Matt and Friends Drink the Universe

In Local Brews - "The Alementary Brewing Company"

• Matt and Friends Drink The Universe • Season 2 • Episode 21

Share episode

Send us a Text Message!

Grab a pint and pull up a chair! We traveled to The Alementary Brewing Company in Hackensack, New Jersey and recoded this one on location! Get ready for a hearty dose of humor and hops as Big Z, The Fish, Rob and Matt sit down with the brewery's own Ryan, who serves up a frothy blend of anecdotes and insights. From the scientific marvels of Alementary's brewing process to the beloved image of a brewer's dog gracing every label, we're venturing beyond the pint glass to uncover what makes this spot a popular and delicious haven for beer lovers.

This episode is no ordinary beer run; it's a symposium of laughs and suds that will leave you with a better understanding of craft brewing – without any student loans. With tales as rich as a stout and banter as lively as a freshly tapped keg, you're in for an auditory feast that pairs best with a beer from Alementary!

Cheers!

Support the show

Visit www.mattandfriendsdtu.com for links listen, support the podcast, and more!

Check out our sponsor, Poppin's Travel Company, for all of your travel needs! Their highly qualified agents are ready to book your next big adventure or dream vacation.

We'd love to hear from you on social media! Like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and X.

Visit our merch store

Cheers, and thanks for listening!

Matt:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We have liftoff.

Rob:

Welcome to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I'm Walter Brewright. 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 soul of local libations. Today we are live from Alemen Shreya Brewing.

Matt:

All right, everybody. Welcome back to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe special episode today. We are on location today, On location at Alemen Shreya Brewery in Hackensack, New Jersey, and I'm going to go around the table. Let everybody with me introduce themselves.

Big Z:

Hey, it's Mike or Big Z, whatever you want.

Ryan:

Hey guys, it's Rob. Hey, it's the fish Ryan from Alementary Brewery.

Matt:

Rare outing of the fish actually live and on location.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

That's right.

Rob:

Normally the fish joins us remotely and he's in the scales.

Matt:

That's right, and welcome Ryan.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Thank you.

Ryan:

Very excited to be here. Thank you. We're shockingly close to Connecticut.

The Fish:

Up here in this weird rando corner of New Jersey you are. You only took me about 45 minutes to get down here, so I was very happy.

Big Z:

That was our first detour, when Matt missed his first exit.

The Fish:

Oh how many weeks did we miss? Go on.

Ryan:

How does one screw this up in the age of GPS? How does this?

The Fish:

happen.

Rob:

Oh, is this where we're starting? Can I crack my beer first? Okay, silence for the ASMR fans. Here we go.

Matt:

There's a lot of buildup to that.

The Fish:

Hey, that was good, it was easy.

Matt:

In my defense.

The Fish:

Ryan, I'm partially colorblind, so that is a factor yeah reading exits has got to do with colorblindness.

Ryan:

I heard. All I heard was excuses.

Matt:

Yeah, well, is that, when these two were in the back seat, a lot of?

Rob:

yack and go on behind me this is a very solid logger.

Ryan:

Thank you, yeah, this is actually. This is like kind of the beer the brewery was built around. It was originally called Hackensack logger. As we started to expand we switched it to original Hackensack logger because fun fact when you get outside of your home region, no one cares what town you're from and New Jersey that happens very quickly.

Ryan:

But yeah, this is over 30% of the beer we produce is this beer, and we brew beer for five other brands as well. So we brew a ton of this beer specifically. You'll get your macro guys. We've got a lot of landscapers and blue collar guys on our street here and we've kind of all converted them over to this beer. And then it also plays really, really well for, like your country club golf crowd too. Like, if you're used to a Bex, you're going to be good with this.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

If you like a Heineken. You're going to be all right with it.

The Fish:

You're going to be good with this, and then you're going to be good with this, and then you're going to be good with this, and then you're going to be good with this. If you like a Heineken, you're going to be all right with it? Yes, and what was the last one? German? Yeah, I love that movie. I'm looking at the label here and I'm like, hmm, that would fit into a Simpsons episode.

Ryan:

Well, it's a little bit of a Sim city kind of. Take on the town. Yeah, sim city, for sure, yeah, so that's. That's definitely what the label is supposed to be. And then the owner's dog is on every label.

Rob:

Amazing, so you can see her there.

Ryan:

And she bosses my 80 pound shepherd mix around Like you can't imagine.

Big Z:

So it's light, it's crisp, it's not too multi. I agree, like I thought, golf course, right away, whole one.

Rob:

This is definitely one that you don't need to stop after the first can on. You know I mean you know, sometimes you drink some of those higher ABV beers and you're like I can do like a can of this and that's about it, because it just insists upon itself. But this, this is really good. This is a nice mow in the lawn. You know, cup holder on my riding mower beer all the time kind of beer Right.

Matt:

To me it's like the Friday night after work, open at the bar, like that's what it tastes like it's just, I want a beer in a glass. This one goes in the glass.

Big Z:

Yeah, I can't lawn mower it because I still have a push mower. I'm not so GQ as you are.

Rob:

Oh well, get on my level bro.

The Fish:

Yeah, knock, knock.

Matt:

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. So, ryan, can you give us a little history about elementary, the name and yeah.

Ryan:

So we're actually in a unique situation. In New Jersey, our owners are husbands. One of them is a PhD in molecular biology, the other one is a couple of degrees in chemical and mechanical engineering.

Rob:

The label now makes sense.

Ryan:

Yes, it does now.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I'm a scientist, got you. We also have a fully functioning yeast lab too.

Ryan:

So if you have a problem, if you're a brewery in New Jersey and you've got cans exploding on the warm shelf, you send them to us and we tell you what happened. Really.

The Fish:

That is really cool.

Ryan:

It's much more of a problem than you would think, especially in the world of the lactose milkshake IPAs. There's been a few breweries who have added syrups or things along those lines post fermentation and then warned people you can't let these get warm. And of course people let them get warm and they explode. But in my opinion that's their election of duty on the brewery's part. But that's a totally different conversation.

The Fish:

What is beer right.

Ryan:

Is it still beer if you put Coca-Cola syrup after it is fermented? I mean technically, but not really.

Big Z:

I thought you were talking about maple syrup. No, no, no, brewery put.

Ryan:

Coca-Cola syrup in a beer after fermentation and then told their people that they can't let it get warm. Yeah, that's that.

Big Z:

That's what work.

Ryan:

You should lose your brewing license.

Matt:

I think you've made an explosive device at that point.

Ryan:

You have, and if you're smart, you'll know exactly who I'm talking about too, you can make a stick out of it. If you're slick, you'll know exactly who it is Back in the day.

Matt:

I brewed some beer with my college roommate who shout out to John over at Poppins Travel, our sponsor for the season They'll get you where you want to go.

Rob:

They will, and John will help you find some beer on the way. For sure, chim chim, chim, chim, chim churu, I might be using them.

Matt:

Him and I brewed some up in our dorm room and I don't. There's still heated debate as to what we did wrong, but what we actually made was hand grenades. You'd open the, you'd pop the top and every bit of that micro brew would come out of the bottle. Yeah, you over carbonated that.

Ryan:

Yeah you did, you got aggressive with the baking sugar and we got a little extra active. If you can avoid that by using the one liter like flip top, pop top bottles, so if you over carb those they'll actually just let the CO2 escape and it won't diffuse into your beer, your beer.

The Fish:

In our defense.

Matt:

We were drunk college kids making beer. So weren't we all?

Ryan:

at one point. Yes, we were just a lot longer ago for some of us.

Big Z:

Well, I wasn't making beers, just drinking it.

Matt:

I asked you to tell me about the brewery and then we totally went off the rails.

Rob:

Sorry, sorry go back, go back to the owners.

Ryan:

So we've been open eight years. In April I've been here six or seven. When I started at the brewery, it was just this building. Here. We had a couple of other tanks. We had a mobile canning line, not like mobile canners that come in. We had a canning line here but it was movable and mobile and we could move it around and we were canning enough beer for, like, the tasting room and what we were doing here. And they brought me on as a salesperson and I was like we have a canning line and we're not selling beer to liquor stores. What are we?

The Fish:

doing.

Ryan:

And this was at a time when, like, it wasn't cool to sell beer to liquor stores. This is when you know the other halves of the world are all wanting you to come and wait online. Oh, this guy was there a lot. Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

Big Z:

You got hoodwinks. My man Absolutely.

Ryan:

You bought the same beer like 50 times bro, 100%. I mean I've got the same thing with a different brand but it's really really aggressive getting out in the liquor stores. So I got us in all the Jersey liquor stores you'd want to be in and that helped grow awareness of the brand, kind of pitching this lager as the beer. The problem with New Jersey is our beer market and our beer knowledge as a whole is so far behind because breweries didn't open in New Jersey until like roughly about 10 years ago. Before that it was really limited. It was really really hard to get a brewing license and a lot of that was because AB Beb has a large brewery in Newark.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

So, all the blood light you drink on the East Coast comes out of that brewery.

Ryan:

So that has helped restrictions in New Jersey for a long time. New Jersey's also got a really fucked up liquor licensing situation. That would be literally an entire another podcast, but the long and short of it is the consumer in New Jersey is woefully uneducated and behind the times. I spent my college years in Burlington, vermont. I grew up in the Adirondacks so I was around Good Beer all the time. I graduated high school in 2001, just for a frame of reference. So way before craft beer was really a popular thing and a happening thing.

Big Z:

That's all of us. That would be cool. Everybody at this table would quit Great.

Rob:

So you never know.

Ryan:

But beer was not a thing in New Jersey, so the consumer in New Jersey is still very caught up on the we call them the hype town beers. You're still seeing lactose IPAs and things along those lines here when, if you go down to Philadelphia, philadelphia is a logger town Because Philly's been a beer town for 100 years, exactly so that's a recent change.

Rob:

Yeah, and one thing I've really kind of noticed that I played a lot of breweries and now a lot of these breweries are going from those milkshake style IPAs, those source, which were really, really popular for a while, and they're going back to the roots now. Now there's a couple of different loggers, there's a couple of different Pilsners. Everybody's trying to get back into where it started.

Ryan:

So pay attention to this really, really hard when you're at breweries, because it's really easy from a brewing. In a technical standpoint, it's super easy to hide a screw up in an IPA. You can just put a little extra hops in it and you can hide the off flavor. It's very, very simple to do so. When I'm at a brewery, the first thing I will have is by far the simplest, cleanest thing on your menu. I was at a brewery in Saratoga. It's called Walt Whitman's like Brewpub.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

A kind of understated joint, not in there.

Ryan:

Cool. It's a cool little spot right. But the first thing I had was their light logger, because if that's a hot mess, everything else is a hot mess. If that's good, everything else is gonna be good and reliable.

Matt:

You're the second person on the podcast to say that. When I did one with Lost Tavern Brewing in Bethlehem, gino said the exact same thing almost verbatim, word for word, that you can hide almost anything. And I made the joke that it's like IPAs can be a little like speckle.

Big Z:

We can kind of hide whatever is on the wall. Hey, this is a taste grid. Let's throw some guava in as we're fermenting it, like whatever might be the kind of high that tastes. This is simple. Yeah, it's not a lot going on, it's a simple beer. The recipe is very very simple, really good.

Ryan:

It's excellent yeast control. We will reuse and propagate our yeast pitches so we won't. A lot of breweries will use a dry yeast, typically because it's cheaper. But because one of our owners has a PhD in molecular biology, we're able to do the proper yeast handling and all of that stuff. So we will get that's so cool Roughly about 15 or so generations on ale yeast and maybe a little bit more on a lager.

Rob:

So do you guys recycle your yeast?

Ryan:

then I'm assuming oh yeah, that's what we're talking about. We pull it back out, you propagate your own.

Rob:

That's so cool man.

Ryan:

Yep, we'll get a basic lager pitch and then we'll grow it from there, right? So we'll start it on something super simple and then, like if you wanted to brew an 8.5% pilsner, you can't just jump right into brewing an 8.5% pilsner. You need to brew something to get the yeast going and then you can split some of the batch off. The second you brew like a dark beer or a fruited beer with a yeast. The yeast will take on that flavor and then you can't use it anymore. So you always want to do stuff like that. Like at the end of the yeast slice span we do a really killer Baltic porter. But if we do that on like generation two or three on a yeast pitch, now it's done.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Now it's done.

Ryan:

Baltic porter technically a lager.

The Fish:

But some Baltic porters are really really good and they taste like stouts.

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah, it really depends who's making them. The thing I like about Baltic porters is the kind of the thinner, the thinner mouth, feel a little bit of a thinner body, but you still get the high roast on it. But that will kill your yeast pitch. You can't really do anything else with it unless you're doing something roasty. Then at that point it's done. Same with fruit too.

Big Z:

So I don't want to cause any kind of in-state fight here.

Ryan:

No, no, go for it, we're good.

Big Z:

One of my favorite breweries in the air while in Jersey would be Kane, and I feel like Kane's one. Like Sneakbox is not an overly complex American paleo, it's very basic. Is that a brewery that you would put it? Compare it to a little bit, or Us.

Ryan:

No, no, kane's gonna focus more on IPAs and things along those lines. The thing Kane has is they were the first to market with a 6.5% IPA in New Jersey. Head High was the first 6.5% IPA in a world where Carton had a boat and 077X. There was nothing in between those and Augie's stubborn son of a bitch. I know him, it's okay, he's a stockbroker. So you got that type A like go fuck yourself, we're not doing it. And then Kane was able to sneak in with that 6.5% IPA and kind of fit the market niche for a long time. I will propose you think about something as you're drinking Head High in the state of New Jersey, start paying attention to the color and flavor of it, because you're not getting the same beer every time you drink it.

Big Z:

Oh, I haven't had Head High in some time.

Ryan:

I like.

Big Z:

Sneak Box. Sneak Box is the one I like.

Ryan:

Sneak Box is there too. You're playing the lottery. Sometimes you're gonna get what you expect, sometimes you are not.

Big Z:

Well, I only get it now when I wind up with some Joe Canals just over the border from Yardly PA.

Ryan:

Joe Canals would be the Phillipsburg.

Big Z:

No, no, down south.

Ryan:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay okay, so you mentioned before I'm in a lot of liquor stores, my man.

Matt:

So, ryan, you were talking about getting your beer in the liquor stores and it's funny, us Pennsylvanian boys over here took a minute because for us we still live back like it's the end of prohibition.

Ryan:

Well, the distributors. I'm very aware of the distributors and how it works.

Matt:

Yeah, it's a freaking nightmare and we go to the freaking grocery store and we can buy two six packs and then the measurements are off. So it's like two six packs and half a shot, I think, or something like that.

Ryan:

Yeah, it makes sense. Do they do the volume in ounces and gallons instead?

Rob:

of barrels and everything.

Ryan:

Milliliters, oh wow, even classier.

Rob:

Ryan, I have a very important question. Yes, I'm really digging into this. Can art a little bit further? I see that there's a little asterisk that says map not to scale. Tell me somebody freaking complained about that. You had that to the end. Tell me somebody was like hey, what the hell, man, this doesn't look like you know.

Ryan:

No, it's yeah. We just we did that because we thought it was funny. Yeah, not just that, to us it's been funny Mission. I love it. You did what I told you.

Rob:

Listen, I have one mild complaint about this. Yes, it's too small of a can, it's empty. So here's the thing what can?

Ryan:

I say that's wait. Here's another one. How's that? That's good. Yes, it's funny. You mentioned that Everybody thinks that the value in beer is in the 16 ounce can and if you do the math, we're actually screwing you. You're getting less beer. You're getting less beer in the 16 ounce four pack than you are out of the 12 ounce six pack. Yeah, 100% yeah, and no one, no one realizes it. But like I'm happy to screw you, like I'm happy to take more money than I should, I wanted to be screwed there.

Big Z:

Hey, well, does it depend on the person or you don't.

Matt:

I'd prefer to be taking the dinner first. I felt like that was the classic family guy. You drank a beer. What do you win? Another beer, yes, you do.

Ryan:

That's kind of how it works here. Never feel obliged to drink everything we put in front of you either. We're super used to it. Our life is very much death by a thousand cuts. I spend a lot of my day actively trying to not drink with people believe it or not.

Big Z:

So back to the can art, right? Yes, sir, it's a hell of a problem to have. You could not put an airport on there because you couldn't get any planes to fly, because that was my problem some city.

Ryan:

The airport's not in TNEC, it's a deep game man the airport's in. Tnec, sir, it's not in Hackensack, it's in TNEC, but you can see the.

Big Z:

Fair enough, sir.

Ryan:

I believe we have the Sears Robuck building. The Sears building is in downtown Hackensack. We have Feathers, the first gay club in New Jersey, established I believe in 1970. Something White man of cheeseburgers If you've never had white man, it's basically like classy white castle.

Rob:

Billy Joel mentions Hackensack in a song. Are you gonna brew a Billy Joel beer?

Ryan:

No, I don't like Billy Joel oh okay.

Big Z:

Well, he's living here in Allentown, which is actually about Beth.

Ryan:

But he's, but he's not.

Rob:

Oh, wow.

Matt:

To our guests. Yeah, I'm sorry. I like him, but I'm a huge Billy Joel fan and I just can't let that stand. I'm sorry, billy Joel stinks.

Big Z:

He just hits you with a cosmic jug, which is like basically our version of a you know, finish your beer because you said something off color.

Ryan:

It can get worse. It can get way worse. My man I invite that that's all right.

Matt:

We live in Allentown and anytime you say that somebody's like, oh, like the Billy Joel song, like yeah, I don't live here.

Ryan:

I live about a half hour east of here.

Matt:

I live west of here. Oh, sorry west. I live about half hour west of here. I don't live in Allentown.

Big Z:

Well, no, I mean close enough. I work in Allentown, but I live in Allentown.

The Fish:

I used to live in Allentown.

Big Z:

Okay.

The Fish:

So if you're out of, Dory Park.

Ryan:

Dory Park is in Allentown.

The Fish:

It is, it was so right.

Ryan:

See, don't you have gambling in Allentown now too? Isn't there a casino?

The Fish:

Yes, well, it's in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem.

Rob:

Yeah, it's in the old steel.

The Fish:

Yeah, we have a hockey arena.

Rob:

It's really pretty dope, is it cool?

Matt:

Yeah, what do you mean? We live in.

Rob:

Connecticut, like all the old steel stacks and stuff like that.

The Fish:

So yeah, I've been to the conservenia over there before now in town.

Big Z:

It's a really cool. Not a single one there. That's a cool spot.

Matt:

Okay, we live near, okay to Ryan's earlier point. If you're out of state, if you're out of state, right, and somebody says what part of Pennsylvania are you from? Where do you say?

Rob:

I don't know how our north of Philly 20 minutes west of Easton.

Ryan:

I'm easy, minds, minds easy. Everybody knows me, but people like, where do you live? I'm like I live 20 miles due west from New York City. That's 20 miles due west from.

Matt:

New York City. That's what I'm going with, 90 minutes south of New York. There you go Would you.

Ryan:

You guys are enjoying the beers. Oh the next the next beer I'm gonna get for you guys is is gonna be another low ABV beer and it's is. You mentioned you like sneak box. I really do. You're probably gonna love this beer. It's an almost all citra pale L, so I'm going to love yes, now hold on one second here. So the cool thing about this beer is does it have nice, nice labels? It does Classy. We have classy labels on everything. Sir, you have to catch the eye of the consumer?

The Fish:

Well, I'm just wondering, because there's stuff in here I can swim in.

Ryan:

I Mean, I don't know about the next label, but actually, to be honest with you, you do not want to swim in that river. Oh no you will grow like you'll grow a tail. No, nothing cool, it's all shit. That's really fucked up. Fish, you're actually a fish. Did you see the Simpsons when they put the fish?

Big Z:

in the lake.

Ryan:

Yeah, not, it won't be that cool. Oh man, no, yeah, you do not want to swim in the Hackensack River, the Pisaic River, newark Bay not advised. Oh, so it's worse than the Hudson River. The Hudson not so bad anymore. Actually it's getting a lot better to East Rivers rough Hudson's improving In Newark Bay is tough. Yeah, the shore isn't too too bad because the water comes up, so comes up from the south.

Rob:

Where's your water source?

Ryan:

for the beer. It's the Hackensack River, sir. That's everybody's joke in the area.

Rob:

But you can drink lovely fermented water from it.

Ryan:

To make the beer, it does have to get boiled, so like no, no, no I know. But no, in all seriousness, that's like the number one thing I get from, like people trying to be funny at bars, like if you walk into a bar three in the afternoon and there's a guy there on his third beer, it's like what are you, bro, with the Huckinsack River water? And I just turned him and go. Absolutely I Don't even entertain it, I. And then they're just don't have no idea what to say.

Rob:

They're like someone has to use that water. Boiling kills 99.9% of most things so you're telling me there's.

Matt:

A legit chance that the fish can grow some scales later.

Rob:

point one yes, of course.

Matt:

They're always excellent perfect.

Ryan:

Let me go grab you guys another beer. I'll be right back yourselves. This is coffee talk with Linda.

Rob:

Richmond Chickpeas Norapy discuss Wow, that's a solid callback man. Durand durand is neither durand nor durand. Discuss. Yeah, this is a really solid beer.

Matt:

Good beer, I will, I will Stellar premature on their first beer I I. Like it and it's my podcast.

Rob:

I mean that's a fair argument. That is a fair argument.

Matt:

I'm pretty sure that's the trump card.

Rob:

The whole thing. Label is even cooler than the map label in my opinion here, here you may satisfy yourself.

Ryan:

Crack the canyon of the microphone.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I understand it's like bubble wrap.

Matt:

I get it. I get it. It's been beer, wine, champagne, anything you get from elementary brewing company.

Big Z:

You got, there you go.

Ryan:

Yes, so this is a five and a half percent pale ale. Originally this beer was called random placement of things because two reasons. One we had a bar manager who just couldn't keep her life organized and shit would just be randomly stirring everywhere.

Ryan:

And to there's actually nothing random about the construction of the beer. It's actually really targeted. So one of the things that we've tried to do is lower our cost to consumer while keeping the flavor exactly the same. So we've been slowly kind of Formulating our beers for not only a longer shelf life but additionally you know, Can we get it cheaper to you guys. So that is actually one of our focuses is how cheaply can we get the beer to you and still have it taste great.

Rob:

Okay, I'll be honest, I did like the logger very drinkable. I would never drink it again if if I was drinking this every day. Awesome, just because, like I, I'm more of an like a paleo guy than I am a logger guy, mm-hmm, and so it's nothing against the logger. Yeah, this is like writing the wheelhouse of what I want.

Ryan:

It's specifically why it's in the 12 ounce format too, because you it's, it's like the, it's a barbecue beer, right? Oh, and you want, like I'm weird, I don't like 16 ounce cans unless I'm sharing with someone because I want my beer to stay cold. I absolutely, if it's like this or I'm guilty of my favorite crap beer is Utica Club.

Matt:

I don't know if you guys are familiar with Utica Club.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

It is the greatest name, is that okay? Oh, you know you got brewing right?

Big Z:

I know this question, matt, it's Saranak makes it.

Ryan:

Oh, saranak, saranak makes it now. So a Utica Club is like Western and Central New York's ubiquitous shit logger. It'd be like the natural bohemian of Western New York essentially, if you know Natty Boems from Baltimore. Yeah, so I like a good local garbage logger. It's kind of my thing. So for a long time in yin in Pennsylvania it was yingling. I like yingling was only really in Pennsylvania when we were younger and then it started to come out here yingling.

Ryan:

Yeah, especially when it comes into a market, like when it came into New Jersey, people lost their fucking minds. And it's don't get me wrong, it's, it's a fine beer. There is nothing wrong with yingling.

Big Z:

But like it's not a high-trained bear, bring a case to Colorado for his father.

Ryan:

That's yeah Colorado.

Rob:

Wow, that's rough, you got some good business out there when things come into things people usually lose their minds.

Ryan:

If I was in Colorado I would drink course or course original pretty regularly what.

Big Z:

That's what they do. And then they find that the yingling right. But then, like I had a yingling the other night at my buddy's wedding and it was the worst experience of my life. Oh no, I don't know why I spent so long drinking.

Ryan:

Was it draft? No bottle okay, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna break something down for you guys. It happens all the time with things beers like yingling and Guinness. People think that because they don't change the beer on the line, that they don't have to clean the line. What?

The Fish:

yeah, so I run in, always need to clean the line.

Ryan:

I run into this a bunch at multiple establishments, like like your local Irish Americans Club or like your local firehouse, where it's like, well, we've had Guinness on that line for ten years. I'm like when's the last time you cleaned it? We're like what do you mean? We don't clean it, we've only had Guinness on that line. It doesn't matter, I'm aware of that, but I'm simply letting you know that that's one of the beers that I've come across where, like, I've woken up the next day and felt Poisoned, not hung over, like Poison yeah yeah, it's not.

Ryan:

You're not. You're accomplishing nothing right there.

Rob:

They're not gonna wait and to happen, though you know like somebody get real sick I mean you, but you just.

Ryan:

You just assume you're hung over, right? You wake up in the morning, you should, your pants is throw up and you have a headache for a day.

Big Z:

Yeah, the normal person's never gonna know that. Yeah never know it.

Ryan:

Yeah and like, but where you notice it is if you're like man. I only had three beers and I feel like I had 15.

Matt:

That's when you notice that? Yeah, that's when you notice it.

Ryan:

Bad, I've had that morning, we've all had that morning.

The Fish:

We have all had that morning, maybe years ago, but we had it oh.

Big Z:

I.

Ryan:

Got, I got violated by the pits in Italian Americans Club very recently and I yes, the pits in pits in PA.

The Fish:

Just sounds really bad least used protection.

Big Z:

Oh no, I wanted to back up to your this too was K, and who was why over here?

Rob:

That's called a call back from something that was off, mike.

Ryan:

Hey man, whatever gets you excited.

Big Z:

We agree, matt. Don't be ashamed.

Matt:

Yeah, whatever blows your shorts up, we're very, very welcoming here.

Ryan:

Funny I mean funny enough if you look around generally, you'll see an atypical brewery crowd here. You're not gonna see like a lot of flannel neck bearded bros. It's typically not what we end up with here. Our brand skews typically more female, a little bit older, and we have a neck be interesting and we don't well, we're not catering to that right like other.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I'm not. Yeah, I don't I don't care.

Ryan:

I think. I think one of the things that's going wrong with craft beer is we're all trying to take Take water from a stone, but we're all trying to take it from the same stone, right, if we're not growing through the people drinking craft beer, there's not enough of it to go around.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

So our philosophy is like we make.

Ryan:

We make a we make a sour beer in the spring and summertime. That's intentionally just tart enough so that the sour beer fans go. I guess that's fine. But it's so approachable for the non sour beer fans that if you're not a sour beer person and I'm like it's like a beer and a margarita had a baby and you take a sip of it and you're like, wow, that's really good. So we're trying to make things intentionally more approachable. We're not trying to make it like this shut out glass wall that you just look through and you're like man, what are those guys doing? Like we want to attract new people to craft beer.

Big Z:

I Hate sour beer.

Rob:

Whoa whoa okay. I agree with.

The Fish:

Mike or big Z.

Rob:

Big, big Mike Z. But but listen, mike has always said that he can't stand stowers, so I have taken hours. What is this tower? It's kind of like a sour, but with the sour.

Ryan:

It's a sour stout yeah.

The Fish:

I actually had one of those recently. I started darkness grapes out from.

Big Z:

Weren't sour.

Ryan:

I know the beer you're talking about.

Rob:

I try to hang my hat on any time I can get you to enjoy what's labeled as a sour. That's all I'm saying.

Ryan:

Okay, I'm picky. So when I got in the beer business, I was at a craft beer restaurant for a couple years before I got here. The owner was a big beer guy. They were one of the first craft beer restaurants in New Jersey. And he goes are you guys like so, what do you like? And at the time I was like yeah, I really like IPA's, blah, blah, blah, this stuff, the other thing. And he's like well, what do you hate? Like I hate quads, I hate doubles.

Ryan:

I hate quads, so so, but but one of the things he said to me goes, he goes cool, cool. Here's what I want you to do for a week. For a week, I want your drink, just quads and doubles. Just try it and I'm like what the fuck? I'm kind of annoyed about it, right, but that exercise of kind of pushing me outside my comfort zone taught me that, like I didn't dislike quads and doubles, I disliked bad quads and doubles.

Big Z:

Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure.

Ryan:

I would genuinely challenge you to kind of go out of your comfort zone on that At spots that are not like don't get your smoochy sour thing. Don't get that. Get something that's significant. Get like an alagash cool ship beer, something that's a little more deftly tarted. Sour is a weird word.

Big Z:

It's really just low pH. But tart to me is different than sour. Sour is intentionally wants to make you a plucker and all those things. Tart to me is different.

Ryan:

So there's two, yeah, so like I'll use them by name, if you get those equilibrium sours, you ever take a sip of one of those.

The Fish:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan:

And it feels like the enamel is going to come off your teeth. Yup, so yeah, that's a bad sour, and they sour them by adding extra lactic acid and that's why you put it in your mouth and your mouth goes. This is incorrect.

Big Z:

And that's sort of where my point is, because that's a brewery that I would drink. I like a lot of their stuff, but then if I would try their sour, or if I tried their sours, I would nothing.

Matt:

I'm not going for it.

Ryan:

Yeah, I would strongly recommend you not do that. I mean so one of the things that is hard to do in beer is the kettle sour. But the kettle sour is going to be the most approachable kind of level of sour for you. The problem with that is, if you get it wrong, it has this weird kind of like blue, cheesy, awful aftertaste. So how you make a kettle sour is you sour it in the actual brew kettle itself and it's ready to go. When it's ready to go, there's no time right. So you have to check it constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly. And when it's at the right pH, that's when you run it off. You can't wait.

Ryan:

So a lot of times what happens is like people will be doing a kettle sour. They'll check it and they'll be like, oh, it's definitely not going to be done until the morning. And they get in the morning and it's like way overdone, and now they have to go for it. So that's a super common thing that happens with the kettle sour. But if you can get a well-made one, it's really, really good. I'd steer you towards more of like a wild, inoculated beer, Anything brewed on a cool ship, anything oak aged that's going to kind of have a natural more of a, more of a. I call it like a bug tartness, more of like a Brett or sacro. One of those tarting yeasts is going to work a lot better than just lactic acid low pH.

Rob:

You're not going to like that. Are those the ones that are typically labeled as like goza?

Ryan:

No goza is a very specific style that comes from Germany that's made with 50% un-malted wheat.

Rob:

OK, ok. Yeah, I wasn't really sure what the distinction is, but usually, like those goza ones, some brews will call them sours.

Ryan:

So the word sour isn't really as applicable as everybody thinks it is. You really? Just, it's just low pH beer, right? So it's high acidic beer is really the best way to talk about it. So when you're dealing with different levels of acidity, it's going to impart itself in different ways. So a goza is going to have a slightly lower acidity than a lot of your other sours, and then you're going to have it's going to have salt added to it as well. That's where you're going to get that almost like. That's why everybody likes to do a key lime goza. Everybody likes to do a key lime goza. When I started here, I've learned so much of this.

Big Z:

I know I'm enjoying this very much.

Ryan:

I know when I started here we did a key lime goza and then everybody started doing a key lime goza and we switched it to a fruit called calamansi. It's a Filipino lime. So in Bergen County New Jersey we have a huge Asian population, specifically lots of Filipinos and Koreans. One of our regulars like happened to his mom had a calamansi fruit tree or something like that. So we switched it and it kind of looks like a lime. You cut it open, it looks like an orange with a slightly smaller size of the pear.

Rob:

Are they like the finger limes? No, no.

Ryan:

No, they'll call them it's calamansi or Filipino lime. It looks like a kumquat. It's smaller than a lime. Super, super, super, super intense fruit flavor. But we started doing it with that because nobody does calamansi fruit in anything, so that was kind of cool.

Big Z:

Yeah, never heard of that.

Ryan:

Yeah, neither had I until we started looking into it here. It's a pretty neat. Fruit Gives a good flavor. We don't have it on today. We do a sour beer series called Vast and Terrible Magic, which is the reason we call it. That is because it's two beers blended into one. So we brew a base beer with a yeast that sacrifices part of its alcohol production for natural lactic acid production and we leave that uncarbonated in kegs. And then we brew a fruited beer, fully fermented Everything's fully fermented and then what we'll do is we will blend the sour beer into the fruited beer to taste. The most recent one we did was Kiwi Strawberry when we used barron fruit. We will ferment all the sugar out of it.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

So there's no sugar in it at all.

Ryan:

I'll put it on top before you guys leave. I've got a keg of it in the cold box right now. Yeah.

The Fish:

I'll hook you up. We get a keg.

Rob:

No, you don't get a keg. I'm going to put a keg on. That's not what he said. That's not what he said.

Ryan:

He doesn't have ears, it's OK, he doesn't, the fish can't hear. It's a whole thing.

The Fish:

He's sensing with vibration, his scales got in the way.

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sensing with vibrations. So yeah, so we'll blend. We will blend the two beers together until it tastes the way we want it to, and then we'll carb it and serve it. And so we treat that acidic beer, we call it sour base, we treat it as an ingredient for that fruited beer and we'll brew it typically over here on the smaller system, and then we will blend it in, just like a whiskey blender would do it. We'll sit and we'll blend four kegs in, and then we'll taste it and be like all right, we'll put one more in and then we'll taste it again.

Rob:

That's a cool thing. Yeah, it's really fun. I think that's awesome. I don't know that we said this, but we are actually live right now in the room with all the fermenters.

Ryan:

Yeah, you're in a working room, I don't know that we said that You're in a working room. That's where we're at.

Big Z:

We should probably get a picture of that for them. Oh, we will, we will, we will.

Ryan:

OK, Chas, we don't have any active fermentation happening right now. No I know Because it doesn't smell like breadfarts in here. Fun fact, fermentation in a small room smells like breadfarts.

Rob:

It's awful Well listen, I just ate a whole bunch of Taco Bells, so you don't want to be near me, bro.

Ryan:

I ate at the Taco Bell Cantina on Wednesday in New York City.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I was very proud of myself.

Ryan:

Very proud of myself.

The Fish:

Shout out to Chibi for the five-layer video. I worked there. Do you really yes?

Big Z:

That's amazing. No pun intended there, ryan, no pun.

Ryan:

That's fucking great. Yeah, I was at the one by Penn Station, yes, cool. Yeah, it was awesome.

Matt:

Taco Bell Cantina in New York. Is that like your version of the Promised Land? It could be, Bro. They serve booze.

Ryan:

They do, they do. It's fucking great Taco.

Rob:

Bells that serve booze are like oh yes, that is my mecca.

The Fish:

Oh, I haven't. I haven't Pillgrimage gone. I worked there but I got to go.

Ryan:

Where are my car keys. It's heaven on earth, boys. It's right next to.

Matt:

Penn Station.

Big Z:

You're never going to make it.

Rob:

Yeah, that's my mecca.

Ryan:

I will make a pilgrimage. But yeah, I got Tequila and my Baja Blast like a classy boy.

Rob:

Jesus God. They put it in the Baja Blast.

Ryan:

It's frozen Baja Blast too, dude what.

The Fish:

It's like a frozen margarita at Taco Bell. That sounds awesome.

Ryan:

Just tranking on the train on the way home.

The Fish:

Rob's going to go on a.

Ryan:

Baja Blast, Rob, you can take the train right from here right to Penn Station.

Matt:

This message is for Rob's wife Dorothy, if he doesn't get back in the car on the way home. I've done all I can. Please forgive me.

Rob:

She doesn't listen to this.

The Fish:

She will when I send her that sound bite On purpose. It's a proactive statement.

Rob:

Next live episode Taco Bell Cantina. Ryan, you're coming with us.

Ryan:

I'll take you guys. I'll take you guys bar hopping in New York City and we can podcast from each bar.

Matt:

Oh my God.

Ryan:

You guys want to do that.

The Fish:

You got to do that. I'm not paying for everything.

Ryan:

I'm not paying for everything, but I'll take you to all the great spots.

Big Z:

No one said that, ryan, what were they? Yeah, we'll have a great time.

Ryan:

We can podcast on the subway. It would by far be the most normal thing happening on the subway that day.

Matt:

I totally, and Rob will know this story. I thought I was going to die one time on the subway because I was very drunk coming out of Yankee Stadium.

Ryan:

That's a bad area to be hammered in.

Matt:

Oh, and there was a dude just holding bike handlebars.

Rob:

A dude, dude, racist. Oh, there was a dude. I was going to say man.

Matt:

No, there was a dude holding bike handlebars. Oh dude, I just said out loud that dude's holding handlebars.

Ryan:

And then everybody looked at me like I was going to die. Oh God, no, what's wrong with you?

Matt:

Yeah, you don't say that I was wrong with every drunk.

Rob:

No, it was our friend's bachelor party. I remember arriving at Yankee Stadium. I remember nothing else from that night.

The Fish:

Oh, wow, yeah that went down that way. That's why pictures are good. We didn't take pictures.

Rob:

We went to an Italian place beforehand and had a couple bottles of wine, which was what really screwed us up, because I'm not a wine drinker.

Matt:

OK, you don't remember shit because the game was in the middle of the day. The Italian restaurant was after the game no you know those two events were inverted.

Rob:

All right since the drunk boy. Why is it inverted? Wow, ok.

The Fish:

Now, mind you, I wasn't there, so we went to an Italian restaurant.

Matt:

And then went to a night game.

The Fish:

What, Brian? I'm sure you're wondering what you got yourself into.

Ryan:

No, I'm used to this. So I moon-lighted a comedy club. I hang out with professional comedians all the time. This is way normal. Oh, they got nothing at all.

Rob:

This is super normal. Oh wait, that's a super high compliment. You think they were professional comedians.

Ryan:

I didn't say that, I said the banter and everybody talking over themselves. Everybody wants to get this shit in.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I understand, I get it Welcome to man and Friends, Strength of the Universe.

Ryan:

It's like you're all indie wrestlers Like I got to get my moves in.

The Fish:

I got to get my moves in.

Rob:

If you'll smell.

Matt:

Hey, he graduated from our high school. He did, did he really?

Ryan:

Yes, get the fuck out of here.

Rob:

No, no way, no lie, no lie the three of us went to freedom high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Ryan:

Yes, we did.

Rob:

The rock finished his high school in.

Ryan:

That's amazing. I went to high school with Adam Banks from the Mighty Ducks.

Rob:

No kidding.

Ryan:

Worst hockey player you ever seen in your life Worst hockey player. Other kids used to quack at him on the ice yeah, he was a senior and I was a freshman, yeah, so other kids would quack at him, yeah, and then he would get in fights. It was great and we were bad too, so it was just hilarious.

Matt:

So he legit went to play hockey in school, yeah, like after doing the movie.

Ryan:

His mom was a casting agent in New York City.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

She worked on soap operas and daytime stuff, and this is like when Disney was just getting into things.

Ryan:

So she was the casting agent for the Mighty Ducks, got him the part and then, yeah, so he was like I don't think he was a hockey player before the movie and then after the movie he started playing hockey because he learned to skate to do the movie Right. He all had like skating doubles and whatnot and he was I'm not exaggerating, he was the worst Fantastic right now. He was the worst hockey player I've ever seen at the high school level.

Big Z:

So did we ever talk about this beer? What beer I did.

The Fish:

Briefly, you did yeah, we talked about it. The random one yes, we talked about it.

Rob:

Well, never, mind that I like the fact that it's like an abstract label, but it also reminds me of a peacock.

The Fish:

Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, yeah, very much so.

Rob:

And I can't get over how much I really really enjoy like the emblem for the brewery itself.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Thank you.

Ryan:

Yeah, that is a cool, very recognizable symbol for us. It's on a lot of our merch, which actually, funny enough, we're launching a new online merch store so you can now get all of our merch is all available on a Shopify store through the website. So we're not going to keep any merch in house anymore. You can all order the color and the size that you want, because, fun fact, sizing for craft beer is impossible. It's impossible. What's what's the URL there? Go to elementary comm. It'll bring you right to the shop.

Ryan:

If I shop, there's cool winter stuff. We've got some cool winter stuff. Some like regular T-shirts and shit. The cool thing about doing it that way is, instead of having to have a wall full of merchandise, that's just sitting on the wall and maybe you're like I like this shirt but I hate this color Cool, you can get that in whatever color you want. Now you can get it in a different style, right? Like you know, some of the people don't like to really thin, like comfort fit t-shirts. Some people like the thicker ones Cool, that's up to you.

Matt:

I, ryan, I gotta ask. Yeah, I am looking at somebody on the other side of the glass wall here and I'm seeing low Earth orbit. What's going on over there?

Ryan:

So low Earth orbit is our Stout, it's just a super, super stock. Six and a half percent stout.

The Fish:

They have a that was in the class.

Ryan:

It's gonna yeah, that's what's in that glass there. So that's gonna fool you. It's you're gonna think that there's coffee and cocoa in that. There's not. It's just all from the mall. Yeah, we can definitely get one of those out if you guys want. We've got some 750 bottles as well. We've got our figgy pudding, which is a 10% English barley wine. Whoa, okay, hold on, hold on. We condition it on figs, fruits, dates and apricots, and then it spends about eight months in a rum barrel.

Rob:

Oh well, bring us a biggie pudding.

The Fish:

Now bring us a biggie pudding everybody's reaction.

Ryan:

We have we have that one back there right now. As far as like a specialty pier goes, we do a beer for Carlitos tacos in Jersey City. It's called Chilitas. It's a Cinnamon and pineapple lager.

Ryan:

Whoa that's super fun. What else do we have right now? We have our, not a pumpkin ale. We call it gourdless okay, which is a technically by rights, it would be a session barley wine. It's just a half barley wine recipe, so it's a 6% barley wine, and then we add chai Roy boss tea to it. Now this one's on the hand pump with no tea added. So, typically, if we didn't have the, we've got a bunch of different Experimental IPA's on this weekend as well with a bit cast then yeah, that's a cast guys.

Ryan:

So it's so. We have an English, we have an English, ale pump over there.

Big Z:

So no, casper I love cask beer.

Ryan:

I actually had the opportunity to have bottingtons on cask.

The Fish:

Oh, did you. That sounds awesome. It was heaven on earth.

Ryan:

I've had bottingtons on cask and old speckled hen both, oh Wow so. I'm a classic beer nerd. I get really, really excited for like old old world classic styles. Ipa's are fine, but like I don't really care about them. But if you came in here with a, with like, a 10 month like a 10 month aged Keller beer. I'd be very excited, like I gotta get much more excited over something like that. That is, yeah, more kindly crafted. Like you know, I'll take it. I'll take a rice dwarf colch over many, many warm weather beers.

Rob:

I was very, very lucky to have Guinness directly from yeah Guinness in Dublin 17, you know the difference. And now I don't really care for it. Like the American, like it, just it doesn't hold up the Guinness that comes to America's pasteurized.

Ryan:

So but now Guinness is brewed in Baltimore. Guinness is the Guinness you drink in America's now doesn't come from Ireland anymore. It all comes from Baltimore and it tastes exactly like the Guinness they used to send you from Ireland that was pasteurized. You're saying like I had the Guinness in Ireland but if in America, if you just threw that beer out there to everybody, it blow my eighty eight. No, I disagree. I think most people would complain about it. It's not Guinness.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Sorry.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Big Z:

I'm a bad way yeah.

Ryan:

Yes yeah, so. So when things change, people lose their minds, like I have a lot of my family lives in Galway, ireland, and one of my cousins, cousins, named Kern Hughes and if you looked at him you'd be like you are an issue. He's one of those like completely shaved head, half a tooth, like he's a problem and and and he was on a mission for like five years Because quote Protestants bought harp and fucked it up.

The Fish:

Wow that's a direct quote. Yes, nice, yes, I want to meet this guy.

Ryan:

He's gonna be on our podcast, where we I don't- I don't, I don't think you'd you wouldn't understand him 30 minutes in His brogues, so rough.

Rob:

You don't think I could know interpret.

Ryan:

Nope, it's very strange. Like he gets, he gets hammered and he just starts like hey, just those things. And you just like, holy shit, like you came. He came to the states show one of my cousins cousins weddings and I was like Kern, you want to go to a, you want to go to a game or something like I think it was the Giants were playing. He's like If it's that Liverpool football, it's bullshit.

Big Z:

I'm talking about the.

Ryan:

Giants. That way. This, this kid, thinks about Liverpool soccer like I, like the Giants. Like he is not kidding. He takes the ferry from Dublin to Liverpool every game day and he does not have a ticket.

Rob:

I mean this in all seriousness from my heart, matt, can we afford a ticket to get this bro oh over to the states and Let me tell him and see if we can call.

Ryan:

Let me, what's that? Pym real quick, we'll see, we can go.

The Fish:

I was gonna suggest maybe, maybe we need to be on site, oh you think we need to go again.

Ryan:

I just, I just I just texted him. So yeah, it's, it's. This is amazing. Oh yeah, I've got a good time. I have 28 cousins on one side and 18 on the other.

Rob:

I think we have time for one more beer, I think so, oh yeah, for sure, yeah, we got we got one of you, so like let's just go around the table real quick.

Ryan:

What is your favorite beer style?

Matt:

Matt. So my picking up on the fact that there was a stout, a table away, was not entirely unbiased design. I love stouts. Porter's dark beer awesome.

Big Z:

I'm an IPA guy, okay through, but I Would like to try.

Ryan:

I'm gonna tailor this to each of you, just so we're getting there like.

Big Z:

I'm gonna get you Watch a lot of.

Ryan:

IPA Gotcha.

Rob:

Yeah, so I'm back and forth between IPA's and Sours.

Ryan:

Okay, I'm a stout guy, stout guy. Oh yeah, two stouts to IPA, severe back.

Rob:

Do you guys want to do I?

Ryan:

do you want two different IPA? Yes, you try them both.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Yes.

Matt:

We took their short break, while Ryan ran to the back to get us some more beer.

Rob:

Oh, my god, things are happening.

Matt:

It's rain and beer. Oh, do you want the?

Rob:

a game? Or do you want the Virgo the maiden? I've always wanted a maiden you do what you want. I'll give you the a game that was the sound of a maiden being popped.

Ryan:

Yes, all right. So you guys have a game. Is our house IPA six and a half percent? We sell decent amount of that beer. And then this is Virgo. In my opinion, virgo is the best a double IPA that's come out of this brewing the last two years, and I'll tell you how old that can is after you take a step.

The Fish:

I see this.

Ryan:

It's gonna be way older than he thinks.

The Fish:

One quick question.

Ryan:

Yes, sir.

The Fish:

How old is this?

Ryan:

Do you really want to know? No, no, I do Well yeah, kind of it's over here.

The Fish:

No, okay, all right.

Ryan:

Brian, I thought you were gonna tell me like 12 years the Virgo right now.

Rob:

Yeah, Maybe one of the most interesting mouth feels I've ever had on a beer. Is there a little floral going on in there too?

Matt:

I can smell it from across the table. It smells good. This is very interesting.

Ryan:

So we bitter almost all of our hoppy stuff with the heller towel, hercules. So that's kind of our bittering hop as well. This is kind of an exercise, for we have two brewers. One of them is a culinary Institute of America grad with a pastry chef degree.

Rob:

So you're telling me you have scientists and chefs.

Ryan:

Yes, and then our other brewer had graduated from the New England Brewing Institute in Middlebury, vermont. So so Nick, our Brewer from the Vermont school, is really really good at building a grain base and really really excellent with Combining hops in a way you wouldn't normally expect to combine them. And then our other brewer, mike, is really really good at basically how flavors play off of each other right. He's very much in charge of our, you know, fruited saizans, things along those lines we have. We've done some really cool stuff. One of our we've got a club called the order of the Adam and one of the beers we did was a chocolate pretzel porter.

The Fish:

That sounds yeah and so.

Ryan:

What we did with this beer was a chocolate pretzel porter with neither chocolate nor pretzels in it, so it was all built off the grain. So every flavor in the beer was built off the grain bill.

Matt:

There's not a bottle of that laying under the bar somewhere.

Ryan:

I don't think so. I will check, but I don't think that sounds like everything I've ever wanted in a beer.

Matt:

I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty, it's pretty cool.

Ryan:

And then we do. We do lots of things. We do the series of cocktail beers. One of them is called concrete jungle. It is a beer designed to taste like a Manhattan. It spends time in a whiskey barrel. I'll send you guys home with some of that said, they're very high ABV Like if we got into that if we got into that right now, this, this would legitimate. Yeah, yeah the rest, your day's fucked.

Matt:

That's okay.

Ryan:

I'm good Well it's funny, you guys.

Ryan:

You guys are out here in a good day. I'm actually gonna leave here at about 3, 30 or so. I've got an event at the clover leaf tavern in Caldwell, new Jersey. It's right off of rude 80. Yeah, it is the number one craft beer bar in New Jersey. We do a special beer for them that they pour on a lucre side, pour tap. It's a Czech Pilsner. It's the only place in the state you can get it and they're doing their Christmas keg tree lighting tonight. So they're gonna have a bunch of giveaways, a tree, keg tree. So they build a Christmas tree out of kegs in the back and they like, lash them all together and Like chicky garland and Christmas lights and shit on it. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'll be heading over there.

The Fish:

My wife's actually the GM of that place. I cast you there. You're we, you I mean.

Ryan:

I mean, I'm saying you guys should come. You guys should come hang out, have a good time. You're here, you might as well. Oh, we've got things going Okay yeah so what do you think of that?

The Fish:

What do?

Ryan:

you have going on.

Big Z:

All right. So super subtle, super, it's very tasty.

Ryan:

Are we talking? We're talking about Virgo correct?

Big Z:

Yeah, having a hard time placing the hops, so I'm gonna ask what they are cashmere, I Don't know. Okay, okay.

Ryan:

I don't know. I swear to God, I don't know either cashmere like Idaho, somewhere in that range. I don't use those. We've used cashmere in the past. Idaho 7 is not one that we use a lot. I will. I will get you guys an answer on that. We so what happens? What happens is when you do beer sales, everybody has a preconceived notion of hop, flavor and things along those lines.

Big Z:

No correct.

Ryan:

So so what I, what I've started doing, is just not telling people.

Matt:

So yeah, if you heard fish cracking up there, him and I were sipping on the low earth orbit. Yeah, and it is a really great oatmeal stout. Thank you, really great opium.

Ryan:

That is there's. There's five ingredients in that beer. There's no adjuncts. All your flavor is malterived, all of it, every single ounce of flavor in that beer is malterived.

The Fish:

So as a.

Matt:

it is effin awesome Thank you as a stout guy, stellar.

Rob:

I've just got to say really quick I do not traditionally drink stouts, that is actually pretty awesome man.

Ryan:

Thank you, that's, that's something.

Ryan:

I. That's something I love and I always encourage people when they come to visit here. When you're here, this is the time to try stuff like. Why would you spend $15 on a six pack or $20 on a four pack of something that you might not like? You're here, get a sample of something, ask for a sip, try a thing you normally wouldn't try.

Ryan:

Every flight I get at a restaurant or a brewery, one of those beers is something that's outside my comfort zone. Intentionally. I'll do two things with a flight. Every single time I'll get one beer that's outside my comfort zone and then one beer that can get extraordinarily warm. You so like. I always leave one beer in a flight. I'm serious. I'll get like a barley wine or a stout or something along those lines, so like and purposely leave it for last by the time I get there. I'm not disappointed. I'll take a. I'll take a sip of it when it's cold, just to get like the cold vibe of it too. But I'll almost always let a barley wine Like. You'll see me sitting there with a, with a like. If I'm drinking a barley wine at a restaurant, I will sit there with it like against my body and drink a light beer and then drink the barley wine to let it warm up.

The Fish:

See the last time I had a flight was when I was down to see Matt and you almost died. Yeah, I almost did. Why it?

Matt:

was a rough day. You know, it was a rough day.

Ryan:

We had five different microbers in one day, by the end of the day.

Matt:

Yeah, I was done. The fish was floating belly up.

Rob:

Yes, the the A game is the first one that I've had today. That is not like my fancy. Ok, like it's not that it's a bad beer, it's just whatever hop combination is that?

Ryan:

one's citrus centennial. Ok yeah, that's kind of designed to be a West meets East kind of a situation, ok love it.

Big Z:

I imagine you would. Yes, seriously, I bit my tongue because I'm not one to put someone down, but I thought this was just this the random, good drinkable, but pretty middle of the road. For me, this feels like a beeped up version of that. Yeah, and I. I think this is there's more, more on the front, more on the back. I like the bit of the bite you get. I don't mind that, like I.

Ryan:

I don't mind. I'm a believer in that in beer. I was one of the one of the things that drives me crazy is I call them the one note IPA, where you take a sip, it's sweet up front, and then it just sails off your tongue into nothing, so it just kind of goes away. There's nothing anchoring it there.

Big Z:

To me, the beer has to kind of like put its claws into you, a little bit Like some great right in back, you know it just has to be a bit of pine on the back end with a centennial. I'm fine, I'm a West.

Ryan:

Coast IPA guy. I want to, I want to. I want to smell a dank pine forest that smells like weed while I drink my beer.

Rob:

That's exactly why I'm not a fan of this. I don't like that to be the last thing I taste. I got you I don't care if it's up front for me, but I like the citrus to be the finish.

Ryan:

I got OK Interesting for me, ok, that makes, that makes total sense. Yeah, then a game wouldn't be your beer. All right, I'm turning.

Matt:

I'm turning the boat here. You guys are all talking IPA. I want to talk about this doubt.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Yes, yes Go ahead.

Big Z:

Sorry, so reading have another sip of it.

Matt:

Yeah, although I will tell you, the last time you had it you were gesticulating and hopping back and forth in my glass and I was watching it, like this dude's, three times my size. I'm going to fight him if he doesn't give him my glass back in a second and you'd lose. I would, but it would have been a worse one.

Matt:

That is so true, the one complaint that I have about a lot of stouts out there, especially right now. Everybody thinks it's got to be like a really coffee heavy stout. And I will tell you, I like the flavor of coffee but I can't drink regular coffee. It makes me sick to my stomach the whole thing. This one, however, has a really nice being an oatmeal stout. You get that oatmeal flavor, you get the dark roast, you get the chocolate, you get just a hint of coffee on the back end and the flavors altogether are absolutely wonderful. It's a really great solid stout, dark in the glass. You can tell sometimes when you pour a stout and you come out a little like engine oil. That's always a good sign to me and that's exactly what happened on the poor. This one very dark, very tasty, very complex overall, because you can, at your tongue, kind of bounces back and forth between all those flavors, I know complex, but yet very subtle.

Matt:

Yeah.

Big Z:

Very subtle yes.

The Fish:

And I have to agree with what Matt is saying. And this is just an awesome beer, awesome, you know, I I agree with all the different flavors that are coming out. I love that, the fact that there's a chocolate in there and not so much a coffee, because, like he said, a lot of places are just like, oh, we'll just throw coffee in there and call this stout. I'm like can't put, that destroys it.

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah. And remember, all those flavors are all coming from the malt. There's no chocolate, there's no coffee in that, that's incredible.

Matt:

The one thing I did want to say about this can, though, it does say, enjoy anywhere between sea level and low earth orbit, and this is Matt, and friends drink the universe, so presumably we're beyond that. Is there any reason I can't drink this in outer space?

Ryan:

Well, we had a we actually had a bigger version of that called Launchpad, okay, and and that beer turned into uh, we, when I first started here, we did a porter called Puerto Rico and it was a coconut and coffee porter.

Rob:

Oh wow, okay, everything about that.

Ryan:

So so that was a beer that we did and it was very popular. We did a beer called Launchpad. That was very popular and then that we needed to do like a more sessionable version of that's where we ended up with low earth orbit. Launchpad has now turned into a beer called Arecibo. Do you know what Arecibo is? I have no idea Okay so you ever seen golden eye? Yes, you know, and Bond is sliding down that big satellite in Puerto Rico that's built into the earth. That is the Arecibo satellite observatory.

The Fish:

Oh really.

Ryan:

Yes, so instead of making Puerto Rico again, we made it bigger with 9% coffee and coconut and that's Arecibo, so that is like it's the biggest radio telescope in the world, until they shut it down, like two years ago.

Matt:

Yeah, remember that. Wow, mm, hmm, and it's funny because I remember the article, because it pretty much started out. Hey, remember that. Satellite and golden eyes, it's like.

Ryan:

Oh yeah, I remember that one. That's been my sales pitch for five fucking years. Have you seen golden eyes, sir?

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

Has it worked Very well.

Ryan:

Very well, I also this the the logger. The first beer we had I pitched to people as beer flavored beer that tastes like beer, because if you're a beer if you're a beer buyer, it's very accurate.

Matt:

It's very true, Well as we, as we kind of wind down here at Vienna, I wanted to take the opportunity to get in and thank Ryan.

Ryan:

It's just thank you guys. This is a lot of fun. Thank you, ryan. Thank you, no problem.

Rob:

I feel like I learned elementary.

The Fish:

This was awesome.

Matt:

I love doing this so much because I get these situations where I feel like I know a lot about beer and then I meet someone like Ryan and I feel like I realized how dumb we are. I just sat through a college class for like an hour and I'm like phenomenal.

Ryan:

I just learned more. I just had somebody tell me like hey, you really know a lot about this, you could make money. And I was like really, Obviously, I was an ASC auto tech for 10 years before I got into beer.

Big Z:

Can we vote on our favorite beer?

Ryan:

Oh, I'm actually going to step in here and remind everybody that beer is like music. Exactly, it's subjective.

The Fish:

Yeah, Bruce Springsteen.

Ryan:

But Bruce Springsteen is very good at what he does, right.

The Fish:

Yes, he is.

Ryan:

It's the best example, like I hate.

Rob:

Dave Matthews, my father-in-law's favorite person.

Ryan:

Oh, dave, bruce Springsteen is an actual hack.

Matt:

You clearly didn't enjoy Billy Joel earlier. Billy Joel sucks too, but I would take Billy.

The Fish:

Joel.

Ryan:

I would take Billy Joel over Bruce Springsteen.

Rob:

Okay, I think.

Ryan:

Billy's a better songwriter than Bruce, so let's let's start with Matt.

Rob:

We'll go around the table. What is your favorite beer that we've had today? Matt.

Matt:

I got a two-way tie Actually.

Rob:

I got a two-way tie Okay.

Matt:

The original logger just hit a spot. Just it just hit a spot that I was like I could crush a case of this. It wouldn't end well. Football season, I could enjoy it, and the low earth orbit was just Hold on.

Ryan:

Are you an Eagles fan?

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

I'm a Steelers fan actually.

Ryan:

My mom grew up a Steelers fan. You were cool, we're cool, you're a Giants fan, right? You said?

Big Z:

Yes, sir.

Rob:

No, how about them, cowboys we?

Big Z:

don't want to have to hurt him. We don't want to have to hurt him.

Rob:

I Listen, it's been 25 years of hell for me.

Ryan:

Look, we all Give it to me. You have a true childhood. It was awesome.

Big Z:

Now we know where the bill is going. Hey Ryan, do you know what a paper tiger is? The Dallas Cowboys yes, I'm going to say this right now For any Hazy IPA drinker, a-game is a solid beer. You also have to like the West Coast flavor on that side.

Ryan:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Big Z:

And that was Virgo, virgo, virgo's very very good, I'm going to be honest with my favorite beer of the day, though it's going to be low earth orbit.

Rob:

Whoa, this is Awesome. This is really throwing me for a loop.

Big Z:

I'm going to tell you why. It's not complex, it's very straightforward, it's not overly boozy, it's drinkable.

Ryan:

It's super drinkable, delicious. That happens to me too. When I get something that would not normally be outside my comfort zone, I'm like holy shit, that's amazing, I'll go for it every time. You know I've had a bunch of good this or that, but you know, fish, oh no, no, hold on, we skipped somebody, you skipped me.

Matt:

Yeah, the Cowboys fan.

Rob:

Well, you know your life is rough, there you go Okay the only thing I've had today that I wouldn't probably drink again is the A game, and that's just because of the fact that it finishes with that kind of like piney flavor. It's just not my jam. I will say my favorite beer of the day is probably the Virgo Cool. However, I've got to give props to this stout. I don't drink stouts. I would drink this stout. That's awesome. It's so good and it's because there's no frills. It's just like this is a freaking stout. This is what it's meant to be.

Ryan:

We call it a stout drinker stout. It's so good.

Walter Brewright/Ryan (AI got confused!) :

We call it literally a stout drinker stout.

Ryan:

It really is good. I'm glad you guys enjoyed that beer because you know stouts are a tough sell. I mean, stouts are a tough sell man.

The Fish:

If you can make a stout all year round, I will be here.

Big Z:

But I would enjoy two of the low-earth orbit.

Ryan:

That's awesome, that's awesome. And Fish, what was yours? Was it the stout as well?

The Fish:

Yes, I think I've talked enough about the stout. I'd be here all year round if you make it that way. But yeah, this stout is my favorite, that's awesome. After that, I'd go with the original lager.

Matt:

All right, so we're going to afford fish's meals here.

Ryan:

Yeah, most definitely. Once we finish up here, we'll get you guys samples of the figgy pudding and the chelitis and I'll hook you guys up with a case to go.

Rob:

Amazing. Oh, you are awesome, Ryan. Thanks for the fun, guys, Ryan cheers.

Matt:

Cheers to you guys. Cheers, we might have to go drink it in New York. Cheers, guys. Thanks for coming out. Yeah, thank you everybody for listening. This episode's boozy quote comes from Frank Zappa, who said you can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. On social media, please like, follow and push all the buttons for us. That's Matt and friends DTU at Facebook, instagram threads and TikTok. 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 mattandfriendsdtucom. That's mattandfriendsdtucom. Thank you again for listening to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Matt Welser

Host
Contributor

Big Z

Guest
Head Shot

Rob

Guest
Head Shot

The Fish

Guest

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Show Me Your Trips Artwork

Show Me Your Trips

Scott Showalter
Drunk With Buds Artwork

Drunk With Buds

Drunk with Buds