Jeff: Welcome to Craft Beer Radio, I am Jeff Behr.
Shannon: I'm Shannon Behr.
Greg: I'm Greg Weiss.
Jeff: And we're back again this week. is almost like old school old style show because
Jeff: we're kind of focusing on Oktoberfest.
Jeff: It's the literally Oktoberfest right now.
Greg: We should mention that that was Iron Lung by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Greg: who was recommended to us in our Discord by Marinus.
Jeff: Yes. And then kind of why I went and had Shannon, Shannon was out,
Jeff: so I'm like, can you stop and get some Oktoberfest? It's because one of our
Jeff: listeners on our Discord, Greg, was showing pictures of himself today at Oktoberfest.
Shannon: So, so before I made the purchase, I did stop at Starbucks and get the famous pumpkin spice latte.
Jeff: Yes.
Shannon: The first one for the season.
Jeff: These Oktoberfests are all in cans. They're all, three of them are local and
Jeff: one is Sierra Nevada, which is the one we're going to start with.
Jeff: So, no German Oktoberfest in the show, unfortunately.
Greg: Let me ask about the pumpkin spice latte. Could you get the same experience
Greg: just by putting some nutmeg and cinnamon and stuff into a regular latte?
Greg: Or was there something like distinctive about the pumpkin spiciness of it that
Greg: was better than like say you can make at home just by pouring in some...
Shannon: Well, first off, I don't make lattes here at home. So...
Greg: Okay, but...
Shannon: I couldn't really give you a good answer to that.
Greg: Fair enough.
Jeff: The McRib is back.
Greg: Oh, gross. Alright, so which one is it?
Jeff: You said Sierra Nevada. Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest.
Greg: Alright, so this is a collaboration with Curve Rider.
Greg: I assume that W is a V. That's just an assumption.
Greg: their mutual passions fused fesbeer. Now, I would say this is...
Greg: Very golden. So there's a...
Shannon: It's that copperish golden.
Greg: I was looking into this because there is the Martzen style and there's fesbeer,
Greg: which is kind of a lighter Martzen.
Greg: And this looks more like fesbeer.
Jeff: Yeah, this one's like a straight up gold color.
Jeff: Very clear. Thinking of those pictures that Greg posted today of Polliner Oktoberfest
Jeff: right it was way paler than like what I tend to think of as Oktoberfest which
Jeff: is more of an amber kind of has ruby highlight kind of color to it.
Greg: Yeah close to like a Vienna lager in terms of the look and ingredients. It needs to warm up.
Jeff: Well it's a lager though so you can't warm them up but normally you know they're
Jeff: drink at a cooler temperature.
Greg: Yeah you want these to be pretty cold. So this is 6% dirty IBUs and yeah,
Greg: warming up a lager is not always the best choice.
Greg: It just, they, it's not that they're necessarily bad, it's just that they're,
Greg: the crispness goes away and so you lose some of that factor that makes lagers.
Jeff: No, I get what you're saying. Every other beer we drink, we warm them up before
Jeff: we eat. Yeah. Or drink them, so it's a habit, totally.
Jeff: But you know, taste this one and whatnot. For the aroma, what I'm getting on
Jeff: this is this kind of sweet, chewy, like quick bread kind of like.
Greg: Yeah, there's honey in there to me.
Shannon: Apricot.
Greg: I can see that. Yeah, it's, have you tasted it yet? No. The taste is very bready.
Greg: So fruitiness is not something, but I can see that the sweetness of apricots there.
Greg: Like there's a dried fruit sweetness in this. There's a lot of.
Jeff: Yeah, the sweetness, it is kind of fruity or floral, like there's a floral sweetness
Jeff: to it, like a nectar or something like that.
Greg: Very bready though, like it's got very yeasty.
Shannon: Oh yeah, now that I've tasted it, very bread.
Jeff: It doesn't mean the smell of apricots is wrong.
Shannon: No, no, I definitely smell apricots, but it's definitely bready. I like it.
Jeff: Pretty yummy.
Greg: It's sweet and the coldness prevents it from being cloying. I think that if
Greg: this were to warm up, it would get cloying.
Jeff: Yeah, we want it to stay a little bit crisp, you know, and because it has more
Jeff: of a malt backbone to it, it could kind of get exactly what you're saying,
Jeff: sweeten up and be a little too much, little too thick, too. Enjoy!
Greg: They say a punchy blend of German and American hops. I mean,
Greg: the hopness is there, but it was not on my mind until I even read that.
Greg: Because it's the bread, it's the yeast, and there's a bit of spice to kind of
Greg: lower, I mean, to add some bitterness to lower the sweetness a bit.
Jeff: Yeah, Shannon and I had the, oh, sorry, go ahead.
Shannon: No, there's, the spice isn't overpowering though, which is nice.
Shannon: Mm-hmm. I like the, there's a nice balance there, yeah. Okay.
Jeff: Shannon and I were at Hitchhiker this week, surprise, and had their Oktoberfest,
Jeff: and it was too damn hoppy.
Jeff: Like, it was loud, like it was turned up to 11 or 12,
Jeff: and it was a fine beer,
Jeff: but it wasn't, Like when I'm getting an Oktoberfest,
Jeff: I'm kind of looking for this kind of comfort memory, this thing,
Jeff: this, something doesn't always have to be the exact same Oktoberfest,
Jeff: but it should be typical for the style, right?
Jeff: And theirs was just so loud that I, like I didn't really think it made sense
Jeff: to buy a four pack of it to put on the show.
Jeff: We got a fruit fly buzzing around, trying to get in our beer.
Jeff: And I'm trying to think, did you have opinions on the Hitchhiker? Do you remember?
Shannon: I liked it, but not for an Oktoberfest beer. I liked it in general.
Shannon: But if I was looking for a real Oktoberfest beer,
Shannon: It's not, I mean, it would definitely, if that's what you were in search for,
Shannon: or in search of, I can't talk tonight, then I think you would be disappointed.
Jeff: Another brewery that Shannon ordered it, it was one of those ones where I had
Jeff: blinders from back in the day.
Jeff: We were at a bar, there's several around Pittsburgh called Dive Bar,
Jeff: and we were there, and on tap there was Peak Organic Pilsner.
Jeff: And Peak Organic is a brewery that was making beer the first day Craft Beer
Jeff: Radio started back in 2005.
Jeff: They were widely available in Pittsburgh back in those heady days of where you
Jeff: could get, you know, 30, 40 different breweries at the bottle shop.
Jeff: And it always left Greg and I, Greg, you might remember this,
Jeff: you might not, but it always left me disappointed.
Jeff: Like it always felt like it left something on the table. And we weren't sure
Jeff: if it was the brewery or if it was because of organic ingredients.
Jeff: And that sounds kind of counter today in 2023 when organics been around for
Jeff: so long and usually means high quality ingredients, you know,
Jeff: maybe not, but you know, at least that's what marketing leads most people to think, right?
Jeff: And I can't remember ever really liking a Peak Organic, and Shannon ordered
Jeff: the Pilsner, and I didn't even really notice it. I didn't give it,
Jeff: you know, any kind of consideration on the draft list because it was just,
Jeff: oh, it's just old Pink Organic, but it was fantastic.
Jeff: It was. It was really, really good. So I don't know if better brewer,
Jeff: brewery's trying harder, ingredients are better, I don't know.
Jeff: But I wanted to spend some time and just kind of, A, everyone listening who
Jeff: maybe doesn't pay attention to peak organic, because they used to be ho-hum,
Jeff: try the Pilsner, and there are other things, because it was really, really good.
Shannon: It was, and you were even shocked at the fact that I ordered it in the first place.
Jeff: I was surprised that you ordered a Pilsner.
Shannon: I mean, you know, it's- not something I would typically order.
Jeff: You're not in the habit of going to the loggers. I'm barely in the habit of
Jeff: going to the loggers. I wouldn't even call it a habit for me.
Greg: So it's definitely been my go-to in the past year or so. It's been loggers.
Greg: When I see them, I react very favorably towards a Kraft logger.
Greg: Peak Organic is out of Maine, for those who are wondering.
Jeff: So maybe that's why you like it so much.
Shannon: That's why I like it. Shocker.
Jeff: Where in Maine are they? Portland.
Shannon: Of course they are.
Jeff: Well, shit. How come we didn't even notice them when we were in Portland?
Shannon: When we go back.
Jeff: Apparently they have a farm.
Shannon: Next month. Then next month. Yeah. You know, we're already going to be halfway there.
Jeff: She keeps, she's like tentatively scheduling our next trip. Like,
Jeff: oh, don't you know, we're going to Maine in three weeks.
Greg: I mean, if you think Pittsburgh gets cold, Maine gets, Maine is near like the Arctic.
Shannon: Yeah, I'm fine with that because it's not bipolar. Once it's cold,
Shannon: it's cold. It stays that way.
Shannon: Your body has time to adjust to it, here.
Shannon: The weather's bipolar. Yeah, it's 21 day and it's 45 the next and then it's
Shannon: 36 and raining every day except for four days in the winter where it drops back down into the teens.
Greg: Yeah.
Shannon: And then it's back up.
Greg: And occasionally every, I don't know, seven or eight years there's a blizzard.
Shannon: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff: There we go. I just raised your gain a little bit Shannon. I think you're coming
Jeff: a little bit It's stronger now, so. Cool.
Jeff: Just do what you're comfortable with. Don't get on the mic, because now you'll be too loud. Oh, okay.
Greg: So you guys mentioned fruit flies, and that brings me to a subject that I want
Greg: to talk about, which is I recently started growing herbs in an aero garden.
Jeff: Okay. So I don't know, have you seen these?
Shannon: Either of you? No, I don't think so.
Jeff: The hydroponic thing?
Shannon: Oh, okay.
Greg: Yeah, so it's a tabletop hydroponic, about the size of a bread box.
Greg: Um, and right now I am growing six herbs in it.
Jeff: It'll be hard to pay, play 20 questions with it. If it's about the size of a bread box.
Greg: Uh, and it's got a little light on it. And the thing is that it's hydroponics.
Greg: There's no soil to deal with. You're just water, a tank of water,
Greg: uh, and a pump that pumps it. You give it food at once every two weeks.
Greg: There's a little thing of food that comes with it.
Greg: And the light is on for 15 hours a day.
Greg: And it's working so well. I'm just I'm so excited because this is a product
Greg: that does what it says it will do on the on the tin.
Greg: After three weeks, everything was sprouting. Everything was coming in.
Greg: It's been six weeks, six and a half weeks. I have bountiful herbs.
Greg: Nice. With the exception of one that the partially is slow, but I think that's
Greg: just the partially is slow.
Greg: Here is a, here's my current herb garden and you can see how that's,
Greg: you know, it's impressive.
Greg: And this is, I'm someone with a brown thumb. I can't grow anything.
Shannon: We should start one.
Greg: And this is what it started with.
Greg: This was about two weeks in, two and a half.
Shannon: We should start one. Okay.
Greg: Okay. So what happened was I got it, and so this was, yeah, this was like three
Greg: weeks in. And so you can see the growth.
Greg: that happens. Cool.
Jeff: So these are for people who can't see the pictures. It's about the size of a
Jeff: bread box. And then the plants, the seeds come in almost like K cup sized things
Jeff: that I guess sit down in the water.
Greg: Yes. So there's like a, there's stuff, it's sort of a cone shape thing that goes into the water.
Greg: And so you keep adding water to it cause it, you know, these plants,
Greg: especially as they're growing, they're going to drink up the water.
Greg: Every two weeks you add food, like I said, and in four weeks you dump out the
Greg: water and put new water in.
Greg: But that's the extent of anything that needs to be done.
Greg: I got some pruning shears that were like $8 on Amazon so I could do this unnecessary
Greg: pruning because otherwise it just kind of grows out of bounds and you do want
Greg: to prune it because that encourages it to drink, to grow properly.
Greg: But you just let it go and it does what it needs to do. So the thing that I
Greg: would say is not a drawback, but it is something that you have to be aware of
Greg: is that if you have a lot of plants like that growing in your house,
Greg: you're going to get bugs. Yeah.
Greg: So I had a little bit of a flea problem or not flea, a little bit of a gnat problem.
Greg: And the way I've gotten around it, the way I figured out how to get through
Greg: it is because I had a problem.
Greg: We had like, if I opened a beer or something, there would be lots of flies going
Greg: for it. Everywhere. Because I thought, okay, think like a pitcher plant.
Greg: I got a little ramekin and put in water and like two tablespoons of sugar and
Greg: just mix it up until the sugar was completely dissolved.
Greg: So that's going to attract these bugs. And then I put one or two drops of dishwashing fluid in it.
Shannon: Yep.
Jeff: That's exactly what he does. That's what we make too. And the soap breaks the
Jeff: surface tension. So the bugs get sucked right in and drowned. So.
Greg: It's perfect, and it worked so well. Yeah. It's just, yeah. Let the magic of
Greg: surfactants do their work.
Shannon: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: Yep. I, uh, we had ants, and I bought, you know, those tarot trap things,
Jeff: and it wasn't getting rid of the ants.
Jeff: So then I looked online. I was like, oh, I gotta buy something else.
Jeff: And I'm like, let's Google for DIY.
Jeff: And if you just mix, um, I think it's 50% by weight sugar and borax and make a paste.
Jeff: It, I made it once and it like wiped out the ends.
Shannon: So they're the little tiny ones.
Greg: Oh, those are the worst. Yeah. That reminds me that my parents are telling me
Greg: that they read online, cause they had a problem with deer is hanging out and
Greg: eating their stuff. And then what they read online was Irish spring.
Greg: They hate the scent of Irish spring.
Jeff: I've heard that, yeah.
Greg: It's true, apparently.
Jeff: We should buy some and hang it in the trees all around the-
Jeff: I remember when I was in elementary school, I think, it was one of those things,
Jeff: you can probably relate, right, where you're supposed to tell your parents to
Jeff: prep and bring something in, you know, and you don't do it till the very last day.
Jeff: And we were doing soap carving in our class or something like that.
Jeff: And so I asked my mom for a bar of soap the very last time and we were an Irish Spring household.
Jeff: And she was a-mad that she had these, the good Irish Spring you could have bought
Jeff: a bar of Dove or something.
Jeff: And then everyone else had white soap and I was the only one with green soap.
Jeff: I felt like such a dingus, you know, like, you know, just all the stupid elementary
Jeff: school things, right? Where you're the oddball and you just feel like, you hate it so much.
Shannon: But the room smelled fresher because of you, right?
Jeff: And then when I, I didn't get the concept of carving, I guess,
Jeff: because what I, I carved like an eagle, but like a cookie cutter version of an Eagle, right?
Jeff: Just so just like straight down, like no three dimensionality or nothing.
Jeff: Oh, well, elementary school, right? I know.
Greg: But so my parents, admittedly, what they say is that it's all anecdotal,
Greg: but because they're not like they have cameras on there, but they used to notice
Greg: deer and stuff hanging out. What's the matter?
Shannon: We haven't even introduced the spear and we're still having this conversation and he's smelling it.
Greg: I don't care. No, there's no protocol.
Greg: Um, my parents are so that, yeah, they say that they, they used to notice deer
Greg: just hanging out all the time. And now it's very rare that they even see a deer in there, uh, around.
Greg: Um, and so again, it's not like they're checking, but my theory is the Irish
Greg: spring doesn't necessarily like completely repel them, but it makes their place
Greg: a lot less comfortable to be in than other places around.
Jeff: Yeah. We'll have to give it a try.
Shannon: Yeah, because it's always tick season here.
Jeff: No, not like we've noticed catching any, but we could try putting some around
Jeff: the flowers in the spring when they bloom and see if they don't get eaten.
Shannon: Oh, my tulips. Yeah, it'd be really nice.
Jeff: All right. So this next beer is Helltown Brewing Company here in the Pittsburgh area.
Greg: Now, this is a Martsen. You can tell the color right away, the color difference. It's much more amber.
Shannon: It's got I have floaties.
Greg: Yeah floaties, huh?
Jeff: Yeah,
Jeff: it was a little chunky at the bottom of the can I tried to distribute them but
Jeff: you missed out on the floaties They're an export.
Jeff: They have a couple different tap rooms. They've one right downtown Didn't I
Jeff: just open one in the strip?
Jeff: Well, that's what I meant. Oh by downtown.
Greg: Oh, okay and it's not technically downtown, but yeah, that's walking distance
Greg: of here So all I got on this, because the Helltown Brewery doesn't have anything
Greg: on it, so I went to untap. This is 6%. 6%. I'll call my volume.
Jeff: The aroma on this one is more sequestered than the last one.
Jeff: It is bready. It's more like that white bread crust type of aroma,
Jeff: where the last one was more like quick bread, you know, cake kind of flavorings. Yeah.
Shannon: I haven't tasted it yet, but... It doesn't smell as inviting as the last one.
Greg: It is a little bit of a deeper thing, a little bit spicier in the hop,
Greg: but not like super like hoppy, but more like rye bread in terms of like,
Greg: maybe there's a deeper like molasses in there.
Jeff: It's nice that it has that kind of spice to it, as opposed to just tasting like
Jeff: bread crust, like plain bread crust.
Jeff: The spiciness is, yeah, it's kind of bordering on rye. I think that's probably
Jeff: from like Noble Hops giving it the spiciness.
Greg: I don't think this is that, because I think you'd taste the rye if it was here,
Greg: but I'm just thinking of like darker bread.
Jeff: Yeah, it's pretty dry. Like compared to the last one, this one has a lot drier
Jeff: mid palate to it and finish. What do you think?
Greg: Huh?
Shannon: It's definitely drier. Um, more what I.
Shannon: Yeah, it's kind of like a, you said the rye bread, that the crust off of a rye
Shannon: bread would be a good way to describe it, I think.
Greg: Or if you went like really deep and dark with a regular white bread,
Greg: you might be able to get a crust that was sort of like this.
Greg: A lot of caramelization going on.
Jeff: Their marketing speaks spot on though.
Jeff: This lager with a celebratory history is brewed with German tradition hops to
Jeff: create subtle notes of herbs and spice.
Jeff: A rich, bready aroma leads to a slightly sweet and malt-forward flavor followed
Jeff: by a finish that is crisp and semi-dry.
Greg: This isn't as yeasty as the other one. The other one had a lot of like a big
Greg: yeasty bread type thing.
Shannon: I like this. It's just very different from the last one.
Greg: I kind of think I like this version more. I think I, not that the Sierra Nevada
Greg: was bad at all, but I think that I, especially if I were to drink something more often than.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, we only had four ounces, right? So that one, having the sweeter
Jeff: representation of it for a four-round sample kind of like hits you quick and
Jeff: gets you like acclimated.
Jeff: Think about drinking a liter of an Oktoberfest, right? Like,
Jeff: cause they traditionally come in liter mugs.
Jeff: This one might be better suited for the session. you know, that kind of thing.
Greg: Well, I think another comparison might be this thing that we have sort of in
Greg: waiting, threatening us.
Shannon: Let's wait on that. I don't want to mess up my taste buds.
Greg: It will all be revealed soon.
Jeff: We should, I think we, I'll talk about later.
Jeff: Um, One thing that I put in our like kind of ideas for conversation topics is
Jeff: kind of history repeating itself, like ales preceding lagers, right?
Jeff: In antiquity, right? Beers were ales for millennia until,
Jeff: you know, like the 14th century or so when in Europe lager use was isolated
Jeff: and lager started being a thing.
Greg: Right. We don't know when Pistorius, the breed of yeast that is used in loggers, came about.
Greg: It could have come about as early as that, or it could have been around in nature
Greg: for a long time. It could have been just a mutation.
Jeff: Well, I mean, I think about it, it's probably, I mean, I would assume that it
Jeff: is in nature, but is out-competed, unless you isolate it and put it in the right conditions, right?
Jeff: So if you just have a beer that you're fermenting at ale temperatures,
Jeff: and there's some fraction of lager yeast in there, it's going to be out competing, right?
Jeff: So when they started, you know, the evolution of lagering beer was ...
Jeff: Probably not a single specific thing, but you know, they were conditioning beer
Jeff: in caves and it was colder temperature Different yeast was propagating at those temperatures, right?
Jeff: And then it was isolated and refined and whatnot It's more technology then,
Jeff: you know just making ale because You can make ale Just with spontaneous fermentation
Jeff: and all kinds of things I guess the question then is if you were making ale
Jeff: like in Siberia would you have found that it would tend to be more lagerish?
Jeff: That's a curious question.
Jeff: It's a very interesting question. I probably would think that if you weren't,
Jeff: I don't know, like there's intentionality and then accident, right?
Jeff: And like, if it's not intentional, then you have this longer to produce more
Jeff: materials intensive, you know, time intensive process.
Jeff: Um, but you know,
Jeff: a, a scenario where it's the only way you get beer, you know,
Jeff: would be curious to, if we could, like, if a historian had that,
Jeff: um, you know, maybe in the Alps, you know, or something like that.
Greg: I mean, it, it, it's, it's pretty apparent that people who would have been brewing
Greg: in Tiberia probably didn't keep good enough records for us to know. So...
Jeff: I would presume that brewing happened in the summertime and they made kvass.
Greg: Yeah.
Jeff: Things like that. But like so that was in antiquity and then,
Jeff: you know, there's like in early colonial times, right. It was all ales.
Jeff: And then loggers took over at, you know, kind of post pro post prohibition.
Greg: Once refrigeration became easier. I think that both for early like 1890s,
Greg: like there was more refrigeration in terms of you were able to get a supply
Greg: chain for ice and stuff like that to where you were. Yeah.
Jeff: Or the infrastructure to dig caves, things like that, where in the 1700s and
Jeff: whatnot, American beer was ales.
Jeff: German beers were lagers, but America didn't have the infrastructure to make lagers.
Greg: America's lower than Germany is for most of it in terms of where it is on the
Greg: world, so you'd expect it's going to be more humid and more ...
Jeff: Right. So ales preceded lagers a second time. And then in craft beer,
Jeff: it's a different reason.
Jeff: Ales, I think there's several reasons that ales preceded lagers.
Jeff: Like ales turned faster and were less resource intensive to make.
Jeff: So, and then I think a big part of it for you and I specifically,
Jeff: and probably a lot of people in our generation, is ooh, new flavors that's not
Jeff: in my dad's beer, you know, and so we all gravitated towards ales and I remember not liking lagers.
Jeff: I thought they tasted tinny or penny-like or something like that.
Jeff: And then, you know, we finally learned to taste and enjoy lagers.
Jeff: The first lager I enjoyed was Great Lakes L8NS, which was a Vienna lager, kind of like Sam Adams.
Jeff: And, you know, shortly after that, I learned that Sam Adams is a good one, too.
Jeff: But it wasn't very popular in craft beer. And now, like, the past couple of
Jeff: years, right, it's crazy. It's like the thing.
Jeff: So that's like three times.
Greg: It's not the thing. The thing is Hazy's.
Jeff: Well, OK, so.
Greg: Like, if you go to your average craft beer place, it's going to be hard.
Greg: You're not, you're going to have 10 hazes on tap, maybe a lager.
Jeff: But lagers are surging right now.
Greg: Good.
Shannon: Yeah. Definitely have noticed more lagers.
Jeff: They're surging. And...
Greg: I mean, one thing to think about though, is that this is the time of year where lagers surge.
Jeff: No, I mean, over the past like year and a half, they've started the surge.
Greg: I haven't noticed it.
Jeff: Okay. Well, we went to 42 breweries in the past.
Greg: You have a, you have more of a- 17 days. You definitely have a larger sample than I do.
Jeff: So like the thing that got me thinking about this is like, is there some kind
Jeff: of like, what is it that it takes time, but it drives drinkers to prefer lagers? Like, I don't know.
Jeff: That's a little premature to say craft beer drinkers are going to prefer lagers,
Jeff: But like it's already happened twice before you know like in history like is
Jeff: it going to happen again?
Greg: Well All right, so there's a lot of factors here, so I don't know How to answer
Greg: that or how to begin to try to answer it right because I mean first of all I
Greg: think okay Well, it's just a pendulum swing back and forth right then that's part of it,
Greg: also a big part of the big part of the So how big loggers got was the industrialization
Greg: of the loggering process by people like Anheuser-Busch.
Greg: and understand and making that into a commodity product.
Greg: Doing that large scale, I don't know whether it's cheap or necessarily do it for lagers,
Greg: but it's certainly what they landed on and what a lot of, you know,
Greg: the huge scale commodity beers,
Greg: I can't think of one that's an ale.
Jeff: Oh, yeah, no, it's lager. So there's something about, if you take a wide enough
Jeff: drinking audience, they prefer lager flavors.
Jeff: And that hasn't, if you take all of beer drinkers for the last 30 years,
Jeff: it really hasn't changed at all, right? I mean, Bud Light, Budweiser sells so
Jeff: much beer, but like used to sell a lot of beer.
Jeff: It was more of just like...
Greg: Because they went woke. Yep.
Jeff: It was more of, this whole thing was more of just this ponderous thought of
Jeff: like, like almost like, you know, things want to get to their lowest energy state kind of thing.
Jeff: Like, like thinking of that, like there's some kind of trend towards lagers
Jeff: and there's this pendulum and it, you know, goes back and forth and there's
Jeff: revolution and this and that, but it, it seems that maybe it's more,
Jeff: maybe pendulum is a better way to think of it.
Jeff: But it's like, you know, over history, it's at least three times where loggers have like taken on.
Greg: I mean, the principle of least action should come into play.
Greg: It's a universal principle, so it should manifest itself all over the place. So. All right.
Jeff: So now we have fat heads.
Greg: Back to a thesphere. Yes.
Jeff: It is. Yes.
Greg: So, pale, straw color. Mm-hm.
Greg: Let's see, this one...
Shannon: Not as bready on the nose at all.
Jeff: Yeah, this one has a little bit more of... It's similar, it's more similar to
Jeff: the first one, where it has a touch of like honey bread versus wonder bread
Jeff: crust, you know, that kind of thing.
Jeff: And the colors kind of corroborate that as well.
Greg: This one is 5% alcohol by volume, 25 IBU, and they call it a Fesbier.
Greg: They say it's Bavarian style.
Shannon: The Varian style, yes. The Varian style sauerkraut.
Greg: As you said that, I was smelling it for some reason.
Jeff: Yeah. It has, um, it's intensity of aroma is tighter than the very first beer.
Jeff: Um, but it does have that kind of sweet honey, kind of honey bread type thing.
Greg: Okay. So just took a taste. In comparison to the other beers,
Greg: It tastes almost sour. Really?
Shannon: I haven't tasted it yet.
Jeff: It has, it doesn't have the bready body to it. It has more of a cremal type
Jeff: flavor, like a corn type thing. Thinner body, lower attenuation.
Greg: It's probably a little bit of DMS on this, speaking of something else that we can talk about.
Jeff: Corn type? What do you got?
Shannon: I have not tasted it yet. Just on the nose, it's reminding me of the ones that
Shannon: we did a month ago or whatever from Hill Farmstead.
Jeff: Okay Like a saison or something like yes You know, I mean because it's so thin
Jeff: and dry and has a tartness to it.
Greg: I could see where this is It has a tartness to because of what it's missing
Greg: not because of what what's in it. It's missing a malt backbone What's there
Greg: is like a saltine cracker.
Greg: It's got nothing else.
Greg: So So the hops become noticeable and it tends towards almost a sourness.
Jeff: Yeah. Thinking about other lagers, this kind of has a bit of like Italian lager
Jeff: type flavor with a body or
Jeff: a feel, like with a thinner body, the kind of light malt, maybe not,
Jeff: maybe, maybe not like that corn.
Jeff: I keep saying it has this corn thing, but it reminds me of kind of like Italian
Jeff: lager or something like that. It really doesn't taste like an Oktoberfest.
Greg: Yeah, I don't think the corn thing is wrong. I do think like,
Greg: I would say this is very drinkable. If you had this at a bar, you'd down it quick.
Greg: But if you're- It's only 5%, so. If you're comparing it to these other beers
Greg: we've had, it's noticeably less than.
Jeff: I do like the tanginess though. It's kind of like, um, a thirst quencher,
Jeff: you know, the like, if I'm drinking for the session at an Oktoberfest or something
Jeff: like that, it fatheads Oktoberfest.
Jeff: Um, especially if it's a warm, sunny day, that kind of tangy thing is pretty
Jeff: thirst quenching. I could see it having its place.
Greg: Yeah, no, again, I don't want to overly insult the beer. Cause it's not like there's bad flavors.
Jeff: Do you think like a lavender thing or something like that, like this,
Jeff: like it's in the late aftertaste?
Greg: I think it has the hops, I think.
Jeff: Yeah, but it has this kind of floral...
Shannon: It does.
Jeff: Polony thing. Mm-hmm.
Greg: Yeah, a little bit.
Greg: I guess when my expectations are primed by the big sweetness when I get this,
Greg: it feels, uh, so different that I'm, my, I'm having trouble adapting to it.
Shannon: It's because you're expecting an October 1st and it really doesn't resemble an October 1st.
Greg: No, it really doesn't.
Jeff: If I had this at, you know, a brew pub, I would think it's getting infected.
Jeff: And I thought didn't cross my mind until just now now.
Jeff: I'm not sure Mm-hmm, but like if I had this on tap at a brew pub,
Jeff: I'd be like dude your beers infected, you know Low low attenuation that tanginess
Jeff: it it does have all the hallmarks of like a dirty tap line infected Draft beer.
Jeff: Yeah Yeah, fine, but we do have a second can of this Yeah,
Jeff: you think it's worth trying a different can to see if it has a different they
Jeff: come from the same place Yeah,
Jeff: then I don't think so Yeah, probably from the same case so So only if there
Jeff: was a packaging with this can but I mean the seams not popped or anything so Yeah,
Jeff: this what's the date on this guy July 17, it's crazy July, they're canning.
Greg: I mean, that's when you have to have it out for. You gotta have it prepared.
Greg: You can't just, if you do it two weeks before and then there's a mess up in
Greg: your supply for whatever reason, all of a sudden you don't have a beer to sell.
Greg: So I get it, you gotta prepare, but especially if you have a lot of distribution to do.
Jeff: So just kinda, I only posted this in because it's funny, but there's this article
Jeff: about the James Webb a space telescope that they found tantalizing signs of
Jeff: possible life on a faraway world.
Jeff: And the spectroscope found DMS, dimethyl sulfide, which is that kind of green
Jeff: bean flavor you get in beer.
Jeff: Usually, main culprit is if you don't chill your wort fast enough after you're done boiling.
Jeff: Rolling Rock, made here in Pennsylvania, was famous for having tons of DMS because
Jeff: their brewery couldn't chill the wort very fast.
Jeff: So I posted this in the show, I should have posted it just in the general chat
Jeff: so people could have laughed about it.
Jeff: But I posted this in the show notes and then my commentary was they need the
Jeff: chill the wort faster. Yeah. Got a whole planet of people that are making beer
Jeff: that aren't chilling the wort.
Greg: For those who are wondering, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that I do,
Greg: look into when it happens.
Greg: The, the detection was at a pretty low Sigma. It was like 2.3,
Greg: even lower than that. It was like, well, so that's like a one in 66 chance that it's just a fluke.
Greg: And that's, that's too big a chance.
Greg: Uh, and in addition, there's kind of, it's only it's data that's not released yet.
Greg: Cause, cause the James Webb Space Telescope, the data, this team had access
Greg: to it, but the data takes a year for it to get fully public.
Greg: I mean, so no one else did the analysis and it was only analysis through, I think one, one band.
Greg: So I, and, and it was a degenerate analysis in the sense that you,
Greg: other things could be, could be making this signal.
Greg: It's not exclusively DMS that can make this signal. Okay.
Greg: So there's a lot of reasons to think that this is not like It would be a huge
Greg: story were it true But still not necessarily saying that life is there just
Greg: the DMS is there but It is not at all.
Jeff: I think the point where you can say yes, there's DMS in the atmosphere of this
Jeff: planet All right Triggs our last Oktoberfest not our last beverage this evening,
Jeff: but our last Oktoberfest is from trugs and and 6.1%.
Shannon: APB.
Jeff: Awesome. Had this beer on draft yesterday and it was fantastic.
Jeff: So that's part of the whole thing that inspired.
Greg: We went Fassbier Marz and Fassbier Marz because this is Marz. Yes, it is, yes.
Jeff: Yeah, super duper clear. This one has a more brownish tint to the gold compared
Jeff: to, uh, oh, I guess that was the first one. Yeah. It was like, um, yeah.
Jeff: So we went from gold to Amber to gold to dark gold.
Jeff: This is more dark gold to me.
Greg: I, I think that I see what you're saying. Okay. I see what you're saying.
Greg: I'm not going to fight over it. I'm not dying on this hill. It's more Marzini.
Jeff: Okay.
Greg: This is Hillertal Tradition and Pilsner Munich Malts. As Shannon said,
Greg: it's 6.1% alcohol by volume. Smell on this guy.
Jeff: Beautiful. Very bready.
Jeff: You get the breadiness. There's a little bit of that Wonder Bread crust flavor,
Jeff: but there's more malt character.
Greg: Yeah, as opposed to the closed off aroma from, Uh, was it the Helltown or was it?
Jeff: Helltown was pretty closed off and so was the fat heads.
Greg: Yeah.
Greg: This one's very open. and it's got a lot of breadiness to it.
Jeff: I mean, this is kind of right smack dab in the middle, what I'm looking for in Oktoberfest, right?
Jeff: There's a moderately full body. There's sweet, bready flavor up through it.
Jeff: It does dry off at the end, but it doesn't dry prematurely. So you can enjoy
Jeff: that kind of Vienna malt and Munich malt in there. And...
Greg: Another factor we didn't mention though, just want to put in here,
Greg: is this has been sitting around the longest and so it means it's warmed up the most.
Greg: So that may be why the rum is more open, for example.
Shannon: Maybe.
Jeff: It could be. I mean, it was also delicious beer, the two drafts that I had yesterday, so.
Shannon: And I had one too.
Jeff: Did you?
Shannon: I think so. Cool. Okay, I ordered one.
Greg: But this nails that, like you were saying.
Shannon: I ordered a lot of shit.
Greg: That bit of sweet, but not too sweet, bready but not overly yeasty.
Greg: Enough hoppiness to get down but not to at all really influence the palate.
Shannon: No. Yeah.
Jeff: It's this is the trogues Oktoberfest if you are in
Jeff: the trogues market and can get this Get this
Jeff: definitely the best Oktoberfest I've had so
Jeff: far this year and it is are we driving Past there on our way no to me We are
Jeff: going to the Catskill Mountain Maker Camp next week,
Jeff: I know No, we can't, like, drive through Hershey to...
Jeff: Well, I want to talk about that and not your delusional dream that we're going
Jeff: to move to Maine next week.
Shannon: No, no, no. To hit, drive through Hershey to get there. I mean, I know it's...
Jeff: Do you want the trip to take longer than it has to? There's breweries on the
Jeff: way. I got them mapped out. Don't worry. Of course you do. Of course you do.
Jeff: So, yeah, so we are, a couple of big developments, I guess, since the last show.
Jeff: We've talked about Protohaven a lot.
Jeff: Currently Shannon and I are no longer involved with Protohaven.
Shannon: I resigned from the board.
Jeff: Politics and things.
Jeff: So there's that. I was doing a lot of woodturning, you know,
Jeff: bowls and stuff. You got that awesome bowl.
Greg: You want it back because now you need it in order to...
Jeff: No, no, I don't need it back. No, keep it. It's still like the best bowl that I've made.
Shannon: That's why I'm like, maybe you want it back.
Jeff: No. No way. from you, I'll just have to make hundreds more until I can make another one that good.
Jeff: I bought a lathe on Facebook Marketplace. It's a smaller one than the one at
Jeff: Proto Haven, but it's the biggest one that can run 120 volts.
Jeff: I'm happy with it so far. I've spent almost all day today out there messing
Jeff: around with it. Just today.
Shannon: Just today?
Jeff: I've done some other stuff, but all day today.
Jeff: Then got, then I'm like, oh, okay, now I need a bandsaw so I can make bowl blanks.
Jeff: So got this great deal on a— Been a slippery slope. But it was such a good deal.
Jeff: A $60 bandsaw. Yeah. And then I had to put $40 of parts in it,
Jeff: and now I have good bandsaw.
Shannon: I don't know. I came home the other day and there were six Amazon packages sitting
Shannon: there piled up on the porch, but there's been deliveries every day this week.
Jeff: Most of them are cheap, but so been, you know, got my own kind of shed cleaned
Jeff: up and my own woodshop, which is our woodshop.
Jeff: Kind of nice not having, it's kind of like, you know, I was in a significant
Jeff: leadership role of like volunteer organization at Protohaven and it's been nice
Jeff: not having to put that time in.
Jeff: So anyway, there's all of that. And then we met back up with the guy that we did our rings with,
Jeff: Craig, and he kind of reminded us about the Catskill Mountain Maker Camp.
Jeff: So this is up in upstate New York, in the Catskills. He goes every year.
Jeff: So we're going to go camping next week up there, and they have like,
Jeff: on the weekend they And they have these...
Jeff: Like when you buy your ticket you can go and like learn how to weld or Wood
Jeff: turn or all this other stuff. Yeah, it sounds like it'll be pretty pretty cool
Jeff: And then you hang out after the sun goes down seven thousand people going Bring your mushrooms.
Shannon: I'm pretty sure that's what he said something around somewhere around seven
Shannon: thousand Yeah, it's an insane amount and well, it's in new york, right?
Greg: So all the weed is good.
Jeff: Yeah. No, no, he was talking about how um There's like, you know,
Jeff: weed farmers and you're there.
Jeff: You know how like the serving size for stuff you can get like in Maine or whatnot,
Jeff: it's like 10 milligrams or whatever.
Jeff: He had a candy bar, it was a 420 bar. So it was 10 squares. Each one was 42.
Greg: That was like the one that I had, which was 35 each square.
Jeff: So 42 each square Insane that's the medical marijuana any time for like 10 bucks.
Shannon: Mm-hmm the whole bar not a square That's the story so yeah, we might be looking
Shannon: for the farmers up there.
Jeff: I don't know we'll see So that'll be fun and I don't know is there anything
Jeff: else we want to talk about?
Greg: I did want to talk about, so last time I was here we did karaoke which was a
Greg: blast, it was so much fun.
Greg: But I wanted to talk about the game that you sort of discovered and we ended
Greg: up playing near the end which was awesome.
Greg: Do you remember? No.
Shannon: I was three sheets to the wind by the time. It was what? Three o'clock in the
Shannon: morning by the time we finished up that night? Celebrating your birthday?
Shannon: It was a late night. It was a late night.
Greg: But,
Greg: Normally you get tired and sort of lose a little bit, but oh, I remember the game.
Greg: Yeah, I Chose what you had to sing and we went around the room kind of doing
Greg: that What you do is you pick somebody that that's an artist that you know The
Greg: other person's gonna like but is also has lots of songs So they're not necessarily
Greg: gonna want to sing the most popular song,
Greg: but they can choose from the list So they then get to choose.
Greg: What's the song that I'm I'm, I'm going to nail, like, I'm going to love to sing this song.
Greg: So the idea is to sort of give somebody a, a, a challenge in the sense of here,
Greg: this is the artist, find something.
Greg: And, and if they don't find something, you give them another artist because
Greg: you want them, the goal is you want them to have fun trying something that is not common. Yeah.
Greg: And it was, It worked out because every one of us then just was like going up
Greg: and pushing our limits. Yeah, going for it.
Jeff: I wore out my voice that night.
Shannon: Our poor neighbors.
Jeff: I sing hard.
Greg: They're far enough away. they're probably getting here. Yeah.
Greg: We're just paying them off. It was a great game. I told my sister about it because
Greg: she thought it was great too.
Greg: So I think it was a great game to play.
Greg: So if any of you like doing karaoke, try this.
Greg: It's a great method to just be like, to bring out,
Greg: especially if, you know,
Greg: everyone's a little tired or something like that, this will bring out the excitement
Greg: of doing the karaoke and the fun of it because you get people to do a song they
Greg: really want to do not just not the song that everyone's heard before.
Jeff: All right. So our next beverage is nitro Pepsi.
Greg: Nitro Pepsi.
Shannon: Non-alcoholic, I might say.
Jeff: Listen to that.
Shannon: Yes.
Jeff: Fizz and fuzz.
Greg: So this is a...
Shannon: I think I need to rinse my glass for this because...
Jeff: I don't know.
Shannon: Well, no, I really don't.
Jeff: It's like Guinness, except it's Pepsi with a little nitro widget, so it should be creamy.
Shannon: It's Pepsi.
Jeff: I don't know.
Greg: I mean, so...
Shannon: All right. No, it's the Discord. Okay, so everyone needs to know...
Shannon: First of all, no, no, let me talk, let me talk.
Shannon: I need everybody who's listening and is on our Discord, Pepsi or Coke.
Shannon: Just let's vote. Pepsi or Coke.
Jeff: We should do the Pepsi challenge.
Greg: The Pepsi challenge only... I want to know. I believe the Pepsi challenge only
Greg: works because you're tying a little bit and when you're tying a little bit,
Greg: the sweeter things will tend to win.
Greg: But over a whole drink, I think you're going to much more appreciate...
Jeff: Is Pepsi sweeter?
Greg: Yes.
Jeff: Okay.
Greg: A lot.
Shannon: It is straight up sugar water. It's disgusting.
Greg: I mean, both of them were straight up sugar water, but at least Coke has like
Greg: nutmeg and things like that.
Shannon: So you're a Coke person.
Greg: If I had to choose...
Shannon: Yeah, me too. I won't even drink Pepsi.
Greg: I don't know why I'm smelling it.
Shannon: Well, I don't drink soda that often.
Jeff: No, it's all about the mouthfeel.
Shannon: It tastes like flat Pepsi. Why am I smelling it?
Jeff: It does taste like flat Pepsi.
Greg: Why do I want that?
Jeff: I don't know.
Shannon: It's making me burp on there.
Jeff: All right, so Nitro Pepsi tastes like flat Pepsi.
Greg: That's just gross.
Greg: That's just sugar water.
Jeff: All right, Shannon, can you go dump those in our insu-glasses?
Shannon: You bought that shit.
Jeff: I'm stuck here. I'll make- Oh, are you?
Greg: Oh, come on.
Shannon: Fine, I'll squeeze out, but if I make a bunch of noise- I even tasted it.
Shannon: I didn't want it. I didn't want it.
Greg: Wire it.
Shannon: I tasted it for you. It's foul.
Greg: I don't... Like, I get the idea of Draft Cola in the sense that...
Greg: You know you sometimes the fountain tastes better than than I can to some people
Greg: it does but yeah, that's not nitrous That's still carbon dioxide. Yeah I don't know.
Jeff: I saw it and i'm like well, that's a kill That's no, I don't think that That
Jeff: doesn't count. It don't count.
Shannon: Oh, we're not gonna put that on the kill list.
Greg: It's not no Oh, cause it's too easy.
Jeff: All right. So we have our next beer.
Shannon: Well, I'm writing F.
Jeff: Perhaps our last beer. Uh, this is when we picked up on the Sellers Tour at
Jeff: Allagash. This is Allagash Interlude from 2014. What?
Shannon: We're opening that? We should wait until 2024. So it's an entire.
Shannon: Eh. Eh. Come. Eh. Cat. Page is cracking.
Jeff: Page is already off.
Shannon: I'm crying. My soul is being crushed. There it goes.
Jeff: See, I feel. A few months away.
Greg: There it's gone. It's only a few months away from 2024.
Greg: This can't be the only soul-crushing thing that happened to you this week.
Greg: Oh, no. So, here, This is a type of bacteria.
Shannon: That bacteria that they're, wasn't that the one that they?
Jeff: It's a yeast.
Greg: Oh, it's a yeast. That's right, it is a yeast.
Shannon: But wasn't it the one that they actually discovered? No.
Greg: Oh. No, it's a yeast that they discovered.
Jeff: No, they do have a yeast that they discovered. It's called, it's a Portlandia
Jeff: or Portlandias or something. I can't, I have to look it up.
Shannon: I can't remember.
Greg: Bread is what you don't want if you're making wine. Bread is like the killer
Greg: for wine. I don't know necessarily why.
Jeff: Um, that being said, there's a Spanish wine that we've been getting at the liquor
Jeff: store that is fantastic and it has bread in it Which one that spanish tamper neo with the red?
Greg: So this also has a saison yeast in it, are you okay over there?
Shannon: No, it's a freaking pepsi is it Oh took one sip caramel.
Greg: I'm so dying. Yeah, I can still taste it caramel malt red wheat pilsner malt
Greg: It's hops are with nugget and stressful spalt Stressel spalt.
Shannon: What's a stressel spalt? Somebody tell me.
Jeff: It's a German hop. Okay.
Shannon: I've never heard of it.
Greg: I think it's a noble hop.
Jeff: Yeah. It's one of those ones that you see in German lagers that are kind of
Jeff: non-distinct in their flavor.
Greg: Sort of spiciness, not really much of this. But nuggets are strong ones and
Greg: nuggets an interesting one to have in here.
Greg: It also has, we said the yeast is saison and babeniases and the spices and other
Greg: has turbinado sugar in it, which is just to give it probably just a little bit
Greg: extra body, and small portion of 20-month-old interlude.
Shannon: It smells like a really sour...
Jeff: Yes. So 20 months, so that 20-month-old interlude's already more than 10 years old, so... Yeah.
Shannon: Wish... still should have waited until...
Jeff: Oh, it's it's it's not only it's October 2014. Huh. I didn't realize I had a month on it.
Shannon: Oh, so see. Yeah, I should have. A whole nother year.
Greg: Nine and ten aren't all that different from each other. Eleven would be more
Greg: interesting because it's prime.
Jeff: All right, the aroma on this one is a little bit of that funky brett aromas coming out.
Jeff: that there's kind of this oaky wine barrel thing, too?
Shannon: There's a fruit that's...
Shannon: Strawberry, okay You guys getting a hint of strawberry because I'm getting a
Shannon: hint of strawberry hint of something More grape strawberry I'm tasting or I'm
Shannon: not tasting I haven't tasted it yet.
Jeff: Actually when you move on to the flavor It's kind of like underwriting strawberry.
Jeff: Is it? Yeah, really? All right. It's a mix between tart strawberry underwrite
Jeff: and like strawberry lollipop Yeah, so or starburst like strawberry starburst.
Jeff: There's totally in there.
Shannon: It reminds me of Back in the band
Shannon: high school band days and We at the strawberry festival in Plant City,
Shannon: Florida when I worked in the band booth and we made strawberry shortcake Day
Shannon: in and day out for everybody. That's what I'm smelling.
Jeff: That's why I smell the strawberry Yeah, it's definitely tastes like those pink
Jeff: little chews from Starburst. Oh, yeah It's not the only thing it tastes like
Jeff: but it's in there for sure.
Shannon: Oh, it is. Mm-hmm.
Greg: My favorite ones, too Oh, I like this But then it goes a different way Because
Greg: it's it's more tangy than it is sour first of all So,
Greg: um, the Brett is noticeable, but not like overwhelming, but it's giving it the,
Greg: that uh, tip of the tongue kind of thing.
Greg: I don't know how else to describe it, but it's a little bit,
Greg: it takes away the deeper notes.
Shannon: It's very, it's, I taste a lot of tannins at the end.
Greg: Yeah, that's the red wine barrels, I bet. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greg: There's oaky and red wine notes that are all being kind of forced into submission
Greg: by the brett, so you don't get the deeper notes of those. You just get sort of the top notes.
Jeff: I'm getting baking spices too. Like this is running a bit of like a mold cider
Jeff: or something something like that with cardamom and allspice and anise and stuff like that.
Jeff: I'm getting like a, almost like the flavors from like a calculator.
Greg: Well, it's got that turbinado sugar in it, right? So it's got warm molasses. Yeah, okay.
Jeff: This is yummy.
Shannon: It is.
Jeff: I likey. Greg, have you ever heard of earthquake lights?
Greg: Yes, yes I have. What?
Jeff: I had just heard about these for the first time after the earthquake in Peru, right?
Greg: No, not Peru. Morocco?
Jeff: Morocco, yes.
Jeff: So for people who don't know, there's this phenomenon that's not well understood,
Jeff: at least as far as I know, maybe Greg knows more, that like preceding an earthquake
Jeff: or during an earthquake, like you'll get these like lights and it's almost like
Jeff: you would think maybe they're transformers exploding or something like that, but they're not.
Jeff: I guess they're kind of like ball lightning sometimes.
Shannon: I think it's very important to know whether it's preceding.
Jeff: It is preceding.
Shannon: It is preceding.
Greg: It's preceding, but just barely. Not any time that you can...
Shannon: Because of, I mean, if it was...
Jeff: Like, no, seconds.
Greg: Oh, that's a shame. So, and also not visible during the day. Oh, yeah.
Greg: One of the reasons why it was hard to confirm is nighttime earthquakes.
Greg: It's not like there's the kind of surveillance before that there is now.
Greg: And that's what I think is important. And I think that's what we need to do.
Greg: a, you might tend to forget if there's lights and a big earthquake happens,
Greg: you might tend to be more have more important things to do than remember.
Greg: Oh, there were some weird lights in the sky.
Greg: But my guess is this is just a guess.
Greg: This is not anything like that.
Greg: You should take into consideration is like a real thing, but there's pizzo electric
Greg: properties of the ground as it's being compressed,
Greg: compressed, which is going to cause currents and it's going to therefore cause
Greg: releases of plasma, probably like lightning going up as opposed to going down.
Greg: Even though most lighting does sort of go up, but...
Jeff: No, the piezoelectric effect was something I was thinking about too.
Jeff: So for people who don't know, the little sparker in a lighter,
Jeff: like a grill lighter, like the one, either the one you press on the grill or
Jeff: the ones that are kind of wand shaped and you pull the trigger and it goes snap.
Jeff: Oh, that's a hammer hitting a crystal.
Jeff: And that impact on the crystal makes an electric current.
Greg: Briefly, but enough to give that little spark.
Jeff: It's not, I used to think that there was some kind of transformer in there,
Jeff: some kind of, some kind of magnet moving through a coil. Like that's what,
Jeff: how I thought the spark was made.
Jeff: And, um, no, it's, it's a, it's a hammer hitting a crystal.
Greg: You're putting a crystal under stress, and that stress causes the electronic
Greg: configuration to change enough, on a large enough scale, that you're creating
Greg: a temporary voltage difference, which then gives you a burst.
Jeff: So I was wondering and the article I read really didn't get into that part of
Jeff: it But it seemed like that you that's your guess. That was kind of my gut too
Jeff: Mm-hmm is that it's what you don't see it all the time.
Greg: The geology has to be right for it to happen You know and you need to have a
Greg: large amount of stress to have a noticeable things.
Greg: You need an earthquake. You need that kind of stress on the rock to make something
Greg: visible to a large number of people.
Jeff: Speaking of voltage differential, I was watching some Alpha Phoenix on YouTube.
Jeff: Okay. And he did a really neat one about, he used water to kind of as an analog
Jeff: for voltage and amperage and things like that.
Jeff: Yep. But there was one part he didn't cover, like, that I thought he could have,
Jeff: you know, he had so much material, but he made this little water trough with, you know, gates.
Jeff: And when the gate is small, it's a resistor and voltage is shown by kind of
Jeff: the slope of water as it goes through the channel. And the channel should be careful.
Greg: It's water plus gravity.
Jeff: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. But the channel is narrow enough that the
Jeff: surface of water keeps it from equalizing right away.
Jeff: So it helps analog that, but you know, he was showing resistance.
Jeff: He also could have shown capacitance by having a deeper channel,
Jeff: like in certain places, because that would have fit the same way with all the
Jeff: other analogies that he did in that thing.
Jeff: But it was really cool. It gave, I thought I had a pretty good understanding
Jeff: of the electricity stuff.
Jeff: Voltage is the kind of the term that everybody knows. It's the weirdest part
Jeff: of the whole thing though.
Greg: It's the most universal part of it because it's the potential.
Greg: So it is the thing that crosses domains, if you will.
Jeff: But it's also the part that is like.
Jeff: not as straightforwardly explainable.
Greg: Yeah, because it's not, because it requires gravity, first of all,
Greg: for it to manifest in water.
Jeff: Yeah. But having voltage, like explaining how voltage is made and stuff,
Jeff: like a voltage drop over a resistor and things like that, you know,
Jeff: just in electricity is like the other concepts that he covered amperage and
Jeff: whatnot were pretty straightforward.
Jeff: And then like, okay, now voltage. And like, he didn't make it difficult on purpose.
Jeff: It's, it's a more complicated concept, which I thought was real quick.
Jeff: I just thought it was curious because if you went on family feud and said,
Jeff: name an electricity term, voltage is going to be the top one,
Jeff: but it's kind of the weirdest phenomenon of electricity of the core basic stuff.
Greg: I mean, I guess I don't see it as weird, but that's cause I'm,
Greg: I'm more trained in thinking of potentials in different ways.
Greg: But because you have a dipolar potential in electricity, it's harder to imagine
Greg: than gravitational potential where it's just a hill, right? I mean,
Greg: that is relatively easy.
Greg: But to understand that there are two different potentials, and so I mean,
Greg: it gets complicated real, real quick.
Greg: I would not say that I'm at all like good at making circuits or anything like that.
Greg: I know, I know the principles behind it, but you know, my learning has gone
Greg: in a different direction. So I'm not good at necessarily, I can explain things
Greg: like potentials and use some of the analogies, but probably that.
Jeff: Well, like one of the experiments he did was he had some resistive wire,
Jeff: like the stuff that's in a toaster and he sampled the voltage potential to ground
Jeff: to ground at different points along the wire. And it was linear,
Jeff: right? So halfway around the coil was half the voltage.
Jeff: And he took the same wire and he put a resistor, a small resistor,
Jeff: but a resistor at the beginning or the end, wherever he put it.
Jeff: And it's like a dam in a river. It keeps the voltage high on the front side
Jeff: of the resistor and super low on the backside of the resistor,
Jeff: just like a dam in the river. and,
Jeff: I was aware of voltage drop across resistors and stuff like that, but I never saw it.
Jeff: Well, I never saw an experiment with resistive wire. All the wires that you
Jeff: use in normal stuff is very low resistance.
Greg: And when you're diagramming, you usually assume zero.
Jeff: Yeah, because you're only using several inches of wire and the resistance over
Jeff: that copper wire or aluminum wire is negligible.
Jeff: But using the resistive wire and just throwing a tiny little resistor in there
Jeff: it uh it was a damn like it was full voltage like if you were one-third of the
Jeff: way through and you'd expect to lose one-third of the voltage with a resistor
Jeff: beyond it you have full voltage even though the wire is still resistive.
Greg: You should mention here Shannon fully checked out.
Shannon: I'm sorry I have it's I'm taking care of something for both of us actually right now. Sorry. All right.
Greg: So as long as we're doing a sciencey thing.
Shannon: I mean, it's the perfect time, right?
Greg: Yeah.
Jeff: We could, um, we could do the wrap the show and go to the post show and do the
Jeff: sciencey thing. If you think that might be better.
Shannon: Yeah.
Greg: There's more stuff I have to talk about, but.
Shannon: Are we done?
Jeff: That's all the beers I brought up.
Greg: You want another beer?
Jeff: We can do the post show. Then we'll actually keep the show at like an hour.
Shannon: Yeah, well, we probably don't have anything going on now tomorrow.
Shannon: So I'm taking care of that right now.
Jeff: Oh, the, the photo shoots canceled?
Shannon: Probably due to the weather. Forecast is not looking good for us.
Shannon: So I'm letting everybody know.
Greg: Let's do the shtick. All right.
Jeff: All right.
Greg: Well, sure. This does throw this away.
Jeff: Okay. Did not qualify. No. Oh, I wanted to, you can rank it.
Jeff: You can rank it if you want to. You can do whatever you want.
Jeff: There's no rules. The only rule is there is no rules and you have to rank.
Greg: Of course, there are rules. All right. Sure. Right, like that. Kinda.
Shannon: I'm trying to decide if this is my order or not And so first of all Do we Before we start ranking.
Shannon: I really want to know like It's really hard to put this one in there.
Greg: Yeah, I feel like We shouldn't be,
Greg: ranking this alligash against the Oktoberfests because then don't just like
Greg: you're not ranking the nitro you can or you are ranking the nitro you can you
Greg: can decide to not rank the alligash I mean I would say that the alligash has
Greg: an unfair Advantage over the others because well,
Greg: that's that that's not how I would look at it.
Shannon: Okay.
Shannon: All right Well, right come on, but you got to put Pepsi in there The suspense is killing.
Jeff: Where do you write the Pepsi Greg?
Shannon: Okay.
Greg: All right I'll write the Pepsi, but it will not be a part of my fuck Mary kill
Greg: That's that's the compromise.
Greg: Oh, I'm killing that thing It's too easy to kill the Pepsi. I mean the Pepsi
Greg: just sort of dies by association It's it's already dead.
Greg: You can't you can't kill anymore Yeah, okay, so the Pepsi gets in last place of course in,
Greg: Right behind it, right in front of it, just by order, is the Fat Heads Oktoberfest.
Greg: Because it was just kind of a cracker.
Jeff: Potentially spoiled.
Greg: Potentially. And it just didn't have so much of what the other stuff had, all the other beers had.
Shannon: It was very disappointing because I expected more out of Fat Heads.
Greg: Still drinkable. Still, if you had it in a bar, you'd be fine with it.
Shannon: Oh, yeah. Yeah, especially if it was happy hour and it was half price.
Greg: I think to me it's interesting that the two Fests beers rank pretty close to each other.
Greg: I think the Sierra Nevada was the first one we had. It was, it was,
Greg: I enjoyed it, but it was a little too sweet.
Greg: I think it was, uh, just compared to the other stuff, I'm, I'm more,
Greg: uh, a straight Martinson guy.
Greg: So I think that the Martinsons were going to win out for me either way.
Greg: I'm going to put the Allagash in third place. I think it's, I mean, it's good.
Greg: How much did you, do you know how much this one cost you?
Jeff: No, we bought.
Shannon: Too much.
Jeff: I think it was like $180 worth of beer from Elegash.
Greg: It's what, a 750 milliliter? Was that all it was?
Greg: It's a 750 milliliter bottle, and I'd say based on the content,
Greg: it's worth, you know, about 20, 25 bucks.
Greg: You know, probably paid somewhere. Yeah. It's a, it's a decent,
Greg: you get the bang for your buck. I think, I think I was expecting more.
Greg: I was expecting something with more pizzazz with more character.
Greg: This sort of felt, uh, muted in a sense.
Greg: I think that Brett can do that, but you work with Brett. I mean, that's the point you,
Greg: you, if you're going to use Brett, you really,
Greg: should understand Brett so I
Greg: mean I'm missing out on like the red wine barrel stuff I think that you
Greg: kind of miss it um then I'm gonna go with the helltown as the second and the
Greg: trogues in first place the fruit drugs was friggin delicious but the helltown
Greg: was really good too like those that like dark kind of rye-like note was so good, so.
Greg: In essence, that's what I have. And fuck, marry, kill comes later after everybody
Greg: else. So, you know, your turn, Sean, my turn.
Shannon: I can go if you want. Yeah, go ahead.
Jeff: All right. Uh, pepsi last place.
Shannon: It's hard to find.
Jeff: Second to last place is the fat heads. Um, same reason Greg said, right?
Shannon: Take a picture. Wait, stop. Hold on. You gotta gotta get the picture before we start.
Jeff: The picture does help me when I do the shortcuts. So, all right.
Shannon: But I can still talk while you take a picture. Trying to get all the shitty mess in the background.
Jeff: I don't post the picture, I just look at it.
Shannon: Oh, pictures are posted. No, no.
Greg: Some of them are. No, only on our channel. Oh. I haven't paid attention.
Greg: Yeah, there are secret channels in Discord just for us.
Jeff: All right, Fat Heads is in the last beer spot.
Jeff: It had this, well I thought it could be this refreshing hot weather thing.
Jeff: It just didn't really fit what I was looking for in Oktoberfest.
Jeff: It might have been going spoiled. I don't know. And then I'm going to put in
Jeff: fourth place the Helltown.
Jeff: It was a little bit drier than I'm looking for in Oktoberfest.
Jeff: I think that's the main reason compared to like the next place beer.
Jeff: A little bit drier. I wanted a little bit more cracker and bread and stuff like that.
Jeff: And it seemed like it was missing it a bit. it. I am going to put the Sierra Nevada in third place.
Jeff: These are the beers I enjoyed quite a bit.
Jeff: Definitely would want to drink more of that. It had that kind of honey bread type flavor. Dug it.
Jeff: I am going to put the Allagash in second place. Really liked it.
Jeff: Greg mentioned that it was muted or subdued. I think it brought it.
Jeff: I think, you know, you're getting, got that strawberry early on.
Jeff: Now I'm getting kind of tart cherries.
Greg: It did bring it enough, to be clear. It did bring enough to be worth like,
Greg: you know, Yeah, you said like 25 bucks.
Jeff: So, I mean, that's a decent price point. I enjoyed it. Shannon might want the
Jeff: rest of that. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Jeff: I think because it's an Octoberfest show and also because Troves is so damn
Jeff: good it wins the first place.
Jeff: Would it win it if it wasn't an Oktoberfest show? I think it would.
Jeff: I really, it's dead center in what I want in an Oktoberfest. I really enjoy it.
Jeff: Go trogues. All right.
Greg: Now, Shannon, you have nothing else.
Jeff: And you can put your Pepsi in first place.
Shannon: I can? All right. Did you want to take a picture? Oh, yes. You should probably do that.
Jeff: Please, I don't think my phone's.
Shannon: I was, it's right there.
Jeff: Oh, here it is.
Shannon: I was writing while you were talking, but I think we might be the same.
Jeff: I'm not allowed. Change your order.
Shannon: All right, so in last place, if I'm not going to, okay, I'll keep the Pepsi
Shannon: in there, so Pepsi's last.
Shannon: And then next we're going to go with the fatheads. It just, it's not an Oktoberfest.
Shannon: It wasn't malty. Didn't have enough body.
Shannon: it's I don't know it's just I mean like we talked about it,
Shannon: it would be fine at a bar I would
Shannon: enjoy it but I yeah it's it's not what I would expect in Octoberfest so and
Shannon: then I would go with Helltown again I don't know do I have to give you all the
Shannon: reasons I wrote them down,
Shannon: but if you want to, if you don't, don't.
Greg: Um, and then it'd be mysterious.
Shannon: Okay. It is. Cause I, I, I, I liked it.
Shannon: I actually, we didn't bring this up and we, I thought about it,
Shannon: but we were onto something else, so I wrote it down, but I did get a hint of
Shannon: caramel in there that we didn't talk about.
Shannon: I really did like it, but it's up against some good ones. So anyways,
Shannon: next we're going with the Sierra Nevada, which I love.
Shannon: I really did. I really enjoyed it. I love that sweetness, the bready.
Shannon: Yeastiness too. Yeastiness, yeah. It's just very balanced.
Jeff: The top of the can says, family owned, operated, and argued over.
Shannon: Argued over. I wonder what that means. Your family. Yeah. So if I have to keep
Shannon: Alligash in with the Oktoberfest, then I'm gonna bring that one up to the second place.
Shannon: And that's just because the trogues.
Shannon: Telling you guys, if you can get your hands on it, You should definitely do
Shannon: it because that is what I am looking for in an Oktoberfest.
Greg: Make sure you take a picture.
Shannon: Absolutely.
Jeff: They just high five in case it doesn't really match, you know, the bearers match.
Shannon: Wow.
Greg: In case it doesn't, in case the AI takes it out, they just high fived.
Shannon: We did.
Greg: We did. Take a picture. So we have it.
Shannon: And although it's the same, but, you know, yeah, got to have it, got to have it.
Greg: So fuck, marry, kill, relatively easy as far as I'm concerned. The trogues is...
Greg: Marry because it's it's wonderful.
Shannon: You never want to get tired of it. So you do want to marry it.
Greg: Yeah Yeah, yeah Fuck I honestly would say the hell town because those caramel
Greg: notes you're talking about and kill it's going to be well what I'm gonna do is I'm going to you know,
Greg: come on to both the Pepsi and the Fat heads have them fight in the gladiatorial
Greg: fight where clearly the fat heads will kill The nitro Pepsi and then I'll just
Greg: have you release the lion killed.
Greg: You'll have it makes it real easy Yeah, I like it All right for me.
Jeff: I'm going to marry the trogues I'm gonna fuck the alagash And I'm gonna kill the fat heads Awesome.
Shannon: Well, we're- Well, it's yeah- We're the same.
Greg: Well, it's yeah- We're the same.
Shannon: Okay. I mean, I'm marrying Trogs. We're gonna have a menage a trois instead of allagash.
Jeff: I'm fucking the shit out of allagash. In this house, polygamy works.
Greg: I'm killing fat heads but I'm really, really, really, really killing that Pepsi Nitro.
Shannon: We're gonna have a menage a trois Fucking a shit out of our gash in this house
Shannon: polygamy works I'm Killing fat heads,
Shannon: but I'm really really really Killing that Pepsi Nitro Because that shouldn't
Shannon: even be on a shelf anywhere for sale All right, that was episode 513 of craft beer radio.
Jeff: Thank you everyone for listening to the show If you're not on our discord go
Jeff: to craft beer radio calm and look for the link to join our discord Cuz that
Jeff: is the fun place where we have all our fun people and we do fun things with them You know,
Jeff: we miss out and being in the fun place. Do you know?
Shannon: It's the fun zone. Yeah Fans on fun.
Jeff: Yeah, that's going on right the home zone the zombie hot dog beer hot,
Jeff: wait just did a episode on Greg's hot
Jeff: dog beer when he was in town for the world beer
Jeff: cup and uh Chicago style
Jeff: hot dog beer yeah so they're chatting about that right now on our discord I
Jeff: thought it would be a beer made with hot dog water like you get in the well
Jeff: maybe you could make Chicago hot dog beer even better with hot dog water yeah
Jeff: And we got a king gizzard the lizard wizard here on the radio.
Jeff: Thank you Who was it it was Marinus yes Thank you all.
Greg: Bye bye.
Shannon: See you next time.