into new

breweries and we'll, we'll always do flights first,

which I'm sure the beer tenders hate, but we'll try and pick across the

board like, all right, give us your, you know, your lager, your pale,

your whatever, your Saison. Let's try one of each style that you

got. And sometimes we get looks. We've we've walked into breweries

that say, you know, have eight on the board and we'll go, uh,

two flights, one of everything. Yeah. And they look at us like we're

either nuts or alcoholics, but just want to try everything.

I love doing that. I'm maybe the odd brewer out who?

You know, if it's a new place. Definitely love a flight.

I love a flight. I love a flight, just like, you know.

Then of course, go back for pints afterwards, for sure.

But I want to try everything you got if I've never been there.

Yeah. It's fun. So, uh, we talked a little bit.

A little bit about it earlier. Um, your focus on using Colorado

ingredients. Why is such a focus on on

keeping it local like that? You know, it's always been a

focus of the brewery. Even before I was head brewer

and co-owner. It's really important me to keep,

you know, these relationships with our producers close and tight.

You know, I get to talk to these people.

I can drive 40 minutes to the farm. You know, like. That's cool.

I know what varieties, you know. They're growing.

I know, I know these ingredients, like when they planted them,

when they're harvesting them, when is it going to be available?

It's just awesome. There's like a lot more flexibility.

It also a lot more opportunity to be creative with local

ingredients than maybe, you know, ingredients from elsewhere.

We do use ingredients from elsewhere as well, but the majority of the

malt we use is from Colorado. I'm also on the board of the craft

Maltsters Guild, so it's something I really champion and try to promote.

You know, I love the craft maltsters from all over the country.

You know, we brewed with craft malt from a lot of different states here.

That's fun. On collabs and stuff. So I like to keep our dollar

close to sure. It keeps our yeah,

it keeps the local economy going. And also, you know,

like our malt doesn't have to go into a shipping container and cross the

ocean and then get here as well. It keeps it a little greener, you

know, in a way. I'm trying to think. Less chance of finding rats in it.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And also, there's a lot more

flexibility in ordering. I can order short notice as well,

you know, like they usually have it. Yeah. Keep those relationships.

Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. And also passionate about

Colorado hops. You know, like I'm really

passionate about using. If nobody's buying these Colorado

hops then they won't be grown, right. You know, I love incorporating

USDA public variety hops. Not your whenever possible.

You know, we use a lot of cool hops, you know,

that are trademarked and only certain farmers can buy and grow them.

Um, those are the hops that we like in all our IPAs, for sure.

And they're great. They're the ones everyone's heard of.

Yeah, yeah. But the public variety hops are

also pretty great, too. You know, you can find unique ways

to incorporate them in different styles of beer, like our lagers

and our kolsch and pale ales. And we've even made all Colorado

Hazy IPA, which is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah.

Because of those relationships, you get to do fun things like, uh,

like fresh hop beers and that. Oh, totally. Yeah.

I made the best fresh hop beer I've ever made with Colorado Cascade last

night. It was amazing. Yeah. So fun. Yeah. Let's let's brag a little bit.

You guys have racked up some hardware, some awards over the years.

We've we've gotten lucky. You know,

it's always a roll of the dice. We've had a bit of a dry spell here.

We're always still trying though. But but it's quite the impressive

pile Pyle nonetheless. What is that like for.

Is it is it uh pressure adding. Is it validation for your work.

Is it just a bonus on top of everything else?

It is validating, you know, in a way for our, you know,

especially my brew team. You know, everybody.

You know, I'm not the one making all the beer here.

So we have a team of people. Yeah. There's some people back there

right now. They're brewing. Right now they're doing transfers.

Yeah. Kaylee. Matt. Brad. They're they're awesome.

They're killing it for us. Uh, we're just out here drinking.

Yeah, we're just out here chatting. But, yeah, it's really,

really awesome to be able to celebrate our beer.

And when it when it is honored, you know, with a medal, uh,

regardless of what it is, you know, we're always feeling like, okay,

we did a great job on this one, you know?

And then our peers who are the judges respect all the judges out there.

They appreciated what all the hard work we put into into

making these beers. Yeah. Have you got to do any judging? No.

Uh, it is a little more difficult here for Gabf.

You know, Jbf is the main focus of our our

competition entries at this point. We're not doing too much World

Beer Cup anymore because just we're not going out to world

beer cups every year. If it was every other year,

I'd probably enter. But it's tough to adjust our

brew schedule. Maybe we'll see if we enter it.

It's been a few years since we've entered it.

Last one was Nashville that we entered, but gabf every year we

enter. I mean, it's down the street. Yeah, but judging is tough because

it's local and it takes it takes a lot of time. I like I'm here.

It's leading up to it. We're brewing a lot of beer for Gabf

and all the people who come into town for it and drink a lot of beer.

So we're ramping up production. Yeah, we do have to stock up.

So it's a really busy time of year for us leading up to it. Yeah.

So it's hard to break away because it's a big time

commitment to judge these beers. You know, like it's long days, you

know, like three, eight hour days. I think I've talked to some people

who've done it and, you know, you would think like, oh, how glorious.

I get to sit here and drink beer for free. It's hard. Work.

No, you're getting 50 beers at a time and you have to go.

And obviously you can't drink all 50 beers or you'd be just gone.

Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of hard work.

I've done other random beer judging here and there, but it's something,

you know, like maybe some year there's the Colorado Brewers Cup put

on by the Colorado Brewers Guild. That's in January.

Um, maybe try to do that. But yeah, it's fun.

Um, we talked a little bit about it. I think Brandon does all your

artwork, right? Yeah. How does how does he come up with

the labels? What's the inspiration? Do you guys get together and go,

hey, this beer would be really cool if they were, you know,

two dudes playing basketball on it or whatever it is. Yeah.

We try to come up with a name. You know, we're really sticklers

to naming these beers, you know, like, okay, so nobody's really

using this beer name. You know, we don't want to step

on anybody's toes. You know, if. It takes off, you don't have to deal

with the legal side. Yeah. That too. So we that's really difficult.

And then Brandon takes the lead on all the design for the most part.

Maybe if I'm thinking of something and was like, okay, he shot me

something over some design ideas. It's like, oh, that would be cool

with this or something, you know, like just we bounce back and forth

a little bit on some of them, some most of the time, though,

it's Brandon taking the charge just from the beer name. He's like this.

He could he can grab a lot of inspiration just from the beer name,

and that is kind of really the best way to start,

because the beer name already says something true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who does most of naming? Is it you or.

I've named a lot of our beers. Yeah, yeah.

So they're they're really nerdy. There's a lot of, like,

Star Trek and, like, Dune references or Star Wars even.

Where did, uh, Stingray Jesus come from?

That is a really random like meme from a couple of years ago about,

like a stingray and like North or South Carolina having an immaculate

conception that wasn't real. And then, like the meme,

it should be like Stingray Mary instead of Stingray Jesus.

But then the internet took it off and then started calling it

Stingray Jesus articles and stuff, and we're like,

that just went in the name back, and then one day we're like,

that's really kind of funny sounding. Yeah, in a way to us.

And we're like, yeah. And then Brandon came up with the

art for it, which is pretty sweet. It's, uh, Jesus hugging a stingray

very lovingly. Yeah, yeah. As one does. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, is there a hop that you're currently crushing on you.

I'm not the, like, newest hop adopter or adapter. Sorry.

So, like, I'm really loving, you know, New Zealand hops right now.

You know, you know, like riwaka and nectarine and

matuka are really awesome. I'm really loving the Citra and

Mosaic. I was able to select for our 24

crop years from Yakima Chief. I was like,

these are exactly what I want. Yeah. And in those hops,

we've been playing around a little bit with Alani, which is cool,

which I think used to be called 1320. That's Yakima Quality Group or I

forget. Sorry I'm butchering that guys.

Yeah, they're awesome though. And Alani is really cool.

I think I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah, that one's really nice.

And then some new public variety hops.

Uh, McKenzie and 102 that my friend Eric has been really championing in.

Those hops are really beautiful. 102 is like an incredible public

variety hop that is like tropical and citrusy, which, you know,

you don't get in a lot of these public variety hops, you know,

like uh, they usually they were kind of bred to do a lot more,

like bittering and stuff like that. Yeah. Old school. Yeah.

I really love Vista. That was kind of like the last

big public variety hop that was was promoted.

That hop is really great as well. What do you think the next hot

or cold thing in beer will be? That's really hard.

As somebody, you know, like friends are kind of slowing

down a little bit. I think different packaging formats

is really cool to play around with. I just saw, you know,

Sierra Nevada putting their pills in a 12 ounce Red bull can. Oh, really?

I think I yeah, I think it was a Red bull can. I was like, that's sick.

I gotta go get that. Yeah. Playing around with different

packaging, offering sizes, different hot products, you know, like your

terpene products like abstract and stuff are really popular.

And there's a lot of cool opportunities to create new beer

flavors with those. I think, you know,

if you see a lot of, you know, newer breweries or breweries that

have opened that focus on one style, which is really awesome to see

as well. It's really cool. I love seeing that, you know,

like, we've been around 13 years. I'm like, oh, that's really cool.

In the back of my mind, I was like, I'd love to open just

to Saison Brewery, but, you know, or something like that. But, uh.

But you want to make money too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe say zombies are the best example to make money, but, you know,

all the Lager breweries and breweries that, you know, focus in

on certain different individual, you know, like we just make this

type of beer. Must be nice. Yeah. No, it's it's got to be really

simplified, you know. And it's like the In-N-Out model of.

Beer. Yeah, totally. And then dialing in those beers to be

the best beers, you know, like we have a couple of great examples of

lagers here Bierstadt and Cohesion. It's just rad to have those

breweries around us. Yeah, cohesion is another one we

tried on our last trip out here. Somebody told us,

same person said, come here, go to cohesion. Great beer.

We also have hogshead, which is all you know,

they do have CO2 beer, keg beer. But they also, you know, they're

known for cask beer, that's all. Like British beer. Like it's amazing.

Uh, so super rad to have that here. You know, you see those type of

breweries opening up all over the country slowly,

but they're around. Yeah, yeah. Any dream collaborations with

other breweries or. You know,

I got to check off a cool one here. Not too long ago, we got to brew

Brett beer with Crooked Stave. They kind of led the charge in

brewing mixed culture and Brett beer and spontaneous beer as well,

so that was really cool. Any other breweries that we all kind

of have leaned on to learn from? You know, any of the old school

big breweries would be really rad. New Belgium would be cool someday.

Yeah, that would be sweet. That'd be. Fun. Yeah, yeah.

Any plans for expanding OMF, whether it's another taproom or.

Yeah, we're we are in the process of looking to, you know,

try to find a space in and around Denver for a second taproom,

hopefully within the end of the year, we'll try to get that project

wrapped up. Yeah. And you're gonna keep it within

Denver. Denver the suburbs of Denver. Yeah. Denver area. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was doing some stalking on the website.

And you guys support some really cool organizations. Yeah, absolutely.

You talk about them a little bit. Yeah. We have.

So learn your rights is branded my business partner's wife.

Hannah's nonprofit that is educates kids in school and high school

and stuff about your rights as an American and how you know how to, you

know, if you're a person of color, how to talk to police and stuff,

you know, make sure you're not getting abused by the law system

in our country. More important. Than ever. Quite a lot, you know.

And then Inside Out Use is a organization in Colorado Springs that

gives help to LGBTQ plus people. And we always usually have a

pride shirt on. We're sold out of it right now,

but year round we have a t shirt that gives funds to the to them.

And they're an amazing organization. And then, you know,

the Michael Jackson Foundation is our beer focused nonprofit

that promotes and helps educate people of color or other types of

backgrounds that aren't, you know, as common in the brewing industry.

It helps give them educational funds and stuff. Yeah.

That's amazing. Yeah. Um, before we wrap up with rapid

fire questions, we have one more beer to try.

Yeah, we've got a collab here with our dear friends Fort

George out of Astoria, Oregon and Ephemeral taproom, which

is a rotating taproom here in Denver. And they were the Fort George was the

brewery the month in July there. Uh, and so this is a southern

English brown ale brewed with some Leopold whiskey malt, actually,

which is like a Vienna malt and then some troubadour roasted malts and

then hopped with Colorado hops, I think probably Willamette and

something else. Yeah, just really easy drinking.

Nice classic English brown ale. And by by whiskey malts.

Do you mean it's the same malt they would use in a whiskey?

They do use it. It's a malted whiskey malt.

And they do use it to make some of their some of their stuff.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They call it a whiskey malt though.

That's just the name they use. Yeah, but it's more like a Vienna.

Yeah. This is real nice. Um. Real light. Really light. Yeah.

Very light. Not roasty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes you get the browns that are like a chocolate milkshake.

This is not that. Yeah. This is real light, real easy.

Going brown ale. Not brown porter. Not porter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not a double nut. Nothing like that. Yeah yeah, yeah.

But it was fun to brew that with, uh, Fort George there, you know,

a really large brewery in the Pacific Northwest, and we've

done a lot of collaborations with them over the years.

They make a we make a beer with them that comes out almost yearly called

Crysknife, which is a reference, but it's a hazy IPA, and they make,

I think, more of that one beer than we make in a year. Oh really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a funny thing.

So but if you guys ever get a chance to go out to Astoria,

Oregon, on the coast of Oregon, it's not far from Portland. It's.

It's amazing brewery. Yeah. Our very good friend of the show,

Erika, is from out there. Oh, awesome.

Yeah, she'll have to go do some research for us. Bring it back.

Um. All right. I always like to wrap up interviews

with rapid fire questions. Okay, cool.

They're really do my best. Yeah, just quickest thing that

comes to your mind. Don't overthink it,

because they're really stupid. What's the first beer you ever drink?

Coors light. First beer you ever brewed?

Uh Saison. Do you have a favorite style to brew?

Uh Saison. Least favorite style to brew?

Thick, big adjunct stout. Just because it tastes so long.

But I love those beers, too. Yeah. So much cleaning. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, favorite beer and food pairing. Oh, I love drinking lambic and

eating the crab. Oh, yeah. Lambic and seafood.

Lambic and crab like. I wondered. Where you were going to go with

the food. On that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, I got a new lambic. And bread is good.

Just bread and butter and cheese. Yeah, yeah. Honestly.

Lambic and saison with cheese. Yeah. A charcuterie board is my all

time favorite, for sure. Like having wine and charcuterie.

It's my favorite. That is my favorite.

Yeah, it's Wednesday night. What are you drinking?

I am drinking an IPA. A West Coast IPA, probably.

Yeah, I say I'm a saison guy, but I probably honestly reach

for an IPA more often than not if I'm cracking just one beer.

Yeah. Makes sense. What is your vacation destination?

I really like Belgium and I really want to go.

I haven't been to Wallonia yet to drink all the Saison breweries

in France and down there. Yeah, so that that that would be my

dream. Yeah. What's your favorite. So non OMF outside beer. Ooh.

That's tough. My favorite like,

bigger brewery in Colorado is Odell. IPA is like perfect IPA and

they're always improving. It's unreal how good it's always

been. Yeah, yeah. And then it's not slept on.

But like, people like it's just their standard IPA like go drink

that beer. It's perfect. I mean. It's it's not slept on,

but it kind of is slept here. You know, like it's not like nobody.

Gets excited over flagship. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, your favorite non-beer related hobby?

Oh, yeah. Uh, snowboarding. Yeah. And hanging out with my son and

my family. Yeah, yeah. My wife. Yeah. Most underrated beer style.

Saison your favorite guilty pleasure beer.

This is where we find out you drink, like,

a ton of Coors Light or something. Oh, I mean, I really love hazy IPA,

you know, like a juicy bits from Weldwerks is awesome. So good.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. I held off so long on Hazies.

I was such a staunch, like, West Coaster diet. Kind of.

Right. Yeah, yeah. And now I'm such a haze whore.

I love Hazy Hazy The iPad two. I love a mix of them, you know,

like both styles, but like, there's so many applications of, you know,

certain hop varieties that don't work well in work as well in a West Coast,

but they work so well in a hazy. What's your favorite hangover cure?

Pellegrino. San Pellegrino. Bubble water. That's about.

That's about it. Getting hydrated with bubble water

that maybe has a little bit of minerals in it. Nothing greasy.

Anything like that. That's impressive, I like it.

No, no, I'll eat a bagel. Yeah, yeah. Get some carbs back in. Yeah.

And finally, what's your favorite word or slang for being drunk?

Hammered. Easy. Classic. Yeah. Jan. Thank you so much for.

Thanks so much. For having me, Greg. Cheers. Cheers, buddy.

Thanks for sharing. Beers. And if you guys are in Denver,

our mutual friends, 2810 Larimer Street, OMF brewing on the socials,

OMF Beer.com. Come check them out. Thank you sir. Awesome. Thanks.