In Local Brews - "Bald Birds Brewing"

Matt and Friends Drink the Universe recorded live from Bald Birds Brewing! In this episode, we're toasting to Bald Birds brewing and owners Joey and Abby Feerar's journey as brewery owners. Andy M. joins Matt to get the scoop on Joey's leap into the craft beer scene from banking, the challenges of starting a brewery, and the Robin's nest that inspired it all! As we tour the brewery and sample their finest, like "Other Robots," "Highway Miles," "Timbre," and "Jed over Heels,"  we discover the nuances of beer making and the creativity that bubbles beneath the surface.

Breathing life into the community, Joey shares how partnerships, like their collaboration with Penn College’s brewery science program, are essential ingredients in the recipe for innovative brews. They are innovating with bourbon too, revealing how a rapid-aging process could revolutionize barrel aging.

Grab your glass and join us for a heartfelt celebration of the craft, the culture, and the community of beer making. From the meticulous crafting of the their beer, to the personal tales behind the names of our beloved brews, this episode is more than just talk – it's a journey through the heart and soul of brewing. 

We’re not just drinking beer; we're drinking in this universe of craft beer together! So pull up a chair and let's savor the stories as rich as the craft beer we cherish. Cheers!

Transcript

Matt: 1:01

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We have liftoff. Welcome to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.

Walter: 1:22

Drink the Universe. I'm Walter Brew Right. Welcome to In Local Brews where we dive deep into the flavorful world of our community's unique beverages. Join us as we raise our glasses to the stories, traditions and craftsmanship that go into every sip. From the hidden gems tucked away in our neighborhoods to the latest trends brewing on the scene, we're discovering the hearts and souls of local libations. Today we are live at Bald Birds Brewing.

Matt: 1:56

Hello everyone and welcome back to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe. Now part of the Unfiltered Studios podcast network and very excited to be part of that network of creators we are recording live today at Bald Birds Brewing in Audubon, Pennsylvania. Did I pronounce that right? You did. This is something I do, well, as a host of a podcast. So there you go, we're here at Audubon, PA, and I'm going to go around the table and let everybody that's with me introduce themselves.

Andy M: 2:24

Hi, this is Andy. I'm excited to be here to learn about the amazing story for Bald Birds Brewery and taste some delicious beers.

Matt: 2:29

And our guest of honor today.

Joey Feerar: 2:32

Hi, I'm Joe Ferrara, a long-time listener, first-time caller. Thanks for having me on your show today and looking forward to talking about our beer and our story.

Matt: 2:40

Very cool and you are also the owner. Yes, sir, you want to talk a little bit about how you got into brewing the name Bald Birds? Tell us a little bit of the story.

Joey Feerar: 2:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Matt: 2:50

And then we're going to drink your beer.

Joey Feerar: 2:51

Alright, let's do that I'm already drinking my beer, which is good. So prior to starting our brewery, I was a banker. I was in banking and finance for 20 years and had a chance to travel a good bit around the country and work around the country, which is pretty cool. So I have a lot of different experiences and typically anywhere I went, I always found a brewery to go to. Obviously, I like drinking beer, but then also exploring what different techniques are and different flavors and different beers are around the country.

Joey Feerar: 3:16

And then in 2005 or six, I think it was I was working on a commercial loan for Victory. Victory was doing a kitchen expansion out in their downtown location and I was one of the finalists to do a commercial loan for them. They had a chance to spend a ton of time with Bill and Ron to learn a lot about brewing and so whenever you're doing due diligence for a commercial loan, you really dig into all aspects of that business. I spent a lot of time doing research and I'm saying that in air quotes and just learning about the craft beer industry and watching the craft of Victory with some of the best beers ever made in the world. Their Prima Pills is one of the predominant beers in the world. It wins medals every year. And just I really began to drew towards craft beer Because at that time I was not drinking craft beer, I was drinking stuff that was mass produced. It was not great quality, but I could drink quantity, and so really learning the behind the scenes and how those beers are made really inspired me to start our journey towards Bald Birds.

Joey Feerar: 4:11

And at that point I knew I didn't have the money to start a brewery. I didn't have any idea what I did or didn't want to do, so I started saving money, knowing at some point I do want to start something in craft beer. And so I saved money for 11 years. And then when we finally, abby and I, sat down and wrote our business plan, you know, starting a brewery is very hard. It's very capital intensive, it's just a very expensive industry to get started in Finding equipment, finding locations, everything you need to like, find a perfect space. It also takes time to build out your brewery and so saving for 11 years.

Joey Feerar: 4:42

And then you know we were struggling tremendously. We couldn't find a lender that wanted to give us money, we couldn't find a location to put our brewery in. We were really struggling and thinking about hanging it up. And then a robin built a nest in the wreath of our front door in South Philly, and when those four eggs hatched, of those baby birds, we got a location locked up. I got an SBA 7A loan from Lender in New Jersey, and so we were all on our journey to start our brewery, and so we came in and we found this location in Audubon, pennsylvania, which is, ironically, the bird capital of the world.

Walter: 5:10

And we opened our first. Yeah, it's a bird capital world.

Joey Feerar: 5:13

And so we opened our location in Audubon in September of 2018, and at that day, abby was nine months pregnant with Graham. And so, like we had a Graham Monday morning, and so we're here our grand opening. Abby's like selling beers and slinging beers. She's nine months pregnant. It's our second child first location. It's just been a labor of love for a year and a half trying to find this location, doing a fit out, building it out, finding equipment, everything that had to go along with it. So I would work at the bank during the day and then come here during night and then hang boards and do decorations and do construction during that whole time, and so I was like working from six in the morning until two in the morning, sleeping for a couple of hours and doing it all over again for a period of like five months. So it was a lot of work, but well worth it. And then Abby and I were actually horrible brewers, and so we said you know what? We're going to open a brewery we should probably have a brewery here.

Joey Feerar: 6:03

And we got one of his homebrew kits and then we tried to brew a session IPA at our house and it was awful If they gave some to Andy.

Andy M: 6:12

And I think in our case I gave you as one of the worst. He's still alive. I remember you talked about how amazing it was and I was like, yeah, no, this is a drain pour. It was an awful beer.

Joey Feerar: 6:22

And we were up and running and at that point I didn't intend to leave the bank for a pretty long time because we had a good job there. But it kind of took off and started forming into something we just weren't expecting. And you know, it's a lot easier sitting down in front of people and handing them a beer than it is handing you loan papers, and so people are very passionate. We have a great customer base. We love Bald Birds Brewing Company. I got awesome customers. Everybody's very kind, everyone's nice and like everyone we got in the tap room today, everyone's smiling.

Joey Feerar: 6:51

We just have a unique opportunity to pull communities together and be a community center for those local areas and I think we do that here in Audubon and we also do that in our other flagship brewery in Jersey, short Pennsylvania. Like we're a big part of the community and I think that's one of the things that Abby and I are very excited about is one. It's a passion of ours. We love beer, we love craft beer, we love being entrepreneurs, but also we get to make a really big impact in our community Jobs with. We support every Little League team. We support everything we can just to make sure we're involved in everything in those communities, that's awesome.

Joey Feerar: 7:23

So like that's the kind of stuff where you get to do that you typically wouldn't have an opportunity to do if I was still at the bank, and so we support anything we can in those communities, which I think is pretty cool.

Matt: 7:31

That is awesome, that's one thing.

Andy M: 7:33

That's very clear from you guys too. Like I mean, despite the fact that you have an excellent beers, but you guys are very community focused.

Walter: 7:39

Yes.

Andy M: 7:40

You can see that every time you come in here.

Joey Feerar: 7:42

Yeah, it's important to us. It's a very cool opportunity and it's pretty important to us to do that and be involved, and so we're very blessed to have a chance to do that.

Matt: 7:51

Very cool, so I was putting two and two together as a sidebar. When you said the bird capital is the world here in auto, is it like the Autobahn Society?

Joey Feerar: 7:58

Yes, they have a pet named pet blue J, named Conrad, who's been here quite a bit. We have to cut him off every once in a while because he's a blue J, but they're very territorial or no, start fighting people and then they have a one-eyed alley bring down here and any different types of events we've held. They've been very supportive and so we do like birding events and different things like that, and there's a huge community for birding that we never knew about until we started opening up and it's pretty cool.

Matt: 8:24

That is pretty cool. I will say I'm a big fan of your logo also, partially because I look like your logo.

Walter: 8:30

You do.

Matt: 8:32

The bald guy at the beard going. When I was trimming my beard this morning I was like I'm going to get this as close to the logo as possible so that I can do today, honestly, collectively, all three of us look the same thing of that logo. Yeah, there's lack of hair up top. But you know, party in the front. I guess if it makes any sense Around your face, that's good.

Joey Feerar: 8:47

Excellent, we'll take that, but yeah. So I think that you know what's interesting about the design is the individual who drew that. So there's a company called 99 Designs and basically what you do is you write your story and your narrative about your brand and you talk about who you are, what you did, talk about your path to get to your brand and you share this whole story and it's like it spreads it out to a bunch of different artists throughout the world. And then it's like a contest and so whoever wins wins the money you put up. So I think we put up like on a $500, $750. We got like 40 designs back and so the person that drew that I never met them. They've never seen my face.

Joey Feerar: 9:20

They've never seen me and so it's not something where I'm just like putting my face out there. It's like they actually drew that picture without ever meeting me, or Abby, just reading our story. It's just kind of cool. That is amazing. I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she's from Massachusetts and we went through that process and ended up with our logo and then for our sister distillery, abby drew the logo of the four bird Actually, matt all drew it from college and then Abby kind of tweaked a little bit with the birds, but we're sticking with that theme. It was kind of neat to do that process and go through that, because we got some really cool creative on our story that we ended up not going with, but just some really cool things people came up with.

Matt: 9:55

Very cool. I finally got down to this location, which is much closer to where I live, but I have been also to the Jersey Shore PA location for Andy and I have not given you formal congratulations on the podcast yet.

Andy M: 10:08

Thank you very much. Yes.

Matt: 10:10

So Andy is married, congratulations. Thank you very much Shortly after the last time we had you on the podcast.

Andy M: 10:16

My wife and I, melissa, we were fortunate enough to have our wedding at the Bulgur's location in Jersey Shore, pa, and it was an incredible venue. Just everything from top to bottom was just an absolute. The best experience of all time.

Matt: 10:29

Who was the best man in your wedding?

Andy M: 10:30

I don't remember the other ball bird sitting across from me. Oh, okay, joey, I thought so.

Matt: 10:36

Yes, a gorgeous location up there. The view off the deck out front looking out into the mountains is just a spectacular place to have a beer. It really is. My wife and I walked out there, kind of looked at each other and went this is, it's like we're drinking at a postcard right now.

Andy M: 10:52

It was great, it was a very, it was an unbelievable location, just like this one is too. It's just like I said, it's community focused and it's just very like you open the doors and I don't want to say quote, unquote, feel at home, but it's very welcoming.

Matt: 11:02

Yeah, and your statement before is very true. When I was walking through the taproom, that is what I noticed is everybody had a smile on their face. You were greeting people, the bartenders were greeting people, everybody was like people knew each other as they were coming in and it's just a very friendly and nice environment, and I'm now looking at the beer that we have in front of us here.

Joey Feerar: 11:19

So do you want to lead the tour.

Joey Feerar: 11:21

Absolutely so we'll continue our tour about our locations and then talk a bit about beer, and so, yeah, so our facility in Jersey Shore is 155,000 square feet. We have a large scale production facility in the back, and the first beer we're talking about today is other robots, and I think that when you look at a lot of the beers we brew we love to stick with technique beers and you look at your loggers, your Pilsners, a lot of the German beers, and so other robots, is is through with all German ingredients, which is awesome, and it's one of the first beers we ever use, or send a few, john. And so when you look at it, the clarity in it, how clear it is, how clean, how crisp our water profile in Jersey Shore is very, very good, and so we're drinking this. How less, very true to style, very true to authentic German beers, and so we're very proud of this beer and it's one of my favorite ones to drink as well. So and so, cheers, guys, other robots, cheers, cheers, our house.

Matt: 12:13

Delicious it is. It is crisp, it is smooth, it was refreshing. It is a session drinker, evidence by the fact that at Andy's bachelor party that is an excellent logger, yeah, that was my go-to session for that particular evening and early morning and it really is crisp, refreshing.

Matt: 12:31

It tastes like a traditional German beer. You get those German ingredients in there and for sure and I'm a sucker for German beer in general A lot of people don't like the really kind of wheat heavy. I enjoy it very much and this is just a nice, easy beer to drink. And I wanted to lead off with a logger as opposed to an IPA, because we've been talking a lot on the podcast and Joey had been interested to hear your opinion on this as well that one of the kind of repeat sentiments with IPAs is that it's almost a little like wall speckle, where you can make an IPA and if something doesn't quite go right you can add some other ingredients and change it up.

Matt: 13:07

But a solid logger is a much harder beer to brew overall and this is a great example of a good beer. And I will also say that on a previous episode, a couple of previous episodes I've done, we've talked about like go with the light, go with the logger, right up front. If that one's good, you're in for good rest of the day. So I'm feeling like we're in for good. Rest of the flight here.

Joey Feerar: 13:25

Yeah, I think so, and there's a lot of good breweries around here doing really good pilsners and loggers, and I do think that's a good indicator of the strength of the brewer when you're doing that. But IPAs are so interesting because the depth of flavor you can create with an IPA is just unbelievable. I mean, it's almost the complexity in some of them rivals like a decent wine in terms of complexity and a good stout. And so I think that the traditional beer is because it's all about patience. It's like you can't rush a logger or a pilsner, because if you rush them and try to get them out the door in three weeks, it's not going to be a very good beer. But if you take your time and be patient, I think we'd loggered out one for over six weeks, and so I think that it's a patient's beer. The interesting thing about that is you can't sell a logger for eight bucks a pint, even though the time to make it is probably two or three times out of an IPA. Again, it's much cheaper to make because the grain bill is different, you're not adding all the hops, not dry hopping, and so it's a little bit different in terms of cost to make it, but I would drink that beer all day long versus an IPA, because there's just like there's so many of them.

Joey Feerar: 14:29

But there's a lot of good IPAs out there right now and so it's like, if I look at the business side of things and think about the brewery from that aspect, ipas keep the lights on because a good hazy IPA our last beer today is going to be a West Coast IPA. We talk about it and maybe we'll bring some other ones back here, but really well done. Ipas are kind of the foundation of what you do inside your tap room and then any to-go beers. If I were to look at what we're selling to go, you do get your pilsners, you get your loggers. We do a lot to-go sours, which are very popular right now in the rest of our IPAs and I think when people are buying stuff to go home, they're not necessarily buying the 5.5% guy, they want the 9% beer and the 8% where they go home they can have one or two, really enjoy them and then go to sleep, and that's the thing with the IPAs.

Andy M: 15:18

It's like the whole industry is just. I mean, I don't want to. It's saturated with IPAs. There's so many different variations of IPAs West Coast, New England's Hazy Lactose, whatever you want to call it. It's just. Overall it's just saturated and that's why I think the traditional loggers and the pilsners are just my personal preference. You have very minor variations of those, but it's just the process of it. I just think it's more of a refreshing beer.

Joey Feerar: 15:44

Yeah, I agree.

Matt: 15:45

Absolutely, absolutely.

Joey Feerar: 15:48

Oh man, we have a guest standing here with donuts. We do.

Matt: 15:51

That's the best kind of guest, one that brings donuts.

Joey Feerar: 15:54

Go for it a hop in Ed.

Matt: 15:55

Abby Joey's wife has just brought us some delicious looking food and I am very excited To wash the beer down.

Andy M: 16:01

we have federal donuts and yes, it is donuts and chicken.

Joey Feerar: 16:06

Oh yes can't go wrong. Chicken sandwich on a donut. Can I get that?

Matt: 16:10

truck to park in front of my house. I won't live very long, but oh, I didn't know.

Andy M: 16:14

The chicken sandwich was on a donut.

Matt: 16:16

No, I think it's on a bottom.

Andy M: 16:18

The chicken sandwich is not on a donut. Regardless of the dishes.

Matt: 16:22

I would have not drawn a line there, I would have gone back for a second sandwich.

Joey Feerar: 16:27

Yeah, but I do think you know IPAs they're not going anywhere and I think that West Coast are becoming a bit more popular. Now I'm seeing in terms of like Art2Go sales stuff that Wholesaleers are looking for. You're seeing more West Coast desire. I think the big hazees, I think the people that do it really really well, are going to be pretty consistent, have a bunch of skews everywhere you look. I do think that it's going to be very crowded space for a long time and if you're, you know, up and coming or a starter brewery, it's going to be a tough, tough place to enter with your IPAs because there's just so many people doing it really well.

Joey Feerar: 17:01

I mean, I look at Neutrail. They're everywhere. They have eight to 10 beers in every single store. They do, they're very, very good at what they do. They know the IPA game, I would say better than anybody in Pennsylvania and they're just phenomenal at what they do. And so you look at breweries like that where their IPA centric. They're very, very good at what they do and they have a great brand, great marketing, great distribution. I mean everything that they do at Neutrail is pretty much perfect for the IPA game.

Andy M: 17:26

Do you feel like going to breweries like a brewery is so primarily focused on one particular style, Like whenever they all of a sudden start incorporating other aspects of the style, does that affect the taste of those you think? Or it's not as popular as the other ones?

Joey Feerar: 17:41

I think they look at like they have multiple iterations of each one of their beers. I think, that, like some of it is, you have a core beer. That's really, really good.

Joey Feerar: 17:49

The way I would think about that is that you always do slight iterations to see if anything else takes off, and so like could be a double, could be a double dry hop could be a triple could be a different fruit or a different hop, and so you always want to find, like, if you get a brand that does really good, that's really hard to do right now and to find something that's popular, slight iterations to stay true to like that particular name of that beer, that style, and then just slight small changes to add another skew, to kind of sneak in there and kind of cannibalize the original beer. But it'll do enough to where, like, they're going to get a lot of like notoriety and it looks like a different beer and so, like I think that again, they do that very well, and so I think that that's kind of what you see with the IPA game right now.

Matt: 18:32

So a little while ago I had Gina Masaki on from Lost Tavern Brewing and they were doing Life's a Beach and at the time I think they were on like Volume 5 and now they're on like Volume 9. It's the same thing. It's the same yeast pitch. They've been using through the whole process, same batch of ingredients, just kind of tweaking.

Joey Feerar: 18:49

But it's amazing to me the process and the thought that goes into taking one product and then iterating it like that and seeing what comes out of it as you move forward and yeah, because, I mean, every brew is a risk and I think that every beer you make, every recipe you come up with, and I think that, depending on the strength of your brewer and who's making your beers and who's doing your recipes, everything's a risk because you never know if someone's going to go really well and sell fast or it's not going to sell at all. And I think that's every single batch has that risk and there's always like, if you don't hit your tems, you don't hit every spec you need to do to hit your recipe. There's always something that could go wrong. There's always mechanical failure, there could be something with your glycol system, and there's so many variables that go into making a really good beer.

Joey Feerar: 19:33

I think when you step back and think about all the different inputs with various grains, where you're sourcing them from, where you're getting your hops you're this, you're that, you're that, you're water I mean there's so many things going in to make a really good beer that it takes the smallest minute issue to make the beer not be good. And so I think that every single beer you brew, there's a risk. And so people that are consistent and they make really good beers all the time, like they're very, very good at what they do and I think that again, lost Towers is another one. They just they make really good beer, very clean, crisp, good beer. They don't miss very often and so they're very good brewery, very sound brewery, and so they make really good stuff. Every time I've gone there I've enjoyed every beer I've had.

Matt: 20:12

So I will say this as far as the occasional mistake, you did not make one with the other robots. It is phenomenal is one of my favorites and I will Stellar. It's just an easy drinker and if anybody listening wants a solid logger that you can sit down, drink in the middle of the summer football game, middle of the winter, this is the go-to beer.

Joey Feerar: 20:42

I think it's cool about this beer too is like when you look at, like the RTD craze look at high noons. You look at the you know state side. You look at these drinks. We actually serve all of our Pilsners and loggers and 12 ounce sleek cans Just because they're easier, they align more with the RTD craze. It's just more attractive to all drinkers and I think that you know other robots as a drink to anyone can enjoy, for beer, and especially if you're not a beer drinker, you're looking for something easy to migrate into beer.

Joey Feerar: 21:09

I think that that's an easy beer to go into and, you know, kind of brings me to our second beer here, our champion style, and Champion style is one of our flagship beers and so when we go out to distribution, we go out to our tap rooms. This is one of those beers that we always have on tap. We always have available and again, true to German style, german hops, german grains, german malts, of everything is from Germany and it's a German base and so it's one of those things. It's again one of our flagship beers and it's perfect for every occasion got a really nice, sweet finish to it and so have a quick sip here and see what you think.

Matt: 21:44

Cheers oh, I'm being victimized by my flight board.

Joey Feerar: 21:48

Oh, it's stuck.

Matt: 21:49

Yeah, hold on, we'll get it. We're gonna work it out. We got it, we got it, and I only spilled one drop. I was. I'm proud of myself there. I've never seen this before.

Joey Feerar: 21:59

it's interesting, very good and again what you'll see good, great clarity. This was fun in a centrifuge, great shelf life and you know it's interesting, we have a partnership with Penn College up in Jersey Shore and so Penn College has a brewery science program. Five or six employees now that came out of that program at Penn College. So phenomenal students, great program they come out. They have a really good understanding of beer Celering. You know they learn a bit more packaging when they're with us. But every, every other aspect of beer brewing Recipe and cellaring they do a great job and they do a really good job teaching that program there.

Joey Feerar: 22:32

A gentleman named Timmy Arrington, who Started El Creek brewery, is the main professor there and he's just phenomenal job with these students. We're very proud to have them there and one of the cool things to do is they have a lab in Jersey Sure and so we get some really deep analytics in terms of the quality of our beer. And so one of the things that we do is we test other, we tested other robots versus some other more national brands and we bought stuff. We took stuff out of our tank, we first packaged it and then six and nine and one year down the road and compared it to the same National beer brand. The air quotes the same timeline for those beers and our beer actually held up better, and those beers did over a one-year period, and so that's right we got.

Andy M: 23:16

There was the same, as I have a style of beer that you guys.

Joey Feerar: 23:18

It was our other robots versus that other American made beer with a red and white can so I'm gonna give you one of these.

Matt: 23:30

So that's my buddy, rob here, who honestly looks. I had shown you a picture of him at one point. He really looks like your logo and I will do that on the socials and put Rob's face next to the logo.

Joey Feerar: 23:39

That's fine Perfect.

Matt: 23:40

I think he really is the logo come to life. But Rob is a scientist by trade. I know he's gonna be excited to listen to what you Just said. It's so cool that you have that partnership program and that you're able to do those kind of like comparative experiments and things like that. Like that's the first time I've ever heard of something like that going on. I didn't even know like a program existed like that at the college level at this point.

Joey Feerar: 24:00

Yes, it's unique to you know, we're very fortunate and and my alma mater, like coming and Penn College, both out of Wing of Sport, I've been very active partners in our Jersey Shore location. This isn't a spirits broadcast, but I did get a grant with like coming to research and Proof out a process where we're rapid-aged bourbon you make like a six-year bourbon in 21 days Wow, very similar taste, very similar profile. And so I think that between the two Local colleges up in Wayne sport They've been unbelievable partners and we're very blessed to have them in our backyard but they both in extremely supportive, both from a student perspective, interim perspective and also finding ways in which we can partner to better, make us better and then also make their students, like have more opportunity down the road very cool and, as far as us not being a spirits broadcast, we will talk about anything that you can put the glass in drink.

Matt: 24:51

Absolutely, and you had mentioned something like that before about, like, the rapid-aging process and that being an emerging thing. Have you, have you made anything using that process at this point?

Joey Feerar: 25:00

Yep. So I would say like the so what we did was we have local corn, local rye. You know, I'll groom Local farmers, I mean in chicken sandwich, where I'm talking to you right now. So I'm trying to figure this out, that's all good.

Matt: 25:11

We do whole episodes that are just us chewing into the microphone.

Andy M: 25:14

Truck pull up outside over like.

Joey Feerar: 25:21

Potato roll and pickles on one buffalo chicken sandwich.

Joey Feerar: 25:25

What we do with this bourbon is we have a process that we created and developed, myself and another gentleman named Charlie glass name we're main anonymous, so I don't kill everybody that listens to podcast special individual and so we created this process to rapid-age bourbon and basically, in 21 days from when we're done fermenting it, you can have a rapid-age product. It's equivalent to like a you know five, six, seven-year bourbon and right now we're going through the process of like identifying to write wood, write char, right, everything for that, and so I right now it's tasting like a really high-end Jim beam, okay. And so if you sat down, drank it, put Jim beam down, put this next to it. So it's like a phenomenal mixer, so like jack-and-cokes, whiskey and coax. Very, very good mixer, very good drink. I don't know if it's gonna be appropriate for like sitting down, like just drinking it straight up, like eat.

Joey Feerar: 26:15

But it's a pretty good equivalent. But it's great for mixing right now. It's fun.

Andy M: 26:19

I wish you guys even think about like yeah, rapidly, like aging this, like well, like how was that dialogue even presented?

Joey Feerar: 26:26

We were drinking into time and so you know, all good ideas happen when you're drinking, and yes, and we're just talking about like, because there's other ways in which things get infused, using certain scientific techniques, especially what we're doing right now.

Joey Feerar: 26:39

It's like olive oils and other food products use these different techniques and so we modified the technique to be applicable to alcohol and so we use that modified it and then we're the process now where it isolate the flavor profiles we want with the bourbon based on the technique we're using, and so we can capture, like vanilla, cinnamon or whatever it is, through our process and identify that through science and Figure that out.

Andy M: 27:03

It's pretty cool. That's hat Matt means you, the science.

Matt: 27:06

You want me hit the button again? Yes, that's very science, scientific. Maybe that'll be the eventual experiment with pen, which is taking a traditionally barrel-aged Spirit and putting it next to that rapid process and seeing how those two line up with each other.

Joey Feerar: 27:21

I would love that. Yeah, I like a couple different ones. To try it. See if you can pick out which ones Rapid age, which one isn't.

Matt: 27:26

That'd be awesome as I make sweet love with my chicken sandwich here.

Andy M: 27:32

This is for all ages. Yeah, well, yeah well, 21 and above.

Matt: 27:35

sorry, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say all that are able to drink my question was the names of the first two we have here the other robots. Where do those names come from? There's always a good story behind that.

Joey Feerar: 27:47

So we have like a Spreadsheet and then we have a text line where just like, if you have a good idea for a name, we kind of float it by everybody and just they're all very random. Some of them are like okay, this is, there's a reason why this like we had an Italian Pilsner called Pompeii and if you dry hop too fast, the pressure builds up in your tank and it basically like shoots You're at the top of it, and so the individual dry hopping Pompeii for a dry hop.

Joey Feerar: 28:13

Pilsner was a dry hopping too fast and Exploded and it was a 90 barrel fermenter. The guy was up on a scissor lift and it was shooting up 25 feet in the air just like, wow, a volcano erupting. It's. That's how we end up with the name Pompeii, and so some of them have like meaning, like that Other robots and champion like not a great story behind them.

Joey Feerar: 28:32

I think the highway miles kind of cool. So like think about, like when you look at the label Back in the day, rad racer for Nintendo is on the label. This was one of the best games ever, yes, so highway miles was one of those. Games were like it's a West Coast IPA, so the one most prominent highways in the country is on the West Coast in California and so like kind of like that rad racer vibe versus like the highway miles for the West Coast IPA tribute is pretty cool.

Joey Feerar: 28:56

You know, cardboard cutout was a cool name we came up with and so, like, we blended the West Coast and East Coast style together. And if you hold a map of the United States on a pin, we did a cardboard cutout where it bounced. That was where, like the center of the country. And so, like we did cardboard cutout for, like, balancing a cutout United States map on there to balance between it's like Kansas, somewhere I forget the name of the town, but that's it, kansas, where the actual country bounces on.

Joey Feerar: 29:22

And so you never know, yeah, and then karate bomb and explosions of karate bomb was actually made up on my son. Karate explosion was made up by our distribution lead, dan as a 13th name, and so he made karate explosion. And then Logan loves ninjas and so he called it karate bomb, double IPA, higher ABV. And then it's a ninja. It's a bomb wearing a ninja mask on the front of it, wearing a black outfit, doing karate kick, and so he's very good label with Abby Little intimidating.

Walter: 29:51

Came up with karate bomb yeah.

Joey Feerar: 29:54

Plus he was like five at a time when he thought I'm gonna do it, okay, where's your brain going bud?

Matt: 29:57

Yeah, here's your future marketing department exactly yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So next up, I think we have a barley wine.

Andy M: 30:06

I Now I am full to slamer. I am not familiar with barley wines at all, so this is gonna be. It's been a very long time since I had a barley wine.

Matt: 30:14

Yeah, I'm interested to hear from Joey the process that went into creating this one. I am a big fan of barley wines in general. I like dark beer, stout's Porter. Yeah, that's that sort of thing, things that hit maybe a little heavier.

Joey Feerar: 30:26

So interesting notes. This is brewed with, I believe, a saison yeast, a fooder that is designated towards like a saison type style, and so this beer got aged on our fooders out in our Brewery outside there. So it adds like a nice Smoky-okie and just a little bit of a different flavor to it because aged in wood versus being aged on stainless and then barley wines are an acquired tasting. I think that a lot of brewers love these beers and I think it's very unique beers, very unique style. You don't see them very often because you know, like an IPA, by brewed A 10 barrel batch of this beer which is technically really good. It's very good tasting beer, it's a very cool beer to drink. I brewed the same amount of an IPA. It would. I could sell 10 IPAs of that amount and the same time would take me to sell this beer because people just hmm, get afraid of that.

Joey Feerar: 31:17

They're so used to the IPA, they know what they're getting. They know they're getting. You see, they know they're. But like, technically this is a really good tasty beer.

Andy M: 31:24

It's just very different for verse. Now they do assist because of that aspect of the business concept.

Joey Feerar: 31:30

Well, no, I think they don't produce them because they don't move like other, that's I'm saying yeah.

Joey Feerar: 31:35

Yeah, so I think, that these beers are like styles that brewers like to do, they like to drink, but it's like we had we aged some of this on a barrel too, so you have like a different flavor to it.

Joey Feerar: 31:45

So this is like the unbarreled age and we have a barrel age Program of this. Like there's a bottles out there of this barley wine that is aged in barrels, and this is just straight up, not Asian barrels. It's just one of the things where you got to make a decision whether or not you want to have like really cool meat. Your styles that like are very different and diverse or do you want to like the lights on and just do IPAs, and so you got to balance between the two of those and so Every year will do like maybe one of these, a barley wine will do a couple porters, and so you got to think about okay, how do I balance the sales versus, like, the fun stuff to do for brewers, to be creative, and that's the hardest part is balancing those two out together, because this is a pretty cool beer.

Andy M: 32:23

I really do enjoy this a lot. I mean, you said that, but even if you didn't say it initially, but you taste that subtle smokiness to it. It's got a really yeah it's really kind of interesting in a good way.

Matt: 32:33

I would. I've been sniffing it I haven't taken a big sip yet and it's Got a really like sweet Nose to it and it's it's rather like a lot of barley wines you smell. That's not what you get. You get like heavy. Belgium, I'm gonna punch you in the face with barley wine right now.

Joey Feerar: 32:47

Yeah, and so this one did come out a little sweeter. I think it drinks more like a like a sweeter red to me than it does.

Matt: 32:57

That's a really good comparison. That's a really yeah, yeah, it absolutely does, and it's got a nice. This was barrel-aged right. Yeah, yeah, you can taste the oak for sure, but it goes down very smoothly and it's complex, it's not. This is not a simple beer at all. I would have to sit and contemplate for a minute. Hold a different.

Andy M: 33:14

It's a second. How much? What's the ebb of this too?

Joey Feerar: 33:18

I feel like I should know that, but I don't. It's good reviews, though. It's very high rated beer. I Don't know the answer to that.

Matt: 33:24

Gonna find that it tastes like a traditional Belgian trappist barley.

Joey Feerar: 33:28

Well, like it really does it's.

Matt: 33:30

It's really good.

Andy M: 33:32

Yeah, patrick, on to the on spot. This, like I'm surprised.

Matt: 33:36

Yeah like.

Andy M: 33:36

You know what I mean. I'm not used to this style at all. I don't go for this at all. This is really, really good.

Joey Feerar: 33:40

So it's hard to drink a lot, so I always call these like compliment beers to me, and so what I mean by that is, if I'm drinking a pills in our logger, like, I can drink them by the pint, drink as many as you possibly can over time, but like these are beers that are a treat to sit next to it.

Joey Feerar: 33:53

So I always let these types of beers get warmer as they sit out and I want to taste them as they get warmer, because I think complexity happens when it gets closer to room temperature.

Joey Feerar: 34:02

And so, like stout's, porters, belgians and those beers like I feel as if they're meant to be drunk, drank closer to room temperature, that versus being very cold, because you miss Nuance when things are cold. If you think about when you're drinking coffee you know Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, you get a cup of coffee as 8,000 degrees, and they do that because I always feel as if they're trying to hide imperfections in their beans and can't develop flavor when it's really hot, because your taste buds can't actually taste nuance and they're very cold or they're very hot. And so, like beers like this that have a lot of depth, like I like to let them, I take a sip when it's like right out of the tap and then, every 10 or 15 minutes, take another sip, because then you kind of see the journey of the beer and the flavor behind it. Because as the as it gets warmer, you pick up nuance, you pick up complexity, you pick up depth, and that's where you, that's why wines are drank.

Joey Feerar: 34:50

Red wines, especially, are drank at room temperature, because you get all the flavoring yes from that wine at room temperature and so, like stouts and barley wines and some of those other beers, like I always let them, like I like to drink them as they warm up, to see all the different nuance when you're drinking the beer.

Matt: 35:06

And that's phenomenal advice. I am a wine guy, like I like red wine. Yeah, I said before on the podcast one of my favorite college class ever was the wine tasting or geography of wine class that I took Best semester I ever spent. Yeah oh no, it was phenomenal. It was taught by Dr Robert Sikrist, who never wore shoes the entire semester, even though it started in the winter good for him.

Matt: 35:28

He was amazing, and because I up is a dry campus, we could not walk out with any open bottles. So we I had to stay after class to make sure that no one got in trouble. We had to make sure that there were no empty bottles left.

Andy M: 35:41

So I could be wrong, but wasn't I up? He also voted was one of the biggest party schools.

Matt: 35:46

That is perhaps a true statement.

Andy M: 35:47

It is a dry campus.

Matt: 35:49

It is a dry campus.

Joey Feerar: 35:50

That is also a true statement. How does Matt that math work?

Matt: 35:55

I'm not entirely. Let me tell you you, take one step off that campus. It's still incredibly not dry. But so one question, joey, that I wanted to ask you was I'm still. We were talking about barrel aging and that how the Barley wine here was barrel age and this is the timber right. Okay, I want to make sure I'm getting the names in there too, but I'm looking at barrels right here. So is there something barrel aging like 10 feet to my left, is that?

Joey Feerar: 36:18

what? Yeah, I believe so, yeah, and we. So we have a couple different barrel programs. We have a barrel program here, and so we'll carve off like a portion of a stout or Order whatever it is. We want to barrel age here. We get different types of barrels. We do bourbons, we do keyless which is kind of cool, people don't do age on that we do rums, and so we try to diversify that. And then Jersey Shore Because we just have a bigger brew house and bigger tanks, we can actually do more of a barrel program up there.

Joey Feerar: 36:42

And what's kind of neat about that is that we'll age the same beer on Two or three different types of barrels and then at the end of the day We'll blend together a different ratio from each barrel type to get like the ultimate stout.

Joey Feerar: 36:54

And so, like jet over heels, which beer out there that we have that has it's 15 point five percent Termes suit stout, which is delicious.

Joey Feerar: 37:02

But then we had it in three different types of barrels and then we had different ratios, we blended it together and landed on one at the end and then that was our blend for the beer and we conditioned it and then bottled it and so like there's just so much fun stuff you can do with barrels. That one sat for over a year. And so I think that when you do a barrel aging program, like right now is the time you actually think about that, because you want to release it in the fall. And so we're right now, we're sourcing barrels, we're looking for barrels, we're looking ways in which we can age for six to nine months prior to the end of the year. It's like right now is when you actually start your barrel age program and you brew it in February and January and then you'll age it up until September, october, do that winter release, and so like right, actually right now is when you start thinking about your, your barrel age beer.

Andy M: 37:45

Okay, is it a complicated process to locate the barrels?

Joey Feerar: 37:48

No, there's a bunch of good, it's just, it's quality. So do you want like heaven hill?

Joey Feerar: 37:52

Do you want like a buffalo trace, and so it depends on what you want. So there's a bunch of manufacturers running or have like those really good quality barrels and the cool thing about that like you get like a Good bourbon barrel and you can usually get a pint or two of like the actual bourbon out of it when they send it to you. So you either make sure you're back into it or you can take it out and drink it.

Matt: 38:08

But oh, that's neat.

Joey Feerar: 38:09

We do a little bit of both.

Matt: 38:11

Do you want to say who you source from, or you're allowed to say who you source from out?

Joey Feerar: 38:15

like Northeast Barrel Company. It's one of the ones we primarily go through and but there's I mean there's a lot of them that you buy barrels from in the process.

Andy M: 38:22

Well, that, once it's actually, you know conditioned and you know aged in the barrel, what do you do after you Like? Basically extract it from there. How does it work?

Joey Feerar: 38:29

We'll put it back in a bright tank. We'll condition it okay, cool it down. Then we'll package it off of bright tank. We usually do, we do bombers like 20 ounce bottles or 22 ounce bottles, and so we have like a little gun. We do it. We do a bottling day. We'll have everybody come in and help out so we'll clean the bottles, sanitize them, package it and then we'll put the cap on it and then we'll dip it in wax and then let us sit and dry and harden and we'll package it in the box and then take it to market. There you go.

Matt: 38:53

I'll ask the inappropriate question as the guy who's always wanted to ask this. So when you get to the end of that bottling day, is anybody ever like laid down on the floor and you're just gone like right into the open mouth there? Yes, yes, of course. Of course there is yes, and I mean the answer I so desperately yeah and like those days are fun.

Joey Feerar: 39:10

I mean, they're meant to be fun as meant to get as a team building effort is what I always think about it. So, like you're always getting together, you're having a couple drinks, you're trying everything, you're making sure everything is tasting right before you bottle it, but it's always a lot of fun.

Matt: 39:22

It's one of the great parts about doing this podcast is understanding the culture of different places and and Every place that Bruce beer has that in that, that sense of togetherness and community, and it's it's not me, it's we, it's a group effort, it's that sort of thing and I, that's true, I love that and I love the variety that you have here as well. And I know, andy, you've made comments in the past about places that kind of pigeonhole themselves into one particular style of beer or just kind of like IPA is their thing. But we, there's such a wonderful variety here. As we're drinking through right now we have another one to go in a flight. I might get down on my hands and knees and beg Joey for one of the stouts that's out there too.

Andy M: 39:59

No, I mean personally, like it's just like what the IPA is, like some breweries or some locations that are more IPA focused and heavy on that. It just brings in a very set this dynamic of people that are only used to those traditional types of styling, sampling. So, like you know, they're all IPA's oh, west Coast, new England, whatever you want to call hazy. But like when you have a brewery like ball birds that has variations, like they have everybody options, expand your palate, take a chance. That's why they have flights. It's pretty simple. Like you, you'll be surprised at what you like if you actually just go outside of your comfort zone, it's really easy. But a lot of people that are just so IPA focused, they don't take that tendency to do that.

Andy M: 40:38

Now, I think that's one of the problems with some of the brewery industry. I mean, who am I to say it's a problem, honestly? But like it's just one of those things. It's just like you have. Like you know, I'm a. My favorite IPA is it like I'd love double dry hop IPA. That's my go-to. I don't like lactose and any beers. I mean you could put anything with lactose and it will taste delicious. It just lactose just nullifies anything. That's terrible with the beer.

Matt: 41:03

I Will beg to differ on the. Anything will taste delicious.

Andy M: 41:08

You know what I mean? I get that, I get that go ahead, buddy, sit down. Yeah, oh, we have, we do, we have a vibe, or guess the little it's a little ball bird.

Joey Feerar: 41:18

I think so full head of hair. Bird with no beard.

Matt: 41:20

Oh. This is the pre-ball bird say I'm a little jealous of the full head of hair. Yeah, you can go ahead and say hi if you want.

Andy M: 41:30

No thanks, that's all right, he finishes french fry and said, no thanks, okay, yeah that's all right.

Matt: 41:39

You're going to enjoy your fries. All right, good deal, good deal. I fully support that decision. I have a lover of French fries. You're going to meet my daughter at some point. She's sampled every great French fry in the greater Pennsylvania area.

Joey Feerar: 41:51

I feel like it's a good indicator of the quality of the restaurant, because it's really easy to make soggy French fries by not being patient. It's similar to a lager actually, because if you take your time with French fries, you fry them all the way you make them crispy. It's like you have a dynamite thing with. You don't need over-the-top seasoning, just subtle seasoning and that's just enough with a fryer and similar to a pilsner. You just be patient. You don't need the best, you don't need the most ingredients, but you just need the right ingredients.

Joey Feerar: 42:16

You need time and patience and you get a perfect end result. Simple and fresh is key.

Matt: 42:21

All right, I'll get up on my French fry soap box. So, here's the fun fact about Matt One of my first jobs. I was a line cook at Futteruckers when there used to be a Futteruckers in Bethlehem, pennsylvania. So shout out to anybody I worked with at.

Andy M: 42:35

Futteruckers back in the day.

Matt: 42:37

It was on 191, about a mile south of the exit on 22. Going towards what is it now? It's a daycare center. It's definitely a story that I'm going to say.

Joey Feerar: 42:50

Futteruckers a daycare. What a transition.

Matt: 42:53

But I was either as a burger guy or the fried food guy. So there is an art, and I will say it. There is an art to making a decent French fry, whether or not that's making sure you actually change out your fryer grease. And sadly, one of the things I took away from that job was I go someplace and I eat a French fry. I'm like you haven't changed your fryer grease in like three weeks and.

Matt: 43:12

I can taste old French fry in here, or just using fries that have been sitting under a warmer forever so they're not crispy. They got soggy a second time but I descend my French fry soap box. There's a window in the mat at 17, 18 years old, where I would come home from work just smelling like French fry.

Andy M: 43:30

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that was my cologne growing up all the way.

Matt: 43:33

Just like.

Andy M: 43:33

What does it smell like? I smell like bacon, grease and French fries, that's it.

Joey Feerar: 43:36

Yeah, I always feel like it's funny because I always feel like brewers and chefs have the hardest time going out to eat and out to drink. Because you have a critical eye, that no one else sees.

Joey Feerar: 43:45

So if you're making fryer, cooking behind the scenes or doing stuff like you know when things are bad, you know it's just you're hypersensitive to anything anybody else does and like, it's a way in which you can have a phenomenal dinner and understand what work and ruin your night. If, like eight out of 10 times, it probably pisses you off and ruins your night because you know when it's bad, you know when the oil's old, you know it's just like you know stuff that people don't know and it just makes it harder because you're in the industry you got any good ones about.

Matt: 44:10

You don't even have to name the place. But someplace you went semi-recently. You had a beer and you're like, nope, that's not it.

Joey Feerar: 44:16

I don't think it's necessarily going to a brewery because, like everybody, everyone is in brewing. You mentioned earlier about how collaborative is and like everyone's friendly, everybody gets along, and like we help people, they help us, and so it's different from any other industry and so, like there's always a craft that goes, there's a story behind a beer, which is what makes craft special. So, whether it's great or not, it's just, but I respect it because it's like a craft beer.

Joey Feerar: 44:38

But where I get I can tell is like if I go to a another restaurant they don't clean their tap lines. They can completely ruin a beer. And so I think that, like we clean our lines every week we don't have to do that by law but we do every week and blast them in both locations and so I think that it's important to so people can really taste and appreciate the quality of your beer. If your tap lines are tainted in any way, it ruins your beer. And so I think that when I go to you know other restaurants and out to eat to places you can tell immediately kind of like your story over with the oil I can tell when your lines are dirty immediately.

Joey Feerar: 45:12

I think that's the biggest pet peeve, cause like you go in there if you could drink like a I like sunshine, shine pills and are for troves there's like certain I just you know what you're getting because you know the beer, the quality and when you taste it and it tastes it you know exactly what's wrong. It's usually their lines are dirty or they haven't been taken care of their taps. And I think that's one of my biggest pet peeves is when people have a craft beer bar. They love craft beer, it's all local and then they don't take care of their tap systems and it taints the beer and maybe it might turn somebody off from you because it's outside of your control.

Joey Feerar: 45:42

But it's frustrating because, like you know, you're making good beer, like a lot of the breweries around the area and Pennsylvania, but then someone else that's not taking care of their tap system or taking doing things the right way it might taint someone on your beer because they're not taking care of their tap system.

Andy M: 45:57

I think that's tough. So that individual, probably when they go to the brewery they wouldn't order that because they get to oh I see, or they might not buy your cans.

Joey Feerar: 46:02

They might, you know. It just kind of pushes them away from your brand because someone doesn't take care of their system up front. So that's something that like there's nothing you could do about it. But I wish we could.

Andy M: 46:12

So, like you just said, like if a restaurant has your beer, you know, and they're serving it, then you have it and you're sampling it and you see that their lines aren't like, are you able to, like you know, pull the manager aside and speak with them about it, or no?

Joey Feerar: 46:23

I mean it's just not, it just it's never gonna change. So you know, especially these bigger craft houses of like 24, 30, 40 taps. It doesn't matter. But it's just frustrating because, like that's why I always get bottle beer or canned beer when I go to a restaurant, unless you know their draft lines are clean, because it could take one of the best beers you ever had, like plenty of the elder, and make it taste bad because they don't clean the lines. It's like it's not. That's one of my biggest frustrations.

Matt: 46:46

We talked about the episode we did up at elementary brewing in Hackersack. Ryan had talked about some pubs that you go to. You run into like they've had Yingling on that line forever and you'll get the response of oh, it's the same beer, I don't need to clean that. And then you have, you know, you walk away and you're like I am ill, I don't feel well because nobody scrubbed that tap line forever.

Andy M: 47:09

It's nothing like food poisoning, but it's still the keys that you know.

Matt: 47:12

it doesn't mean you don't feel good afterwards, oh you can tell as soon as you take a sip and you get that sour taste that's on the back end. You're like somebody run some soap through that.

Joey Feerar: 47:20

Do me a favor, and yeah, and the ciders do that. So a lot of people have ciders on tap right now. Ciders is one of the biggest contaminants of lines and they also like taint them to have like that apple-y cider taste on it. So, like you'll know, like we had an IPA one time where we switched over our beer after our tap cleaning from a cider line and then you could taste cider into beer, and so you learn very quickly that that doesn't work and how that goes. But again, it's just like the attention to tap lines is so important and I think a lot of people don't take do that as often or as much as they should.

Matt: 47:49

So what is the last member of the flight here that we have? That is our highway miles.

Joey Feerar: 47:55

And so this is a West Coast IPA and again, I think that if I'm drinking an IPA, I think a West Coast is probably the one I'd lean towards, because I think I like the bitterness, like the bigger IBUs. I like the West Coast hops, the ten meals. I like them better in terms of a beer and I think that they're cleaner, crisper and I think there's less margin for error within a West Coast versus the East Coast and the hazier ones. And I think that this is again another beer that's one of our flagship beers. You find us a lot of out in distribution, like your Acme's. Your Giants got some of your bigger chains in the area, like Highway Miles is one of our beers. That's in there. And earlier we were talking about Nintendo and this is based off of RadRacer.

Joey Feerar: 48:33

And so one of the most prominent highways in the country is in California and so, like West Coast IPA and Highway Miles, but super smooth we spun this through our centrifuge as well, so it's very clean, very crisp, very clear, but very smooth finish for a West Coast IPA.

Matt: 48:48

And I'll take this cheesy opportunity to give a shout to my sponsor. If you want to see one of those highways out in California or any place else you wanna travel to check out, poppins Travel to get you where you need to go and, as I always say, my buddy John will find you good beer along the way if that's what you're into.

Andy M: 49:04

So thank you very much, poppins. That was a perfect segue.

Joey Feerar: 49:08

And that was awesome.

Andy M: 49:09

This is an incredible West Coast IPA, yeah, and, I think, very traditional.

Joey Feerar: 49:12

The nose on this is good too. So we've had this beer sitting out here for probably 40 minutes and the nose didn't go away. You still get to smell the hops, you still get to smell the beer, you still get to taste the beer and it's a little warmer than what it was out of the tap and so it's really good flavor to it. So again, I think that you know, get the hop burn on the end, it smooths out and so it's a really good technical West Coast IPA.

Matt: 49:32

I like that the hop burn on the back end.

Matt: 49:34

The piney mall flavoring is good, you have finally verbalized what I'm actually not a huge fan of the overwhelming on the back end, which is why, honestly, in West Coast people don't kill me. I'm not a huge fan of the West Coast IPA, but this one is not overwhelming on the back end, and there are a lot of great West Coast IPAs that are not overwhelming, but I've had some that are like have hops and just chew on the plants, and this is definitely not that case.

Joey Feerar: 50:01

Yeah, and I think it goes back to patience. And I think if you let a beer settle out and kind of take its time, you won't get that hop burn. But if you rush beers in the green you're gonna get that burn on it. It just doesn't taste good, it's not palatable, and so I think that if you're patient and just take your time and give it a couple extra days, I think you avoid a lot of that hop burn and some other issues with the beer.

Andy M: 50:22

Yeah, the hop flavor does not linger. It's very subtle, it's very nice, it's very drinkable.

Matt: 50:28

It's not overpowering at all, yes, so if I get down on my hands and knees, can I beg you for one of those stouts before we wrap up 100% 100% for what?

Andy M: 50:36

to get it on his hands and knees or what? Yeah, both of them.

Matt: 50:39

Ooh boy.

Joey Feerar: 50:40

Put your head over heels, see the big dog. This is the one I was talking about earlier. It's just the one we aged on barrels for over a year and it's a like a pastry stout method, but it's a tiramisu stout and so it has, like the like, more of a dessert beer, but it drinks like a port wine. So if you're into like wines like you said you were, you know a port's a little thicker, you sip it, you drink it a little slower, and this is one of those beers where you just take your time because it's 15.5%. I'm about to die happy right now.

Andy M: 51:10

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this Looking forward to this aging like in his barrel. You know it's aging. Is there any way to taste the profile of it or use you? Honestly, can't open it.

Joey Feerar: 51:19

Barrel aging, and so typically what you'll do is you'll stack.

Joey Feerar: 51:21

I mean, you know, this is a racks that you can stack on top of each other and so they're meant to take weight and take pressure, and so we can go up 10 rows high if we want to, and each one of them will have like a nail or some sort of like screw in the front of it where, when you take it out, you can pull the liquid from it to try it, and then you'll know, like, as it's aging, you're getting the flavor. You want stuff like that. And again, that's how I said before. It's like we took different types of barrels and we actually blended them together to come up with this beer here. And this beer, I think, is, from a complexity perspective, it's one of the most complex beers we've ever made, and you get flavors like you get caramel, you get current, you get raisins, you get espresso, you get chocolate, you get pastry, you get custard. I mean, it's just like the more you drink it, the more you.

Andy M: 52:02

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna send you, we're gonna send you home with this and, depending if it's warm or cold, even even that little, that little, you know, a very brief introduction of the air doesn't affect the quality of it. No, not at all.

Joey Feerar: 52:16

Actually I like it. Like I said, we wax this one so you can age it, and so, like we have you know, friends, that like we did our first Out a couple years ago, he still has that bottle in his basement. This is something like you can age, like wine.

Joey Feerar: 52:29

Oh, wow you know, only get better, and I think what we're gonna start doing with our stouts, you'll notice, on this is start using wax on the top of them, and so we just ordered wax for our next iteration we're doing for our next one we're releasing. So we just took a beer out of barrels in Jersey Shore. It was in a bright tanga. Taste it the other day. It's like 11% bomb. It's awesome. And we just ordered the wax for it.

Joey Feerar: 52:49

So we're gonna have a wax bottle for that as well, and then okay we're gonna start doing more of a like a reserve stout series for barrels Every year, and so we're gonna do multiple Different types of stouts and flavors, but only do a hundred bottles of each. And so get them while we got them, and so they're gonna go quick and so like.

Andy M: 53:08

I'm gonna have like a little lottery for it then.

Joey Feerar: 53:10

I don't know. We'll see how it goes. You never know cuz you know your dumb style. Open the doors yeah get on box and close for a last bottle, you're gonna fight each other to Community events. Right. Like the slap fighting. Like I want to have slap fighting somebody at the brewery one these days. I go down rabbit holes at night and I'll watch the reels of people slap fighting each other pretty hilarious.

Andy M: 53:31

But it grabs your attention immediately, like this is this is a real event, this is really is exactly yeah, yeah slap each other in the face.

Joey Feerar: 53:39

Yeah, but this beer is really cool and so this is like every year. We do a release and this is like our Thanksgiving beers we try to do before Thanksgiving. They feel like when you're with family friends for Thanksgiving. What better way to share than the bottle share and sharing stouts and especially something it's like pretty complex and pretty cool. We like to do that.

Andy M: 53:55

What's your favorite, one of your favorite beers that you guys have brewed so far since you're, you know, since day one. I mean you guys have had a few brewers, but like, what's? What's your favorite?

Matt: 54:03

It's like take all my children and Movie.

Andy M: 54:07

It's complicated, I get it.

Joey Feerar: 54:09

The Pompeii has probably been the one I've drank a lot of. We did a Collaboration with bullfrog brewery and Williamsport. We did a simple German pills and it's like simplest Grain bill, it's like really easy to brew. We should probably grab one of those for you to see, right. But it's just all Germany and like one little okay can of goodness I really like, like that one a lot. The Pompeii was very good. I like champion a lot. Like I drink that whenever I'm up here.

Joey Feerar: 54:35

I usually drink in style, so I think I lean more towards those German styles. In terms of my favorites, I think the jet over heels stout if I'm like just looking for beer to sip throughout the day Like that's probably one of the better ones we've done like a big beer perspective. And then IPA wise, I think probably good jams is my favorite ale. We do like LL or IPA. I just think the nose on that one's really good. Okay, it's fruity, floral, great nose too. It's easy, drinking it smooth. It's not gonna, you know, get your crushed 8%. It's like a really good session will be here, so I think good jams is probably my favorite. Like ale slash, pale ale, ipa it was.

Andy M: 55:10

I said something earlier too About like how some breweries and you know everything focuses on IPA heavy. I remember that you guys made that one colch collaborative last year. Yeah, that was a very unique because I'm not personally again, like, just similar to the barley wine, I'm not familiar with colch. I was very surprised by that.

Joey Feerar: 55:25

It was really it was amazing. It's light refreshing, really cool beer and I think McCall McCall Collective was our partner on that one and they just make phenomenal beers and maybe they're anything that knows. I get cherry, you get chocolate. You get cherry chocolate, you get custard.

Matt: 55:41

I'm in the middle of a religious experience over here right now. Give me a second.

Joey Feerar: 55:45

His hands are above the table. That's a good thing.

Matt: 55:47

Oh, deliciously complex you get the vanilla, oh, it is super smooth. There's like a cherry flavor in there. One of my main complaints with stouts. For a long time it's been. You get so many that they just pack coffee bean into and all you get is coffee, and that is not what I'm drinking. Right, I'm gonna take another sip see what else I get.

Joey Feerar: 56:06

There's actually no coffee or coffee bean in that at all.

Andy M: 56:10

I think. I think, graham cracker on the back end, you'll get it you'll get that, but it's all dry from the malt.

Joey Feerar: 56:14

There's some other stuff to get the tiramisu flavor. There's some other adjuncts added but as far as, like the coffee, a deeper chocolate stuff, most of that is dry from the malt it finishes with that nice cream Flavor and it's just super smooth on that.

Matt: 56:29

This is just fun to drink. Start to finish. Yeah, that is an incredible.

Andy M: 56:32

This is a. This is for me. Is Melissa beautiful? We're buying some of these to take home because this is a fire beer.

Walter: 56:38

That's awesome, you know when?

Andy M: 56:39

I talk about fire beers to sit up by. Sit outside, have a fire and just Enjoy it.

Joey Feerar: 56:44

A couple coveers split it, sip it like you don't drink it fast, and this again I call them like compliment beers. I like to have a pilsner and have this like get warmer as it drinks next to it. So I'll put it like a 10 ounce glass and that's like you'll drink it over a couple hours, but every single time you drink it it's different with the tiramisu, it's almost like there's a little bit of like a s'more in there.

Joey Feerar: 57:04

Yeah, get graham cracker. I mean you get this is on bourbon barrels. This had like I think we had it on a sherry barrel me or an angle sherry barrel.

Matt: 57:13

Yeah, sherry, would make sense for some of the flavor coming out of there. For sure you said this one's 15.5%.

Andy M: 57:21

Oh, boy, okay.

Joey Feerar: 57:22

Yes, so it's 15, five and you would never know that. No, this is a beer you have when everybody's in bed and you just want to watch some chill chill out, watch some TV and just hang out.

Matt: 57:33

That's a good nightcap, but at the same time, as you said earlier, going with like a Thanksgiving meal like a big fast steak.

Joey Feerar: 57:39

Like you drink this with A steak, it's like a perfect or if you reduce that down for a sauce, like reduce that down for a steak sauce and there's some mushrooms in it. That'd be phenomenal.

Andy M: 57:47

I've always been a stout guy. I really have been. I really. I mean, it's just Seasonal beers. I'm not a big fan of the seasonal stuff. This is incredible.

Joey Feerar: 57:56

But drink sweet, so it's not your traditional stout and I think I think the coffee thing. So it's really hard to control the bitterness if you throw beans in the mash. So we have a different technique. We have a coffee cream. I'll some other things we do to like treat it differently to get the coffee flavor and a nose without the bitterness. We have more control over the flavor.

Andy M: 58:14

I do a little bit of a different technique the fatness inside me to just realize this would probably be delicious on some ice cream.

Joey Feerar: 58:20

It would. Oh, I've actually done that.

Andy M: 58:24

You know that float like a little bit of ice cream on top of a ten ounce thing of that delightful or whipped cream.

Matt: 58:30

Call it the cross-eyed float big, big time flavor.

Joey Feerar: 58:32

Yeah, big time flavor.

Andy M: 58:34

I love the very fast as a question a while ago too. So tell us the story about the jet on heels. Name looks at a jet over heels okay and over heels.

Joey Feerar: 58:42

Yes, so we have a guy that works for us named Jed.

Joey Feerar: 58:45

So when my we bought the Jewish or property, we'd basically got the whole building and pair it down and then rebuild it up and brewery tap room and then make it into a manufacturing facility. So my dad, who's been building houses for 50 years, and my brother who worked for him, a guy named Nate who's now our packaging lead, and a guy named Jed Work for my dad for like 30 years. So we've known Jed, he's been a family friend forever. So Jed actually runs our, our packout team. So he's like 20 employees now so he's kind of overseeing a pretty good Chunk of our employees for our packaging in our manufacturing facility. And so Jed was out having fun, all say, and he was outside this bar and standing against the deck and when he was like drinking and telling a story, got real animated. Well, he lost his balance and fell over the railing.

Joey Feerar: 59:36

Oh no his feet went up over his head, he flipped over and he broke his pelvis. Oh, okay, so yeah, why he was working for us and so he broke his pelvis seems. Had to work for like in on five or six weeks, but he ended up breaking his pelvis and had to go in recovery. And so Jed over heels tribute to him Having a little bit too much fun and flipping over a railing and breaking his pelvis.

Matt: 1:00:00

So are you saying that's what somebody has to do around here to get their name?

Joey Feerar: 1:00:03

on a beer. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hey, we have an option here, yeah yeah, I mean, I have enough ammo for Andy.

Matt: 1:00:17

That'll be the next episode. Yeah, joey, I want to thank you again. Just absolutely time. Fantastic beer today. Thank you so much for having that and friends here anytime to record live at Bald Birds. Appreciate this very much, andy. Thank you for joining us.

Andy M: 1:00:31

It's my pleasure, it's always a great time to come down here and, just you know, participate in this, obviously with you, with Matt and friends, duke, the universe, but it sees some great friends and their continued success at Bald Birds brewery and the only way that I can end this episode is like this. This podcast is a production of unfiltered studios. If you would like to know more about joining unfiltered studios, please visit our website at UNF podcom for more information.

Matt: 1:01:01

This episode's boozy quote comes from actor Jack Nicholson, who said beer, it's the best damn drink in the world. On social media, please like, follow and push all the buttons for us. That's Matt and friends DTU at Facebook, instagram threads and tick tock for more information about the podcast, as well as links to our merch store, social media and all the places you can listen to us. Visit our website, matt and friends DTU dot com. That's Matt and friends DTU dot com. Thank you again for listening to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.