Hey, welcome in everybody to the Craft Beer Republic!
Thanks for drinkin', thanks for joinin'.
I am Greg, and being joined by the buffest guy you know, and that's Flex.
What's up big fella?
Hello there, munchman!
Hangin' out.
Yeah?
Drinkin' some beer?
Yeah, how are you doin'?
I rarely ask you how you're doing.
That is very nice of you.
Very kind.
I'm, you know, I'm busy.
I'm trying to juggle things.
Work's been nuts.
I'm lookin' forward to, like, the end of the year when things finally are gonna
, in theory,
calm down a little with work, and...
But I'll keep tellin' my family that I'm busy as fuck, so I don't have to see
them.
Hell yes.
Yeah.
Nothing like, nothing like Christmas, uh, with divorced parents, to just make
you run
all over everywhere.
All over the fuckin' place.
All over the fuckin' planet.
Terrible.
My parents divorced.
My parents are terrible.
Yeah, her parents divorced.
Oh, what a shitshow Christmas.
Reveal four Christmases.
Only four?
Oh, I wish.
That'd be a dream come true.
Anyways.
Uh, not a therapy sesh.
Welcome in, everybody.
Not a Christmas show.
Yeah.
Well, wait 'til the beer I drink.
Not yet.
Wait 'til the beer I drink.
Spoiler alert.
Flex doesn't even know.
Uh, find us on the socials, craftbeerrepublic and @flexmebeer_ is in between.
Lots to get to today.
We got a ludicrous libation law, we got some booze news to get to, there's been
some fallout
from the Leiney closure, um, the Leiney family.
Not thrilled about what's going on.
We'll talk about that.
And uh, much, much more.
Oh no, I was classing it up.
So I'll talk about me being classy in a second, but before we get to any of
that, top listing
city of last week, shout out to Fremont, California.
Oh, hey-o.
Fremont.
Fremont, what up?
I think that's, uh, Psycho Bear territory.
Okay.
Psycho Bear.
Boy, he's terrifying.
I am not convinced that he's not a murderer.
Um, I'm going to just think he's a really nice guy.
Right.
I bet he's, I, Psycho Bear, I bet you're a really nice guy.
That's what we're all hoping for.
It's like, it's an ironic name.
That's-
There we go.
Maybe that's it.
Maybe that's the like creepy tone that you use when you call it.
Everything's ironic.
Right?
Yeah.
It's yeah.
Everything's ironic.
Maybe he's really Canadian.
Oh, that would make you, yeah, I mean super Alanis Morissette-y.
Yeah.
It's like rain.
Yeah.
On your wedding day.
Yeah.
I never understood the black fly in the Chardonnay cause I would just take the
fly out and keep
drinking the Chardonnay.
Yeah.
Alcohol kills germs.
Yeah.
That's, that's not ironic.
My wife will often hand me a drink and go, there's a, there's a bug or a fly or
whatever
in here.
And I go, yank with the old finger and hand it right back to her.
Oh yeah.
That happens.
She just doesn't want to see it.
Summer, summer patio beers for me.
It's like you set the beer down on the table and you look over and there's
already a fruit
fly that drown from intoxication and you just poke it out and hey, beer.
Which by the way, what a way to go.
Oh, I couldn't ask her a better way to go.
Little jealous.
Oh man.
Cause of death.
Intoxication.
I tell you what, people who ever, I don't know if I talked about it on the show
, maybe
like a year or so ago.
If you ever have fruit fly issues in your house, just leave out like a little
glass
of beer and you'll, Oh yeah, you did talk about that.
You'll get quite a few.
I think you actually said a can, like an empty can.
It's got like the drippings at the bottom cause then it's harder for them to
fly.
To get out.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah.
Especially you had like one of those fruited sour.
I think that's what brought it up.
It was like a very sugary fruit and sour.
That's what started the fruit fly plot for tongue twister.
The fruit fly problem is I had a couple of buddies over for a can share and a
bunch of
sours were had and I had a little recycle bin just inside the garage door that
leads
from the house to the garage and, uh, had that, uh, like 4,000 fruit flies
later, uh,
finally got rid of them.
But I had to throw the recycle bin away too, because even though I scrub it out
with like
Dawn dish soap and everything, those fuckers just kept coming back.
Crazy.
Yeah.
Bleach it next time.
Blech.
I hate using bleach.
Oh, I love bleach.
It's my favorite.
I'm not even, I sound like a murderer.
I was going to say, I thought you were non-murderer Greg.
Well, I guess you'll find out.
Oh boy.
Uh, we have, uh, here goes Greg being classy.
We have our wine de cancer, you know, it gets stained from the red wine.
Who admits that they have one of these?
This guy.
Oh man.
Classy.
Anyways, it gets stained from the red wine.
The only way to get it out, bleach it.
Is there a little bleach in there?
Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky.
That makes sense.
It's all good.
All good to go.
Nice and clean.
They got to rinse it for like, you know, an hour and a half straight so you don
't kill
yourself.
But, but yeah, but then no, no classiest dude wants to have a stained wine to
canter.
What are you poor?
No.
How trashy.
Oh, Hey, look at this guy got his wine to canter from Goodwill.
It's still got the stains in it.
What are you drinking?
Two buck Chuck.
All right.
Loser.
That's embarrassing.
Not in this house, motherfucker.
Only classy.
Get out of here.
Classiest.
I swear.
I don't even want to talk about now.
I think you should talk about it anymore because I was, I was bringing it up so
you could laugh
at me before we get there.
Let's find out what you're drinking.
Oh boy.
In a world where craft beer is king.
A world where muscles are bigger than growlers.
Only one tongue can guide us.
One man.
One drink.
One tongue jobber in this world, we must find out what is flat springs from my
stained beer
glass.
Oh, so unclassy bleaching that you, you would think I took a trip to
Connecticut.
I'm drinking another one out of North Haven.
Bristol?
No.
The other city.
North Haven.
Um, fat orange cat brewing.
Hmm.
Uh, I think I've had a couple of their beers before in my life.
Uh, this one is called one cat on the chess board.
Uh, never, never played chess, but I do know that there are zero cat pieces.
So somebody, you could have convinced me that there was, I wasn't going to try.
I thought you were pretty classy.
I figured you're like a chess whiz.
Nope.
Never played once in my life.
Not to be confused with a cheese whiz.
That I am.
Yes.
Um, but so this is a new England style single hop IPA and it doesn't say
anywhere on the
can what hop they used.
So thank goodness for untapped.
One of the few times we've ever said that.
Right.
Whether you thoroughly enjoy the app or you use it sparingly.
Thank you untapped for telling me.
Thank you untapped.
What I'm actually drinking.
Um, so this single hop IPA is, uh, the Eldorado variant untapped.
Thank you.
Says, uh, this first of a new series.
Okay.
It's new.
Maybe what you should do is put what hop you're using on the can for the second
of the new
series.
Then that says, uh, new style, a single hop IPA series.
And then it says, Oh, it does say in the description here.
Okay.
Uh, one cat on the chess board, a 7.2% Eldorado still doesn't say on the can
says on untapped
not on the can dumbasses I shouldn't call them dumbasses.
I'm sure they're nice people.
I bet fat orange cat people, I bet they're not even all fat.
No.
Some are probably just chunky.
Yeah.
You know, or what?
What's a fat cat called?
What's a fat cat?
It's a, the chonk.
Oh, it's a chonky cat.
Which is where tricker brewing gets their chonk summers from, but that's
neither here
or there.
Cause nobody's drinking tricker.
Not a catch.
You're not a cat show.
Um, borderline tricker show cause their beer, any weasels.
Um, so it's been about three years since I've had a single hop Eldorado beer.
Um, Eldorado, I don't think I've ever had one.
You don't normally find it single hopped.
Um, usually beside like a Citra or a mosaic or then even on like the West coast
side,
you'll get like a Centennial or a cascade C's, right?
Tons of C's.
Um, so 7.2%.
What really drew me in here, Greg, you know, I'm a cheapskate, big fat cheapsk
ate here.
Big fat orange cheapskate.
Um, this is where the whole algorithm came from.
You being a cheapskate.
$13.99 for this four pack.
Okay.
So 7.2, $13.99 could be pretty high up on the new England.
Let's get after it.
Uh, craftbeer.com/algorithm, craftbeerrepublic.com/algorithm.
On the eyes here, um, it's, it's hazy.
It's cloudy.
It's murky.
Yeah.
Yellowy color.
I'm not as pale as I enjoy, but it's still got a nice color.
It's got a nice head, some decent lacing so far.
Yeah.
You see that right there?
It's no high life light.
No, it's not.
It's good.
It's not.
Um, on the old schnoz here, picking up, um, how many times have you ever
smelled up like
a Bosque pear, like a Brown pear?
Uh, between zero and half.
Okay.
Cause this is what this smells like.
I don't think I've ever had a Brown pear before.
A little pear, you know, it's, it's Bosque pear.
They're normal pears.
It's like an everyday pear.
You can get it at the supermarket.
Oh, okay.
I enjoy it.
This smells wonderful.
It's kind of fresh.
So we'll, uh, get the old tongue jobber a little wet.
Ooh.
Yeah.
That sounded violent.
I'm sorry.
Very, very violent.
Three, two, one.
Here we go.
So aggressive.
I think counting yourself in like this is a TV show.
Okay.
Super light bodied here.
Wonderful body for a 7.2%.
What really fascinates me about this beer.
So I did look up Eldorado hop profile before drinking this to see what I maybe
I'm smelling.
If I can get any of these flavor notes out of the hops, watermelon, like candy
flavor
watermelon coming out of this Jolly Rancher stuff.
Yes.
Like it does.
It doesn't hit.
No, it's not.
Cherry is, but it doesn't hit right away.
It almost like you get a little peach, a little candy lemon, and then some
candy watermelon.
It's like a fruit punch.
And then like a low to medium bitterness, but it's not like a lingering
bitterness.
It's just kind of like natural hop bitterness.
It's kind of enjoyable.
Like it almost brings everything together with the light body that touches
sweet notes
and then just even it out a little bit with the bitterness.
Nice.
So I think this is a fantastic beer for the price.
Yeah.
What'd you say?
12.99?
12.99.
13.99.
7.2%.
Untapped has it at a 3.94, only a thousand and a half ratings.
But one friend rated it a 4.2.
I'd take it closer to the 4.2 than I would the 3.
Oh, which if you listen to last week's episode, still kind of funny.
It's like, oh, this is a great beer.
B minus.
I'm snobby to a point.
I know.
It's just, you know, it's Untapped's fault.
Yeah.
They built us, essentially.
If you did it on the beer advocate scale, which is to a hundred, you would
probably
give it like a 92 or something, you know, like an A minus range or maybe even a
solid
A.
Yeah.
That's good.
I just had another sip of this.
This is real good.
Yeah.
This is a good beer.
Really good beer.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Well, maybe we'll have a beer outside of Connecticut next time.
Maybe.
But who knew Connecticut, right?
So here's the funny thing.
I'm going to do shit out of order.
I swear to everybody, two weeks in a row now, Flex has had Connecticut beers.
This was not planned in any way.
I never know what Flex is drinking before the show start.
Sometimes I don't even tell him that I even bought beer yet.
Right.
Sometimes I don't even know if he has beer in his house and we start recording
and he
holds up a beer.
I'm like, oh, thank God.
He's got a beer.
This is all accurate.
Yeah.
I pulled a ludicrous libation law from Connecticut.
That's wild.
Totally random, had nothing to do with your beers.
I swear to God.
Let's see.
Let's just do it now.
Yeah.
Let's see what this is.
I'm intrigued.
So in Connecticut, state law says that town records cannot be stored where
alcohol is
sold.
That sounds pretty normal.
Why did that need to become a law?
Right.
Like that's just kind of like common sense.
Right.
It's like going down to the local pub and like, hey, I got some files for you.
Well, maybe way back in the day, maybe I have to assume this is a prohibition
era law.
I would assume so.
Yeah.
Connecticut general statutes 3097 states that town and probate records must not
be kept
in any place where alcohol, our alcoholic liquor is sold.
The statute aims to maintain the integrity and security of official records by
ensuring
they are stored in environments free from the potential risks associated with
alcohol
sales venues.
That must be what it was.
Had to be prohibition.
Yeah.
Cause that's just common sense.
It's weird as fuck.
But I guess when you only have two towns in your state.
Yeah.
Bristol.
Maybe.
North Haven.
Yeah.
Maybe you run out of place to store shit.
Although I have heard unpopular opinion, Connecticut is supposed to have some
of the best pizza
in the nation.
Oh, really?
Yes.
I've not heard that.
I've got a buddy out there, Zach, he lives in Connecticut and he swears by the
pizza
in Connecticut.
That's not where I expected that going.
Supposed to.
Yeah.
It's supposed to trump New York style pizza and I mean, deep dishes, trash show
Don't even put Chicago out there.
There's deep.
That's not a pizza.
That's a casserole.
It's trash.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Casserole.
It's a trash role.
Sorry, Chicago.
I've never had a legitimate, like, like from Chicago, you know, I've had
Chicago style,
whatever out here.
And yeah, I don't, I don't need it in my life.
That's a casserole.
It don't matter if you have it in Chicago or outside of Chicago.
It's still trash.
It's trash.
Yeah.
Hey Mel, beer girl Mel, um, what say you to the New York versus Connecticut
comparison
there?
In fact.
Yeah.
Cause Mel, so Mel knows Zach too.
I don't even want Mel's opinion.
I want Lou's opinion.
I want fucking street meets to tell us what he thinks.
I feel like Lou don't got an opinion if, if he can eat it, it's good.
Okay.
You might be right there.
I just feel like he eats everything.
So he's for those who don't know, Lou is Mel's husband.
Uh, I just feel like he would have the no, because he's probably eaten both a
lot.
But uh, somebody from New York and or Connecticut.
Let us know.
Yeah.
Lou eats cold pork chops right out of the fridge, rips the tupperware lid off,
just
starts gnawing on cold pork chops and which I'm not even going to be mad about.
I respect the hell out of that.
Dude, me too.
This fucker like ran a marathon with chicken in hand.
Mel sent us the videos.
I love when Mel sends us Lou videos cause it's just like him running with food
in his
hand.
Was that the New York marathon they did or something?
I can't remember.
Something like that.
It was, it was a few weeks ago at this point at least.
Uh, but yeah, it's just like, Hey, look at Lou.
It's just him eating as he's running.
Stop as he does.
Get a couple slices of pizza, right?
Get a hot dog.
Yeah.
Oh, I would throw up so hard.
Oh yeah.
I don't know how he does it.
Or I would sit down and eat and I would just never get back up.
Or that.
Yeah.
But I mean to try and keep moving or even to stop, eat and then keep moving.
Yeah.
That sounds terrible.
Yeah.
It sounds so bad.
What a man.
He is a machine.
He's not a man.
He's a machine.
You're right.
He will take over the world.
The best part is too with that marathon, like the last one he did as well, zero
training,
just wakes up, runs 26 point however many, four miles, two, 13.1 and 26.2, 26.2
miles.
And then that just, that's his day.
And then he sleeps, sleeps for about 14 hours after that.
And then he's good to go.
I've ran two half marathons in my life.
The first one I trained pretty extensively for, and I did much better than I
expected.
I was very proud of myself.
I was proud of you.
Well, thank you.
The second one, life got in the way, did little to no training for it, went and
ran it, blew
out my knee in the second mile.
Come on.
And then my bitch of a girlfriend at the time was like, you can't quit now
because if you
don't keep a certain time, they come and pick you up in a golf cart, like a
medical golf
cart.
Oh, I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna get picked up.
You know, you keep running.
You're not injured.
I'm injured.
It's like, no, you can't quit now.
You can't be a bitch about it.
I was like, so my dumb ass walked 11 miles on a blown out knee.
Oh, so much pain and definitely did permanent damage.
Maybe you're the machine.
You know what?
Maybe.
But I still would've thrown up if I'd eaten a corn dog along the way.
Greg the machine.
I like that.
Yeah.
It's got a good ring to it.
Coming out to the ring.
Weighing in at way too much, much, much.
Boo.
Anywho, lose the real machine around here.
Love that guy.
Love you, Lou.
Yeah.
Love you, Lou.
And all your caloric intakes that doesn't appear to affect you in any way,
shape, or
form.
No, zero.
Zero.
A few weeks ago, I was on the tap room podcast with our homie, Mike.
And one of the things we talked about on there was something we've talked on
here about on
here recently, which is Trader Joe's has become like my bottle shop because you
can go crack
off singles.
Right.
I've gotten so many comments about people not knowing that that was a thing.
Our friends over at Beer Bikini messaged me after the tap room one came out,
said, listen
to your episode on the tap room podcast.
Literally just discovered the Trader Joe's singles trick.
Two weeks ago when we visited Portland and someone we knew told us, I was like,
nah,
no way.
So we all went to TJ's and sure enough, all these six packs had missing cans.
We broke off a few and took them to check out.
This is valuable info that no one talks about.
LOL.
Yes.
I said, this shit is important.
It's important.
Everybody.
If you've got a Trader Joe's near you, you can crack open the four and six
packs.
Take one, take two, whatever you want.
They're priced to be sold individually.
I am mind blown because I must've zoned out when you talked about that.
I didn't know that was a thing.
We also brought it up on the show.
We also don't Trader Joe's frequently.
Yeah.
I know that, uh, you know, in California, Trader Joe's is much more prevalent
than other
places.
Um, it seems like we got two of them over here.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
By the way, I like there's some in Florida now cause the wife's sister lives
out in Florida
and all that kind of stuff, but crack them, crack them off.
They're met.
They're, they're priced individually.
I do all the time.
The beer I'm drinking tonight is Trader Joe's knocked off a couple singles.
What you got?
Should I talk about it?
Let's just get into it.
It's early, but fuck it.
You look thirsty and I want you to get into this.
You know what?
I'm thirsty and I want to get into this calls to the bullpen for beer.
Well, you said it at the top of the show.
Once again, I don't know what flex is drinking.
Flex never knows what I'm drinking.
It's always a surprise.
Big surprise.
Rarely, rarely we will coordinate a beer if there's like some weird theme going
on or
something or a holiday or yeah, exactly.
This is definitely not one of those times.
Well, flex said something about Christmas beers, ho, ho, ho everybody, because
I am
drinking celebration, fresh hop, IPA from Sierra, Nevada, get it.
And you cannot have the holidays if you've not had a celebration.
I saw this at TJ's a week or two, a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about
with Boris.
How is like Boris and I's favorite Christmas beer.
I was just going to say, we talked about that with Boris.
100%.
Yeah, exactly.
Holiday season is here.
When I saw it, I was like, Oh, this is earlier.
Normally it's like end of November when I see them hitting the shelves and this
felt
a little early.
So I grabbed it.
Very excited to usher in the holiday season a little early.
So Sierra, Nevada, fresh hop, IPA, the 2024 edition 6.6, excuse me, 6.8%, 65 IB
Us.
They say freshly picked hops rushed from the farm to brewery.
Still celebration, IPA with a powerful citrus and pine flavor.
When you're on the slopes with your friend or building a backyard campfire for
your fam,
you need a beer as fresh as fallen snow.
Pure hops balanced with rich caramel malt.
Make this celebration in every sip.
And I laugh so hard.
We talk about ratings a lot the last couple of weeks, 373, oh man, sorry, no
shit.
I was going to say 374.
Were you?
Okay.
373 out of 430,000 reviews.
Now I don't know if this is every year's combined or 430,000 people have
already had it this
year.
No, it's got to be.
It doesn't say.
Everything combined.
Yeah.
This is, I mean, this is truly like the beer nerd slash like brewers beer.
It's not for your casual beer fan.
It's not for your Hayes bro.
This is old school.
This is the loaf of bread that I generally don't like in a beer, but Sierra
Nevada figures
out kind of how to balance it and make it not as thick on the old schnauz.
I mean, it smells like a hoppy loaf of bread.
It's super piney.
It's multi.
I mean, you can see the, look at this color.
This is fucking caramel.
It is malt.
Yeah.
This is, this is caramel malt to the extreme tongue jabber time.
This I will say feels, and obviously it's been a year since I've had one a
little less
bitter than previous years.
Look, still dank, still old school, still bitter.
But in previous years, I feel like it's fucking bitter.
This one a little, maybe slightly more balanced.
Definitely get the pine, definitely get the citrus.
It's always all old school hops, a multi cereal from the, the backbone and from
the back from
the malts.
So, you know, it's just that old school IPA with fresh hops.
If you don't like an old school West coast IPA, you're going to fucking hate
this guaranteed.
Yeah.
Not for, not like you said, not for your casual drinker, not for the casual Hay
es bro.
Or anybody like that.
You're a, you're pounding some, uh, what do we say from Drecker earlier?
Chunks.
Yeah.
Chunks in front from Drecker.
This is not going to be your jam.
You like some teeth shattering bitterness.
Here it is, everybody.
It's fresh.
It's citrusy.
It's piney and it's a liquid meal in a glass.
Normally not my jam, but when Sierra Nevada drops this, I got to get it.
Well, at least you don't have to eat dinner now.
Yeah.
I'll, uh, I'll save the cows for my beer.
Um, all right, the one thing I was going to mention and flex kind of
accidentally alluded
to it.
Damn it.
I I'm classy as fuck.
As we've talked about many times, I feel like people just know this by now they
got, I mean,
I have multiple, somebody walks up to you and be like, Hey, do you have a wine
membership?
And you're like one, yeah, uh, one membership.
I don't, I'm offended.
I don't know.
In fact, at that point, Wayne's world, that one, uh, what do you mean?
Classy as fuck.
Multiple ships.
In fact, when they accused me of having a membership, I pull a glove out of my
pocket
and slap it with them and tell them, Oh man, that's how classy I am.
You are topped here.
We had a pickup party for one of our members.
You have servants last week.
No, that's, that's the next tier.
I'm sorry.
Get a Butler.
Yeah.
Get a Butler.
I think that's once I hit 10 memberships.
Okay.
I'm getting my tears mixed up.
That's all it is.
I'm sorry.
That's my fault.
Yeah.
That's my unclassy fault.
Yeah.
Here's what I'll say.
One of the nice things about most wine membership is they have pickup parties.
Some are great.
Some are not so great.
I had a great one last week.
Went to one of our, they, they did it at one of our favorite local restaurants.
Is that like a car key party?
I don't know.
It's a car key party.
Everybody puts their keys in a bowl.
Yeah.
It was a swinger party.
I wish.
Oh, actually, no, I don't.
It was mostly old white people.
Yeah.
Probably not.
Yeah.
Probably no chicks under the age of 40.
So no, not, I mean, look, I mean, chicks around 40 are just fine.
I'm, I'm married.
You're married to one.
Right.
Yeah.
But, uh, you know, when they're in their sixties, uh, not so much anyways, and
one of our local
favorite restaurants called cork dork.
It's a horrible name for a restaurant.
Amazing food.
Sounds classy.
Yeah.
They rented out the place and had like small bites and all, all the wine I
could fucking
put down.
Cause we've kind of made friends with the winemakers and it's just, it was a
good time, man.
I just felt classy, ate some good food, drink some good wine.
I just wanted to bring it out because I knew flex would laugh at me cause I'm
so fucking
classy with my wine.
I just like how you, how you speak of it.
It's like, uh, it's a different tone, you know, like I have another one coming
up next
week.
Your upper echelon.
You know, it's like, it's like, I just sit back and listen, listen to your, uh,
my classy
ness.
Your classiness.
Yeah.
I totally forgot until just this second as we're talking about the story next
weekend,
we have another one pickup party coming up.
This one's one of my favorites.
The owner of the winery, they don't do the pickup party like at the winery, at
the tasting
room.
They do it at her house.
Oh man.
She lives, she lives in Malibu overlooking the ocean.
Rough life.
Not a bad view.
Yeah.
What's that?
I said rough life.
Yeah.
Super rough.
Overlooking the ocean.
So it's, once again, she pours for days.
She's as good as you want.
She loves to have fun.
Loves to party.
Loves to open wine for people and always has, here we go flex a taco person.
Oh, there it is.
Yeah.
She's got her taco person.
Because everyone in California has a taco guy.
Yeah.
She's got hers.
Who is not the same one I use.
Everyone's got their own.
Hers is really good, but really expensive.
They also do fresh churros at the end of the day.
I'm talking heating up oil, dropping them in the fucking grease and then
rolling them
in cinnamon and sugar.
It is amazing.
It don't get better than that.
No.
So you get fresh tacos and then after you get a little drunk, you get fresh ch
urros.
Oh man.
I'm jealous.
So I am very much looking forward to that one too.
I totally forgot that.
How do I get classy?
Dude, come on out.
I'll take you to all our classy shit.
I don't think I'm allowed.
I'm not allowed.
We won't tell them you're Midwest and we'll just say, hey, look, he's from
around here.
He calls it Modelo, not Modelo.
I just said that to somebody the other day.
How do I say it?
I just say Modelo.
That's how I say it.
Like Modelo.
Modelo.
That's what I say.
Yeah.
So you try to be good, but you go past being good into like comically good.
Modelo.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it's the Midwest in me.
Yeah.
I believe you could class it up.
I believe in you.
Come on out.
Go to a wine pick up party with us.
Have some tacos and churros.
I could probably look classy, but the second I opened my mouth, they're going
to know.
Hey hoser.
Yeah.
You're going to get that.
That's more Canadian.
You're going to get the stink eye.
Who brought this guy?
Brought this guy?
If he was on Beer Advocate, he'd be a 68.
He's an F. He's a two and a half on untapped tops.
Longer.
Never heard of her.
If they start to turn on you, just, you know, take your shirt off.
Yeah.
I can do that.
I know how to do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
It'll distract them.
No problem.
They got buff guys in Malibu though.
Yeah, but they don't got flex buff guys.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll take that.
Yeah.
I don't got a tight whiteys.
I got blueys.
Tidy blackies.
There you go.
Makes it look bigger.
Anyways.
We should do news before we really dig a hole.
Not a tidy blackie show.
Nope.
Not yet at least.
I'm going to go with the tighties.
Including the sale of the brewery, its taproom, and intellectual property, the
brewery did
not name the expected buyer, which is weird.
Founder and CEO, Henry Schwartz, said in an announcement, "We've poured our
heart and
souls into the brewery and our community, but reached a point where we could no
longer
operate as a standalone organization.
When the opportunity came up to sell the brewery, we decided to consider it to
keep our brand
around at wholesale and keep as many of our staff members as possible employed
in our
taprooms.
We're in the midst of working on the deal now and there will be changes, but
they're
not fully known yet.
The mob craft you know and love today won't exist in its entirety after this
process,
but some aspects will.
And between now and our last day of official mob craft operations, we aim to
celebrate
our existence and we've all achieved over a few pints."
Is this the brewery that you designed a beer for?
Well, yeah, I mean, I just had an idea and they voted on it.
Right, right, right.
You're paying us all five bucks to vote on it every day.
That's what I did.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
I'm broke now.
Still recouping like six years later.
Mob craft, they're like a scale of one to 10.
They're like a five.
Oh, okay.
Like they're a pretty average brewery.
Two and a half on untapped, got it.
Really fun spot.
They had some decent food, good pizzas that they did out of the kitchen, but
the beer
wasn't great.
It was fun.
Some of the stuff they did was the ideas were fun, but not great stuff.
They could never brew an IPA to save their life.
Oh really?
That's the easiest.
Which, yeah, I mean, it's shocking.
They were...
You just fuck up a beer and add a bunch of hops.
They were big on sour ales, like footer aged sour ales and some decent barrel
aged stuff,
but otherwise nothing mind blowing.
I think the big thing for them that they failed on was trying to expand.
They had a tap room in Denver.
I don't think it lasted six months.
Oh, geez.
They have one currently in Woodstock, Illinois, and they tried to get one in a
town that's
like 15 miles southwest of where I live, and they bought this, I think it was
an old fire
station or police station, and they were supposed to revamp it out and make it
a whole brewing
and tap room, and I think that completely fell under, so I think it was just
bad usage
of money, capital.
Everything went under, and they just couldn't get out of it.
That's too bad.
I mean, we talked about it before.
Oh, before I get too far away, you said something, and I didn't want to cut you
off, but...
It's a forager.
Nailed it.
All that for that.
Thanks.
It was worth it.
That was worth it.
Yeah.
Totally worth it.
I mean, we've talked about this in the past, it seems like there's a bit of a
reckoning
going on.
Like, if you're not making great beer, you're not staying open, and we've hit
that saturation
point in craft beer.
Yep.
I can't stress that enough, that if you're not making good product, people are
going
to find who's making it and stick with them.
Yeah.
It was a topic of conversation amongst the local beer crew here, is that the
Mobcraft
news came up, I was one of the forefront that said, "Hey, look, they don't do
great beer."
Is it a fun spot to hit up every now and then, great location, 100%, but if
they don't put
out great product on a consistent basis, I'm not going to waste my money.
It's just what it is.
Yeah.
I mean, there's great breweries that aren't staying open, so why should your
mediocre
breweries stay open?
You got to keep it up.
Right.
It's sad, but it's...
Yeah.
And you never want people to lose jobs and that kind of thing.
Ever.
Hopefully.
Never, ever.
Hopefully whoever can buy them turns things around, makes it a little better,
that kind
of thing.
Even more fun if they keep the whole boating aspect.
Yeah, the crowdsource concept, which was a lot of fun.
It's a fun concept, still.
Anheuser-Busch, speaking of closing, is shuttering the Wicked Weed Functorium,
and that's in
Nashville.
The functorium has been closed since September 27th in the wake of Hurricane
Helene and a
water outage in the city.
Wicked Weed, Cobb and O'Reilly.
Oh, water outage.
Yeah.
Ever since the hurricane, they've just not had water, or I mean, by now, maybe
some people
have water, but I've heard it's taking a super long time to get water going.
Interesting.
Scary.
In the surrounding area.
I mean, talk about just basic shit.
I know someone who lives outside of Asheville who did not lose their house, but
was affected
by the water outage and stuff, and they're having to go fill jugs with non-pot
able water
just so they can flush their toilet.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you get these gallon jugs, fill up the top tank, do your business, and then
you can
flush it because you filled up the top tank.
That's horrible.
Yeah.
And then having to take baths in the non-potable water and cold baths and stuff
So I mean, it's basic human shit that no one really thinks is a big deal until
it's gone.
Even in my hood where the fires were, certain areas were not even under a boil
advisory.
They're under a don't fucking use the water advisory.
Man.
Which is crazy.
Yeah.
That is crazy.
What is this?
Pioneer times?
I know.
Welcome everybody.
Lewis and Clark trying to find the Pacific.
Right.
Man, this is... where are we?
Bam.
Wicked Weed co-founder Ryan Guthe laid off the majority of its service industry
employees
during November 1st staff meeting as per Citizen Times.
That amounted to about 40 employees according to the outlet.
An AB spokesperson told Brewbound that following the impact of the hurricane, K
ultura and Funkatorium
remain closed at this time.
We'll keep you posted with updates and reopening plans for both locations as
Asheville returns
to normal normalcy.
The closings are not intended to be permanent, the spokesperson said.
So fingers crossed, we'll see.
So it's a temporary lay?
It just says indefinite because they have no clue.
Other Brewers Association has added a new beer style to their guidelines.
Intriguing.
Uh-huh.
Have you already peeked ahead?
Oh, I don't peek ahead.
I didn't think so.
No.
It's just intriguing what a new beer style would be.
Well, I've seen this popping up more and more, at least out here, this style,
so it doesn't
surprise me.
Are you going to say West Coast Pilsner?
Close, but God damn do I love a West Coast Pilsner.
It's an Italian style Pilsner.
Okay.
This is now part of the guidelines.
You can enter it as a category, all that stuff.
So is that a certain hops you need for an Italian Pilsner, certain malts?
What is the- Funny you should ask, what is the guidelines?
Yes, guidelines.
That's the word I was looking for, guidelines.
Yeah.
Color, straw to gold, clarity, appearance should be clear, chill haze should
not be
present, perceived malt aroma and flavor, a malty sweet aroma and flavor should
be
present at low levels, light biscuity attributes may be present, perceived hop
aroma and flavor,
hop aroma and flavor is pronounced and aromatic, derived from late hopping and
dry hopping
with noble type hops, floral, herbal, peppery, or other attributes may be
present, bitterness
medium to high, fermentation characteristics, fruity ester and DMS should not
be present.
These are well attenuated beers.
The body should be medium low to medium.
Additional notes, the head should be dense, pure white, and persistent.
Hop character is assertive, crisp, and aromatic.
They have gravity guidelines as well.
Original gravity should be in the 1044 to 1052 range, where your final gravity
should
be around 1006 to 1013, 1013 feels high.
ABV should be 3.6 to 4.2, bitterness, IBUs should be 25 to 50, 50 feels high
for this
category, but okay.
And then for those real nerds out there, the SRM should be three to four, which
is a really
light beer.
Okay.
So noble hops are those like...
Like German hops.
German hops.
Okay.
That's what I was going to say.
Yeah.
Lighter, you know, not the Chinook, the Cascade, none of that shit.
Yeah.
Okay.
Lighter hops.
So Italian Pilsner brewed with German hops, right?
I mean, they don't have to be German, but...
I'm fucking with you.
Yeah.
Come on.
Want to end it on a list?
Yeah, because I fucking love lists.
I feel like it's been so long.
It's been a while.
I'm going to say weeks.
Easily.
Maybe months.
If not months, yeah.
How about the price of a beer at every NBA stadium slash arena?
I don't even know the name of most NBA arenas.
They don't actually tell you the name of the arena.
They just say the name of the team.
Oh.
You want to start at...
Just read what's in front of me.
I'm going to say a Lakers, number one.
All right.
So do you want to start at cheapest or most expensive?
Cheapest, because I like that.
All right.
Oklahoma City Thunder.
Man, I was going to say Utah.
Yeah.
Not at all.
Utah's pretty high up there.
Damn.
So number 30, the Thunder, Hawks, 756, Pacers, 810, Raptors, 917 a beer, Wiz
ards, 959, Grizzlies,
97, 76ers, 1056.
Now we're breaking those double digits.
The Pistons, 1129, the Spurs, 1185, Houston Rockets, 1189, the Magic, 1199, as
well as
the Timberwolves and the Cavaliers, Trailblazers, 1241, Charlotte Hornets, 1249
, Miami Heat
at number 15, 1275, here we go, halfway.
Number 14, the Bucs of Milwaukee.
Yeah.
Shit's expensive.
$13 even.
Yeah.
For a beer.
I get about a beer every time I go to a game.
It's all you can afford.
Nailed it.
I made myself laugh.
I'm a cheapskate.
The Kings, Sacramento Kings, also at 13 bucks.
The Pelicans, 1343, the Mavs at 1355.
Here's the top 10.
Let's go.
Utah Jazz, 14 bucks.
Wow.
For a 3% beer, that's fucked up.
Number nine, Clippers, 1439, clipping the wallet.
Now I think this is before the Clippers moved because they're tied with the L
akers at also
1439.
Okay.
The Clippers have their own spot now on Arena as of this season.
Yeah, it's supposed to be really nice.
I know somebody who went and saw a concert there before the season started and
said it
was really nice.
Yeah.
I heard there, and there's enough bathrooms, man.
What was it?
What's that guy's name?
Steve...
Balmer.
So he had a lot to do with the stadium design itself.
Yeah.
There's tons of bathrooms.
They're all clean.
And there's enough bathrooms that you can, it's like the wait time is like two
minutes
from seat to bathroom.
Oh, I haven't heard that.
Nice.
Yeah.
He said it was great.
And like their whole facial recognition technology was super cool.
You don't have to have a ticket.
Anything like that.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Oh yeah.
You like do this whole setup on the app where you like, you take a picture of
yourself and
it's like some of the Amazon fresh stores.
You just walk in, it recognizes you and they let you in.
Oh yeah.
That we have here in Milwaukee.
Oh, do you?
Yeah.
It's something...
I've never seen that before.
Yeah.
I forgot what you have to either give them your card or something about your
wrist or
something.
Oh, this is facial recognition.
This is you just walk in and it recognizes you and boop you're in.
You grab a can and it won't charge you until you crack it.
This isn't for food sales.
I've seen that before.
This is not for food sales.
This is for ticket entry.
Oh.
Yeah.
Like as you walk in the door, it just recognizes you and lets you in.
That's fucked up.
Yeah.
It's a little creepy honestly.
Yeah.
That's...
Yeah.
You're everywhere.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
The Phoenix Suns at $14.99.
Number six, the Nets at $15.47.
Number five, the Bulls at $15.75.
Number four, the New York Knickerbockers $16.11.
Number three, Golden State Warriors $17 a lot.
Yeah.
Top two.
Number two, Los Nuggets $17.32, which is hilarious because how far does that
beer have to travel
from down the street?
Not very.
That's my guess.
And the number one most expensive beer in all of basketball.
Did you say Boston yet?
And boy, can they suck a big fat dick?
That's the Boston Celtics, everybody.
Oh, there it is.
At over 20 bucks a beer.
That's messed up.
20, 32.
They are $3 more than the number two spot.
That is messed up.
Yeah.
How did they get away with that?
What a shitty town.
I don't know.
What a shitty, shitty sports town.
Fuck you, Boston.
Can't stand them.
I don't know.
Unless you live in the area, you hate them.
Yeah.
It's kind of like the Yankees.
Yeah.
I don't enjoy them either.
Right.
Exactly.
I hate the Yankees.
I also hate the Dodgers.
Oh, fuck you.
But you hated the Yankees more, right?
Yeah.
Like even just like 1% more because they had, it could be because they had a
bigger payroll.
I don't care why.
As long as you hate them slightly more.
For you?
Oh, fuck.
Man, $20 for a beer at a sporting event.
And you know, that's gotta be shitty beer.
It's not like 20 bucks for IPA or something.
I'm going home sober.
Yeah.
Or I'm walking in loaded.
You're right.
Yeah.
That's, that's what, I don't know if it's still there.
I'm not sure if I've talked about this on the show.
But a Staples Center, what the fuck they call it now, down the street from Stap
les, if you
take the Metro, which nobody in LA takes, and you get off like one stop before
the Staples
Center stop, I think it's called like the 7th Street Metro Center or something.
There's a hotel across the street from that station.
You go up and then across the street, there's a hotel.
Underneath the hotel is like this little shopping, we'll call it a mall for
lack of a better
term.
And at the very back of it is a Carl's Jr.
And at that Carl's Jr., it must've been some other restaurant in the past
because they
have three taps.
It's like the world's shittiest beer.
It's like Bud Light, Mikultra, Coors Light, or something like that.
The last time I was there, which was pre-COVID, it was still only like $8 a pit
cher.
A pitcher?
A pitcher.
And I'm not talking like those little pretend pitchers.
I'm talking the legitimate pitcher.
Wait.
Is this California we're talking about?
This is California.
I found out about it because I used to work in downtown LA a long, long time
ago doing
a computer job.
My buddy's like, "Hey, you want to go to Carl's Jr. for beer?"
And I was like, "What?
Carl's Jr. for beer?"
So then clearly taking over someone's liquor license or beer license, whatever.
I don't even know if it's still there.
In fact, I should go down there and find out if it's still there because $8 for
a pitcher.
That's a steal.
So get yourself a shitty burger and fries from Carl's Jr.
Get each person a pitcher because at that price you can fucking get your own.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to buy a round of pitchers.
Exactly.
I'm a huge game.
You can have two pitchers.
And that's such a good price.
I'm buying a round of pitchers.
Right.
Have a couple pitchers, get loaded before the game starts.
You walk down, it's like, I don't know, three quarters of a mile or something
like that
to Staples Center.
Boom.
You don't need to buy any beers.
Or maybe you buy like one beer at halftime to keep the buzz going.
No big deal.
I like it.
Yeah.
If anybody's been to Staples Center lately and knows my secret, please let me
know if
that place still exists because boy, was that a magical tree underground Carl's
Jr.
Sounds like you fucking high one day just wandered around and that's what your
memory
recollects.
I mean, I would have never known had somebody not been like, Hey, you want to
go for burgers
and beer at Carl's Jr.
I was like, what?
It was great.
And when I found out about it, was at a very low time in my life.
I had just like broken up with a long-term girlfriend.
I was working down there.
And so my buddy who I worked with like every day at lunch was like burgers and
beer.
Like fuck.
Yeah, man.
Burgers and beer for lunch every day.
We were not very productive after like two o'clock.
You deserved it though.
I did.
I felt better.
But yeah, it's good times.
Hey Greg, how low are you right now?
Well, not lower than a Carl's Jr in a basement.
Let's fucking go.
Never got that low.
Love it.
Oh yeah.
Good times.
I did end up staying in that hotel years after that job.
I stayed at that hotel one time for work and I went out there.
It was, I mean, this is all pre COVID, but it's like still there.
It's got a couple of pictures.
I hope so.
I really, truly hope so.
Boy, was that a hidden gem?
Probably hidden gem.
Anyways.
All right.
Let's get the fuck out of here.
I got more beers to drink.
I don't want to be here anymore.
Yeah.
Tired of looking at my face.
I got a Carl's Jr to get to.
I'm going to say hello to Vanessa.
Hi Vanessa.
Hello.
Find us on the socials @CraftBeerRepublic, @FlexMeABeer, underscores in between
, CraftBeerRepublic.com/algorithm.
If you want to do the old algorithm.
It's fun.
Yeah.
It's a good time.
805-538-beer, 2337.
I think that's mostly everything.
Hope everyone out there staying very well hydrated and on that note, good night
everybody.
- Yay.