Jeremy's Utopic Graveyard of Dispair (I think)

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Ecliptic moves on to the great frontier. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Non alcoholic beers will fucking kill you. [00:00:10] Speaker A: Oscar Blues'Awesome spot goes poof in the night. [00:00:14] Speaker B: This is. It's all beer. Welcome to it's all beer. And I don't fucking care anymore. I don't care anymore. Listen, I am drunk as hell because I went to a bottle share before this recording even happened. I actually did. I wrote a witty intro, but I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it because you should know that this is going to be a rocky recording and make peace with this. Hi Tyler, how are you? [00:00:57] Speaker A: I'm good. This is, this is going to be interesting because I feel like normally I'm the drunk one or we're both pretty turnt. [00:01:11] Speaker B: I would really like to have a breathalyzer for when we've recorded this podcast, but I'm fairly certain. I'm fairly certain that I am exceeding the limit to which we've. Because every other time when you've been drunk as hell, you've driven away from this house. And so either you were breaking some pretty major laws, or I am far and away exceeding the Bac for this podcast so far. So strap in folks. It's going to be fun. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Tyler, I thought the wet lab was a couple weeks ago. Not tonight. [00:01:52] Speaker B: It's a repeating thing. Tyler, how are you? What are you drinking tonight? [00:01:56] Speaker A: I am way more sober than you, but I am drinking the myrtle from Fair Isle. It's a Cezanne with America Gale. No idea what it is, but apparently you forge it in some low elevation. [00:02:21] Speaker B: First. I grow all my gale in low elevation bogs. Where do you get your gale supply? [00:02:31] Speaker A: I haven't been able to track down a good spot, so I'm going to have to really dial in my bog game. [00:02:36] Speaker B: I mean, how do you. Wait, how do you get through a day without your. That's what I drink to wake up in the morning gale being coffee in this. I have no idea. What I know, Gail, is. [00:02:55] Speaker A: Apparently it's a little shrub. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Okay, well, I can't get through the day without petting my little shrub, so I don't know how you are able to do that. [00:03:08] Speaker A: But this beer is phenomenal. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Don't pet your little shrub. Please don't pet your little shrub. [00:03:15] Speaker A: I was going to say, if I see that keyboard start moving, I'm out. [00:03:20] Speaker B: We are having some video, so we are having to do this on remote again because it's very late at night. And I said, hey, we have to do the colloquial term is bedtime recording, because that's when we put our little ones to bed. I had a bottle share. I really wanted to show up to this recording and crack open a can of like, Coors light or Bud light, because I have reached the logical end of craft beer. Tonight, I went to a bottle share to which Sam Adams Utopias was think. I think that's the point where you drink that. You're like, okay, that's the end. I have done everything in craft beer that needs to be done. I can just go on with my life. [00:04:21] Speaker A: I can move on. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Here's what I can say about utopias. If you haven't had it, it's like a port wine in the fact, in a couple of ways. First of all, in order to get a good aroma off of it, you have to blow the alcohol off of it. Because the version I had, and it was 2021, is 56% alcohol. Just having it in a glass, you need to blow the ethanol off of it just to get a good aroma. The aromas are of. Again, port is where I keep on going was where my mind kept on going. [00:05:10] Speaker A: I was going to say, my mind kind of went cognac. [00:05:13] Speaker B: But on the batch I had, again, caramel, sherry, touch of like dark fruit, date and fig. And on the flavor, it's very hot, even a couple of years in. But actually there was kind of a brilliant thing because they poured it early and we kind of tasted it throughout the night and early, it was like fucking hot. It's hotter than most whiskeys, right? So early on, I'm like, okay, this is very boozy. Let sit for a minute. And either because of general drunkenness or because of just the smoothness happens with contact with the air, I started to detect a lot more of the caramel, a little bit of cocoa, the vanilla, and the subtle fruit notes, I want to say, like cherry and fig that were starting to come out. So I recommend it. Go ahead and say that gets our stamp of approval. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Again, I wanted to just show up with like a Budweiser going, and there's no point anymore. But I came with a cherry chuf. The cherry version of the La Chuf. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Because how is it at this point in time? I think anybody who's listening to my voice right this second goes, that man who I'm listening to right now needs an 8% beer. [00:07:07] Speaker A: I'm sure your wife is very pleased with that choice. [00:07:11] Speaker B: She is asleep. The whole thing was she came to pick me up and she was like, are you too drunk to put the child to bed. I'm like, no, I am exactly the right amount of drunk to put the child to bed. So I sat with him. He had a bottle. I had some water until he was getting. I actually thought to myself, I should grab a beer. You know what? No. Let's try not to be so drunk that I am incomprehensible for the podcast. I'll just be like, semicomprehensible. And I think so far, I'm holding up to that level. I think that fine line between that drunk and cheerful and drunk and obnoxious. So that's what I'm going. [00:08:04] Speaker A: So by the end of this, you'll be over that line. [00:08:08] Speaker B: By the end of this, I'm just going to be like, I love you, man. I love you all. Fun fact. I'm that drunk. I'm the love you, man drunk. [00:08:26] Speaker A: All right. [00:08:27] Speaker B: If I start grabbing the microphone, just like, I'm so sorry. [00:08:29] Speaker A: I just want to let Dee know. [00:08:31] Speaker B: How much I value and how much I love you. That's how, you know, like, okay, Jeremy's gone way too far. [00:08:36] Speaker A: And that's when we just wrap up the podcast right there. [00:08:39] Speaker B: This has been. It's all beer and I love you, man. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Just a heart out. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Oh, this is going to be a fun show for me. For me. This is going to be a fun show for me. Everyone else, probably not so much, but, Tyler, do you want to kick us off tonight? [00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So we have some big news coming out of Portland. Ecliptic brewing just got sold. While we were off last week. It was announced November eigth that Ecliptic was going to be going up for sale. The nice part about us being off last week is it basically, let more information come out. They will be getting purchased by Great Frontier Holdings. And if you're like me, you went, who the fuck is that? Well, Great Frontiers is the current owner of NCafe Brewing, Ashland Hard seltzer wings and Arrow Villager Spirits, Mucco Aloha, and Voyage Hard iced tea. [00:09:52] Speaker B: So they own Casi, they own Nkasi. And what you pick up if you're a cheerleader in Eugene, Oregon. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So all production will be moved from ecliptic Brewing over to Nkasi and Eugene. And John Harris, the founder of Ecliptic, will stay on in some capacity with the brand that he created over ten years ago. Josh Landon, the CEO of Great Frontier holdings, also told Brewbound that his company has two additional deals in the works and is actively pursuing others. So we should have some more updates. It really is just driving home the bleak outlook on craft beer and that you got to get through that no man land. So you either have to get bought up or buy someone up to really survive this time. [00:10:54] Speaker B: It's weird to hear somebody gung ho about buying craft beer right now. I don't have a lot of money, but that is not where I'd put my money right now. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Fuck no. And it still amazes me to this day. People will like, I'll talk to people at events, and they'd be like, I'd love to own a brewery. Or, oh, are you going to eventually one day open your own? I'm like, fuck no. There's a saying in beer. If you want to make a million dollars, start with in craft beer, start with a few million dollars, and you get the look of shock and awe in everyone's face. Because apparently people think craft beer is a moneymaker. [00:11:38] Speaker B: We got to realize, I think people have a perception of craft beer that's roughly five years behind where craft beer is in perpetuity. And so right now, they perceive craft beer as the boom. We realize. Scrolling through craft beer news right now is a graveyard of despair. [00:12:06] Speaker A: This episode is basically just recapping that graveyard of despair that has happened over the last two weeks. [00:12:13] Speaker B: I think we're going to call this episode the Graveyard of Despair. And also, Jeremy's drunk as fuck. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Jeremy, drunken graveyard of despair. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Jeremy's drunken graveyard. But it wasn't a graveyard despair because I had UtoPias. It wasn't a graveyard of was. It was Jeremy's drunk on the best of craft beer. And the rest of the industry can is dead. It's dead to me for all I care. [00:12:41] Speaker A: The utopic graveyard of despair. [00:12:44] Speaker B: The utopic graveyard of despair. Okay, there we go. I should probably write that down because there is no fucking way when I edit this tomorrow. All right, here's what's happening right now, because I live in a house with a three year old. I have a rose art orange red crayon in my office right now, and I am scrolling. [00:13:10] Speaker A: All right, buy your kid better fucking crayons, man. I'm pretty sure my wife, who is a teacher, would beat the fuck out of you with a pillowcase full of crayons for buying rose art crayons because she says they are the worst and an abomination. [00:13:26] Speaker B: I didn't buy this. I think I stole it from his therapy, or at least it ended up in my pocket at his therapy place. Anyway, it's a place where a lesser crayon is appropriate because they're just trying to get by. Okay. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:48] Speaker B: All right, so what was the name of it again? Utopic. [00:13:52] Speaker A: Jeremy. Utopic. Graveyard of despair. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Graveyard of despair. All right, look for what that looks like on our Instagram feed or on our. That is some heavy chicken. That's. There we go. That's where I'm at right now. So you can kind of get a sense of the Susan of this episode. [00:14:28] Speaker A: But back to ecliptic. The owner, John Harris, posted on social media announcing the sale with this statement that said, hi All. Our business has really been changing the past two years. We've encountered so many issues that other small businesses have faced a pandemic, rising cost of goods, supply chain issues, and the overall economic climate. It has gotten to the point we are no longer able to continue operations and the company has sold. The sale will allow me to pay back our debts, align the brand with a bigger entity to allow it to continue. Ecliptic beer will still be available in stores and restaurants. I will still be involved in the ecliptic brand and beer development, just not in our current site. Thank you to all my staff, past and present, for pouring space in everyone's face for the last ten years. Super. Thanks to all of you who have supported ecliptic brewing by enjoying our beers out in the world as well as food in our restaurant. The restaurant will be open through Saturday, November 18. So a couple of days after this podcast is released, that will be the final day of their operation. [00:15:45] Speaker B: Maybe it was your almost Shakespearean reading of it, but there was this note in the announcement, like, listen, this is what's happening, all right? Everything is bad right now. And so I'm selling this and I'm running with money and I'm going to try not to make it suck. I'm going to try not to make it suck. I can't promise that it won't suck. I'm going to try not to make it suck, but it might suck. And please continue to drink our beer or not. [00:16:19] Speaker A: But either way, I'm not losing all. [00:16:21] Speaker B: My money, but also I'm taking this money and I'm running away. And thank you for coming. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so it sounds like if you're looking at opening a brewery, first of all, why? Second of all, there might be a facility in Portland getting ready to open up here soon because all that shit's moving to Eugene. [00:16:46] Speaker B: I would think that it would be a good. It sort of makes sense for Ninkasi and friends, I guess, to have a spot in Portland. If you're going to do well, okay, it doesn't make sense yet. It does make sense. It doesn't make sense. Again, investing in craft beer seems like, oh, so you have money. Well, we can help with that. [00:17:20] Speaker A: How much do you want to get rid? [00:17:28] Speaker B: I can't decide either whether it's God awfully stupid or brilliant to invest in craft beer in Portland right now. Because, listen, craft beer is never going to disappear in like, there's never going to be a time. Well, maybe there will be a time, but not a time within our lifetimes where you'll be walking down Portland and not find craft beer around. Unless Portland ceases to become Portland. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Then it's just a post apocalyptic wasteland. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. In which case it's just like strip malls and Budweiser, I guess. [00:18:12] Speaker A: I'm not suRe, but does Incasi already have tap room in Portland? [00:18:21] Speaker B: I don't think so, but I don't know intimately enough to say one way or the other. I shouldn't think so, but they. Very well. If I will say this, if make does have a tap room in Portland and they still bought ecliptic, then this deal makes even less sense than it does on its face. [00:18:47] Speaker A: And the details of purchase price and all that haven't been released. And I don't know if they're purchasing the equipment and the building as well, or if it is just straight up. We're buying the brand from you. We are going to make that brand something in our portfolio. You can do whatever you want with the building and the equipment, but anymore. [00:19:14] Speaker B: A brand is worth less than the equipment. We've seen that time and time again where the building and the shit in the building is worth a lot more than the beer and the person that produced. I'm guessing. I'm guessing that comes with the building and the equipment. Otherwise, again, this deal makes less sense than it does on its face. [00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Jeremy, take us to the next spot in the graveyard. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Non alcoholic beer is going to fucking kill you. News now. [00:19:57] Speaker A: What? Is it going to kill me? [00:20:00] Speaker B: Everything's going to fucking kill you. And actually, that's a lie. Welcome to Modern media. Some questionable news sources have been screaming this headline pretty hard to their glazed eyed audience. And actually, this is not really a story as much as it's. I'm going to try to debunk a story here in real time that's making its. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Oh, best of luck, Jeremy. [00:20:27] Speaker B: Thank you very much. And I'm going to do it while completely hammered. So cheers. I first saw this story pop up on the New York Post, which is like two steps above your drunken, racist uncle at Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. As far as accuracy goes, I saw it pop up in the sun, that being the UK version of that aforementioned rag. Both owned by Newscorp, which is to say Fox News. And both articles reported this story with a kind of energy that can be described as Boomer Glee. Like, they had this air of like, ha ha. These damn kids aren't drinking as much booze as they should be, and now they're going to die of salmonella. That'll teach them. None of them actually said those words, but at least by my reading, there was some pretty hefty subtext going on there. My favorite line was right at the top of an article from the Daily Mail. Okay, this was not owned by Fox News, but it's a right leading rag nonetheless. The article was written by Matthew Phelan, who wrote, quote, anyone planning to switch to non alcoholic beer, as health conscious Gen Z partiers have done in recent years, may find themselves getting sick without the binge. All then claiming that in the next line that nonalcoholic beers provide a fertile breeding ground for bacteria like E. Coli and Salmonella. So I thought it's worth talking about, because we have discussed the rise of nonalcoholic beer, and these stories have a tendency of taking on a life of their own. So I want to take a moment to talk about what actually happened. [00:22:20] Speaker A: You know what this is starting to sound like? [00:22:23] Speaker B: What is it starting to like? [00:22:25] Speaker A: Corona has pee in it. [00:22:28] Speaker B: A little bit. A little bit. All these stories are traced back to a study published by a research paper from Cornell University in the Journal of Food Protection. And at first, listen, this study is very, very long and very, very boring, even for a moderately high science geek like myself. But here's the rundown. They got a hopped beer from Genesee brewing that was less than 0.5% ABV and 3.65 pH. They then inoculated these samples. They inoculated these samples. They fucking inoculated these samples. I repeat that because all the articles in the first couple of paragraphs make it seem like these beers were just teeming with wild bugs out off the shelves, right? Actually, they took specific pathogens and they put them in the beer. Or to quote the New York Post article by Alex Mitchell, this could be what ails you. While food poisoning cases from beer are rare, new research from Cornell University finds that low and non alcoholic beer can be breeding grounds for gnarly bacteria when brewed or stored improperly. Again, not wrong, but fun fact, it. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Would have to have a mishap in the sanitation and cleaning practices for that to get introduced into the non alcoholic beer. And because there's no alcohol, it's easier for that to stay and develop. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Fun fact if you look at this article. So the words from beer in that first sentence are like a hyperlink. You click on that link and you get a post article about the UK guy who drank 2000 beers in a year that we've been talking about the last few episodes. Because famously he drank 2000 beers in a year and died of food poisoning because the last one was nonalcoholic. I have no idea why they linked that article. I think a lot of these people just link articles to make them seem legit and they're just random shit. [00:24:40] Speaker A: People are like, oh, hyperlink, I don't know how to do that. So they must be credible. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Anyway, the researchers took. All right, back to real science. The researchers took these beers, they adjusted the pH to 4.24.6 and 4.8, and then adjusted the ABV of some samples up to 3.5 ABV, which is like the lowest level of an alcoholic beer, right? [00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:13] Speaker B: The point was that there wasn't a lot of research done on low or no ABV beers. Make peace with this. All right? Besides the lack of the boozy booze without the boozy booze and the lack of acid, they both hypothesize, would allow, like you described earlier, contaminants to persist longer than they would in traditional beer. Which is, surprise, surprise, what they found out. Adding in storage temperature, they found that nonalcoholic beer inoculated with E. Coli, Salmonella and Listeria had a much higher level of contamination than their boozy counterparts, adjusting for all the same variables. Ethanol and acid prevents bacteria. [00:26:05] Speaker A: I mean, you can get Listeria from not washing your fucking bag, salad or ice cream. [00:26:18] Speaker B: You'Re not wrong. But what you end up with, basically, is sugar water. Like, if you. You take all the. You take all the. You take a beer, you Remove the alcohol, you're basically back almost to where you started, which is just sugar and water, which is because beer works. A great substance to grow microorganisms. Yeah, if not hail properties. So what does the paper conclude? Well, I'm going to quote Joe Davies from the Sun. The lack of boobs of normal beer making processes meant these bacteria lived for over two months. It means it could be better to stick to your regular pints in moderation rather than drinking non alcoholic beer, they suggested. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Assuming they. In this sentence, it's hard to understand. They use the word they is a word that's doing a lot of heavy lifting these days. But assuming they, in this sentence, mean the people who did the study, that's not at all what they suggested. What they suggested was that beer over 4.6 ph or low to no alcohol are at greater risk. And perhaps there should be some additional food safety measures put in place, both on the manufacturing side and also in the case of draft na beer on the retail side, to ensure that there are customer protections or at very least cleaning the lines. Exactly that. Yeah, some oversight, because there is an additional risk. So they said, hey, maybe someone should be looking into this. And also maybe clean your fucking lines if you're going to be serving an AB or on draft. Now, to the credit of the bullshit spewers that I singled out in this rant, they all more or less went to some version of the truth. The first two or three paragraphs were all Muppet esque, hand waving and hyperbolic statements about, oh, they were all that 90% of the readers actually read and then lost interest in, because words are hard. And they did eventually list out the facts. But that's why I put them at two steps above your drunken, racist uncle. Imagine your drunken uncle after this insane rant and then sort of, kind of like kicked it back with a little. Well, technically, I should probably qualify this with this, this and this. That's basically the New York Post, the Daily Mail in the Sun. My point is, there is some additional risk. There is some additional risk, but any brewery that's worth a damn should already be keeping E. Coli, Listeria and salmonella far away from the brew tank. Because if their sanitation is so bad that those bacteria are making it in, you might want to say, first of all, I want to talk to you about the toilet habits of their brewer. And listen, if they were brewing beer to begin with, they can already survive that environment, and it's not going to kill you, but it's going to end up with a beer that tastes like baby vomit. And that isn't to say that the site doesn't have merit because they advocate pasteurization to make sure the product is shelf stable, a practice I believe is wildly in play. Because never mind dangerous bacteria, the yeast that was already in the beer to make it non alcoholic beer can take hold again and start to refurment. Because, like we said, all the things that prevented it from continuing to refurment are gone. And unless something goes terribly wrong, the risk of the yeast that they used to begin with is a much greater risk than some salmonella. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:29] Speaker B: In fact, I believe that the shoots actually had to stop and recalibrate their na black butte for just this reason. Not for Listeria or salmonella or anything else, is because that their cans were refurmenting in the package and they had to take a minute to like. Okay, we need to look at our process. Bottom line, you hinted at this. To date, there has been zero reports of someone getting sick from nonalcoholic beer. Compare that to an average of 68 hospitalizations and 2.5 deaths a year from food poisoning from people eating spinach. I rest my case. You are infinitely more likely to die from eating spinach than drinking nonalcoholic beer. [00:31:35] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:31:36] Speaker B: Or from drinking just beer in general. So I guess what I'm saying is beer is healthier than spinach. There, I said it. That's where I was going with all this. [00:31:47] Speaker A: That spinach being healthy is just one giant conspiracy. Got it. [00:31:54] Speaker B: That's why I was going with that. Yeah, the spinach conspiracy. Tyler, what do you. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Conspiracy. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Oh, Lord, that was a hard thing to get through. I wrote that all out and I'm like, I use a lot of big words that I should not use while I'm drunk. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Well, we are hopping down to New Orleans to continue this really just misery of beer. FUBAR. Fuck. I butchered that name. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Say what? [00:32:36] Speaker A: FUBaRd that name. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Have you been drinking too, Tyler? Have you had utopias? [00:32:43] Speaker A: I have not had Utopia. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Are you stone cold sober? Because that would be a tragedy at this point in time. [00:32:52] Speaker A: I was going to say I am very sober. Faux Board Brewing, formerly known as Dixie Brewing, is going to be ceasing their operations at its Jordan Road facility in New Orleans East. They are set to cease brewing and packaging operations there because they are unable to meet the company's current production demands from the majority owner and operator made by the Water LLC, which is an Alabama based company that will be moving basically all the production of them to their Alabama facilities made by the water and still keeping the headquarters in New Orleans. They are looking for a new spot in New Orleans, but right now they need to basically pull their production to a facility that can handle it. And currently they don't have a spot in New Orleans for that. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Too much or too little? [00:34:26] Speaker A: The article doesn't really get into that. [00:34:29] Speaker B: Outside of it. It almost sounds like too little from their parent company, but too much from the fact that they need a new facility. [00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm almost wondering if the spot is just maybe out of date and they need to kind of pull it in house. They're not producing enough to justify using that space. But, yeah, reading through the article, I was, huh? Because it says, made by the water has reached a point where the brewing facility in the New Orleans east cannot meet the current demands of our family of breweries. While our first preference was to expand the brewery operations at our current facility, unfortunately, despite our best efforts of those local stakeholders, that is not feaSible. So it almost seems like they're not producing. They need more production facilities for all the other beers in their portfolio outside of the brewery formerly known as because. But Dixie's production has basically went the. [00:35:55] Speaker B: We need the tank space for any other beer besides you. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Yes. And so basically, we don't want to have you guys brew all our beer and then ship it back to Alabama. So we're just going to shut this spot down and try to find a new spot, I guess. [00:36:16] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:36:17] Speaker A: Which I'm like, I feel like this brewery has really gone through the wringer. I mean, they changed their name in 2020 due to the negative connotations of the name Dixie. They have basically went from being a sole ownership of Miss Gail Benson to now part of made by the water, and now seems like their production is not meeting what it currently needs to meet to stay afloat. [00:36:58] Speaker B: Remind me, did you have Dixie or were you seeking out Dixie while you were there? [00:37:03] Speaker A: Oh, I drank the fuck out of Dixie while I was down there. [00:37:06] Speaker B: And is it a beer worth saving? [00:37:10] Speaker A: I mean, it is a cheap domestic lager, basically. [00:37:20] Speaker B: Yes. To you, that is your bread and butter. [00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it was good. It was nothing to write home about. If I could get it here in town, I probably wouldn't drink it. But if I went back to New Orleans, I'd probably order it at a bar or grab a six pack and walk down the street. It is basically a worse version of. [00:37:46] Speaker B: Yingling if you had to put it on the spectrum of the shitty beer that we had almost a year ago. Exactly. With Papst at the high end and Budweiser at the low end. Obviously not actually sampling it with the rest of beer. Where do you think you would put it? [00:38:10] Speaker A: Probably meaty part of the bell curve, maybe upper meaty part. [00:38:15] Speaker B: So somewhere like around high life. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Yeah, between high life and Ice house. Because I feel like ice House was, like, dead center. [00:38:29] Speaker B: I believe that's correct, yes. [00:38:32] Speaker A: The high life to Ice house, which. That statement right there in the. Just taken out of context. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Listen. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Is a statement. [00:38:44] Speaker B: The number two was natural ice. And I don't think there is enough Dixie to wash the shame from either of us for having picked that as our number two. Unanimously. We're in this together. [00:39:02] Speaker A: I was proud of that. [00:39:06] Speaker B: So, all right, so better than average, but not. [00:39:13] Speaker A: Yeah, better than average, but it wasn't. [00:39:20] Speaker B: You're not going down to New Orleans and strap yourself to the brewery and like, out of my cold, dead hands. [00:39:28] Speaker A: Fuck no, we won't go. [00:39:32] Speaker B: Probably not. [00:39:33] Speaker A: They'd be like, who is this guy? [00:39:36] Speaker B: Who is this Yankee who's like, chained himself to the fire hydrant outside the brewery? [00:39:42] Speaker A: Yeah. But, yeah, I'm like, oh, that sucks. Hopefully they keep producing there in New Orleans to kind of keep that history and that brand still going in New Orleans and be kind of that little tourist attraction. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Interesting that you're sort of nostalgic about Dixie or what is it called now. [00:40:12] Speaker A: They changed. Yeah, Faubourne or fuck, I got to look at the pronunciation again. [00:40:21] Speaker B: Anyway, you're sort of waxing nostalgic about that, but you're like anchor steam. [00:40:27] Speaker A: Fuck that. [00:40:28] Speaker B: I hope it dies in a fire. [00:40:31] Speaker A: Well, it's not like this is going out of business. It's still going to be produced and just not in New Orleans. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. [00:40:38] Speaker A: So if Sapporo was still going to keep the anchor brand and just close down the San Francisco production facility, I would have been like, that's fucked up. So Foeberg. Foeberg, Foeberg. Named after the Foeberg Maroni neighborhood in New Orleans. [00:41:05] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:41:10] Speaker A: But yeah, so it's a little different. If they were just like, yeah, we're killing the brand. I'd be like, okay, fucking let it die. [00:41:20] Speaker B: Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. [00:41:23] Speaker A: No, it is different. Also, we've discussed at length, I have a soft spark for shit. Uh, Jeremy, you gotta keep making it rain. With bad news. [00:41:39] Speaker B: Brewery pulls a disappearing act. News now. Craft beer fans in Austin, Texas were left a little baffled this week as one day the Oscar Blues tap room just closed. I get the impression that one day they were slinging beer and just being a tap room in Austin, it's like throwing out some Dales and some old chub and then gone. An indication of how abrupt and this shuddering was came from the Eater Austin magazine by Nadia Chaunceley. This week, the headline read, quote, Oscar Blue seems to have closed their Austin location. They mentioned that the website for the tap room didn't exist anymore, nor does its Instagram, and its phone number was just disconnected. The Austin American Statesman noted that the only social media announcement didn't actually come from the brewery itself. But rather several people that posted a picture on the door that reads, quote, we have enjoyed being a part of the awesome craft beer and music community and we thank everyone later. We thank everyone who supported our business along the way. If you're still interested in finding our beer, it remains available at retailers across the state of Texas. This closing, abrupt as it was, follows several breweries in the area that have closed down as Austin proves to be a market that's hard for a tap room to maintain. Thirsty Planet, they close in August, circle brewing in September, Albert's. They closed a little bit last year, though Cave in Austin talked to another brewery owner that set up shop on the same road as the former Oscar Blues. Bobby Mullins, the owner of Sillas Brewing told Caveview, quote, Things are going well. We're seeing things kind of moving in an upward motion. Things could always be better, but we're hopeful. He did mention a national trend of people leaning towards spirits and wine, and that is very much holding in Austin. All the news agencies I mentioned tried to contact Oscar Blues, but they weren't in the mood of talking. I guess they never got a response. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Or were very dude, I am just imagining. Every craft beer person has joked like, one day we're going to show up to the brewery, the locks are going to be different. There's going to be a note on the door that says, Sorry, no longer in business. See you later. And that is how I'm imagining, like, they didn't even tell the employees and we're just like, change the locks, threw a note on the door, and we're like, see you guys. [00:44:30] Speaker B: There might be some people of Moscow blues running with a duffel bag full of money to Mexico. I'm not sure I was entranced because there was so little information about a brewery of this size. Like, you kind of expect this of a brewery you've never heard of, but Oscar blues, just like sort of like running off in the middle of the night. That was enchanting and sort of indicative of where we are today. And that is about all there is on that story. [00:45:04] Speaker A: But if I saw correctly on Beer Twitter, their Asheville, North Carolina and Longmont, Colorado locations are still open for the moment. [00:45:17] Speaker B: If what we just saw is any indication, that could just change tomorrow, overnight. Yeah, again, note on the door. And so I guess if you live near an Oscar blues tap room, go say hi to them because they might not be there tomorrow. Tyler, what do you have? Everything you love will die. All existence is futile. Everything that exists will soon end. Namaste. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Well, a bright spot in the craft beer world right now. Coming out of Denver, husband and wife team Damien Zuwani and Jessica French had a great idea when they open Oakwell beer Spa, formerly known as just the beer Spa, in Denver, Colorado. Now they are opening a second location that'll open in the fall of next year in the Highlands Ranch area. If you live in Denver, I'm sure that means something to you. The biggest thing that caught me off guard with this article was, there's a beer spar in Denver. And then I was like, I mean, it makes sense that there's one in Denver, but I wish I would have known that. [00:46:40] Speaker B: I would have went to it if there was any place in the country where the words beer spa would be a physical location. Yeah, Denver. Or I'd say San Diego would be. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Yeah, Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, maybe. [00:46:59] Speaker B: Like, somewhere on the East Coast. But it'd be a weird. Yeah, I was just about to say Asheville. Maybe they're. But otherwise. Yeah, that's not a thing that anywhere else. That's a Communist plot. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Yeah. But I'm like, I would love to go sit in a giant hot tub of beEr, drinking a beer, and get. [00:47:24] Speaker B: A hot, pampered light like that. You're soaking in beer while you're drinking beer because that seems superfluous. Superfluous. [00:47:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:30] Speaker B: There is a word like that. [00:47:33] Speaker A: They have two person beer therapy tubs that look like a giant hot tub full of nice, frothy, warm beer. [00:47:42] Speaker B: That's a lot. They fill a hot tub full of beer that you then dip in, and you come out smelling like. Listen, I think I can say over. It's probably. I have yet to look. Almost 150 episodes of a podcast called It's All Beer. So I think I have my credentials on that. I like beer well, in line, as you do, but I don't want to smell like I've been soaking in beer. [00:48:19] Speaker A: Apparently, it's supposed to be great for your skin. Like, you shower afterwards. [00:48:25] Speaker B: I have soaked in beer for 40. Well, not 40. Like 22 years. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Yeah, from the inside out, Jeremy. [00:48:36] Speaker B: And this is what I look like. Okay, I'm not saying I'm bad looking, but is not. This is not the result of a hell spa. [00:48:46] Speaker A: Neither is this. But I'm like, next time I'm in Denver, I need to go so I can be pampered like the prince I am. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Get a Manny petty in an IPA. [00:49:06] Speaker A: Hey, I want to sit in a tub full of beer, drinking beer, playing around, split, splashing like I am my toddler, playing in the bathtub with rubber ducky and all, but they opened in 2021. They have a bar on site that features a rotating tap list of local beers. It changes every month. And the brewery featured also affects the ingredients in the giant soaking bomb used to infuse the two person tub in the treatment room. You don't have to book a room in order to come in and enjoy a beer or a glass of wine or kombucha or hard cider. [00:49:56] Speaker B: Why would you soak in a tub of beer and have a kombucha? [00:50:01] Speaker A: Dude, I don't know. Kombucha sucks by itself. [00:50:04] Speaker B: I mean, what I'm hearing is you and I need a couple spa day. [00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah. There's also a zero gravity massage chair. Sounds phenomenal. But the reason they're opening a second location is they noticed and started noticing the data and talking to some of their visitors that a lot of their visitors were from the Highland Ranch area, which apparently is pretty far. Drive about 45 minutes. And especially if you're going to this, having a few beers and going to Uber home, it was really beer. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Because even if you have not had anything to drink, if you've been soaking in beer for like 30 minutes and starting to drive home, you're going to. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Get a woo woo woo. [00:50:58] Speaker B: This car smells like beer. No, sir, it's a spa. Get out of the car. [00:51:05] Speaker A: Sir. Have you been drinking? No, just been at the spa. [00:51:09] Speaker B: You're going to get an ass whooping. But I've been soaking in a bathtub full of beer. [00:51:18] Speaker A: They'd be like, you are an alcoholic. [00:51:24] Speaker B: But I didn't drink of it. I'm just soaking in it. [00:51:28] Speaker A: But because of the long distance, they weren't seeing these people as frequently. So hoping that with the new spot, they're able to make them regulars at the other spot where they can walk or have just a short drive to get there and be able to come hang out, be a regular. [00:51:49] Speaker B: I'm a drunk, as I've demonstrated tonight, but I'm trying to imagine being a regular at a beer spa. [00:51:57] Speaker A: You know, you would be. [00:51:59] Speaker B: I'm not saying I wouldn't. I'm trying to imagine it. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So the new spot is going to have an 867 square foot patio. The inside total is about 3400 sqft. They will have four beer therapy rooms as well as 50 gravity massage chairs. The thing I'm wondering, if you're sitting in one of those massage chairs drinking a pint and you fall asleep because you're so relaxed, are they going to cut you off thinking you're drunk. [00:52:34] Speaker B: Listen, this sounds like rich people, and they don't ever cut rich people off. [00:52:40] Speaker A: True. [00:52:41] Speaker B: They give you a mansion and let you do whatever you want there. Like, you can have sex with planes and you can demand eggs from endangered or extinct species and smash them on your face and go, that's what rich people do, as far as I understand. [00:53:07] Speaker A: And one final note on the new location. The tubs are going to be bigger. They're going to be three people tubs, not just two people tub. So threesome. [00:53:21] Speaker B: All right. [00:53:22] Speaker A: Life. No, Jerry, we need to open our own beer spa here in Boise. [00:53:26] Speaker B: Life goals. A threesome in a beer tub. I think that's not suggesting a. I'm not suggesting a threesome with us in a beer tub, but I'm also not. Not. Which of our wives is more open minded. [00:53:47] Speaker A: I think both of them are going to tell us to fuck off, in. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Which case they have fun with each other, and we just watch and, yeah, jerk off in the beer tub. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Just walk out and you're like, think you're going to need to drain that tub. [00:54:09] Speaker B: Oh, that. Yeah, that went back. [00:54:12] Speaker A: And they're like, sir, we know we have cameras in there. [00:54:17] Speaker B: You're not the first ones. It's actually about like 30% jizz. [00:54:25] Speaker A: Jeremy, what do we got next? [00:54:28] Speaker B: AB Inbev works with Congress News. Now. This comes from Americancraftbeer.com and NPR. Turns out there is a beer competition wherein Anheuser Bush invites Republican representatives and Democrat representatives to work together as a team and fight to the death, if only. You know what? That would be a better end of this story. I would absolutely would rather see that. And then we get to. Well, I mean, ideally, they fight to the death and we take the winner and we shoot them in the head and we start from scratch. But that's not what's happening. They work together as a team to make a beer inspired by the flavors from their home districts in effort to win the, quote, Democracy Cup. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Now, if only they could do that to keep this actual democracy going. Yeah. Or country running and get a budget passed. [00:55:41] Speaker B: They're not going to shut down the government. They did figure that'd be a bad idea at this point in time. [00:55:47] Speaker A: The extension they had comes up due on Friday, actually. [00:55:51] Speaker B: I think I just read that they just passed something to that fixes that. But while this whole shut down the government thing was happening from about September to now, this is what they were doing with their spare time. So just keep that in mind also. Listen, I'm just going to go ahead and say this. I don't care what your proclivities are. Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative. Here's the problem. You keep voting these people in, okay? When you go to the polls, whoever has been in office, and I don't care what party they are, vote them the fuck out because that's the only way they're ever going to learn. But that's neither here nor there. So anyway, these people who have been holding this job, they go to Ab InBev or they go to an Ab InBev facility and they work together with the head brewer to create a recipe. And the winners this year were Mike Carey, Republican from Ohio, and Jimmy Pantea, a Democrat from California, for their bipartisan brew, thus demonstrating their keen congressional wit and creativity. Now, I looked for a while. I couldn't find any descriptions of any of these beers. They were just names. All right? I couldn't find what they were. I couldn't find what was in them. I couldn't find what they tasted like. I could only find what the names were. Again, Congress demonstrating their ability to say that they're doing something but failing to produce any actual, tangible evidence of it. I did enjoy a couple of names, however. Brad Schneider, Democrat, Illinois, and Kevin Horn, Republican, Oklahoma, gathered at Goose island to brew the Gip and Tip Pilsner, which, yeah, I've been gipped and tipped by Congress. How about you? [00:57:58] Speaker A: Every month when I look at my. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Paycheck, Patrick McHenry, Republican, North Carolina, and Deborah Ross, Democrat, North Carolina, got philosophical, wicked weed for the to be rather to seem. Go ahead. [00:58:16] Speaker A: I hate them so much. [00:58:17] Speaker B: Take a minute with that. Stephanie Bice, Republican, Oklahoma, and Sean Caston, Democrat from Illinois, went to Oklahoma City to the Oklahoma City lid plant. That's the name they gave on the website. They said lid plant. So they brewed the. Okay, I'll drink to that. Which, because they're Oklahoma, okay. And Democrat, Illinois. Okay, listen, they're probably still, like, knocking them dead in the halls with that edgy humor. Over. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's only interns laughing, being ha. Please pay me. [00:59:07] Speaker B: And to put a little bow on it, my new favorite public speaker of all time, Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Anheuser Bush, said, quote, as a company, we're committed to being there for the moments that matter. Through brew across America, congressional brewing, we are honored to invite lawmakers to raise a glass over meaningful conversations and invite common ground while giving back to the communities we serve and the charities that support our nation's veterans and first responders. I don't know if Brendan has always just peppered everything he says with references to troops or first responders or it's just a nervous habit he's developed over the past, I don't know, six months. But I'd like to imagine if I went to talk to him, cracked open a beer, and got him talking, the conversation would go something like this. Hey, Brendan, how's the beer? This beer is really good. It's smooth and clean, like America, with troops and first responders and first responders responding to troops and both loving America. [01:00:12] Speaker A: America. America. Troops. America. America. Troops. America. America. [01:00:15] Speaker B: I have to go now. Goodbye. [01:00:17] Speaker A: I was going to say, and then sparks start coming out of his neck because he's short circuiting. Yeah, his face starts to melt like a robot. Yeah. [01:00:33] Speaker B: I guess what I'm saying is, on a wider and probably perhaps a purview of this podcast, if you are insanely dedicated to one or the other parties, don't. You're dumb and you're being manipulated. Vote them all out of office. They're fucking awful. And second, it's all ridiculous. So have a beer. [01:01:03] Speaker A: Oh, a giant reality show for aliens, and we just got to hope we don't get canceled. [01:01:11] Speaker B: Well, you know what? I feel like we're really ramping it up for a good season finale next year. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Fuck. Right again. [01:01:21] Speaker B: Perhaps beyond the purview of this podcast, but I suppose if you're not talking about it, you're probably insane anyway. Tyler, do you have anything else to add? [01:01:35] Speaker A: Nope. That about does it for me. [01:01:38] Speaker B: This has been. It's all beer. And I think, Tyler, you're more or less sober. Have I made it through this episode relatively intact? [01:01:47] Speaker A: You made it relatively intact. One of the engines on the plane is sputtering, but we can get this down without the oxygen mass dropping from the overhead compartment. [01:02:00] Speaker B: Of all the things that came out of my face, how much of it made any sense? [01:02:05] Speaker A: Like 75%. [01:02:07] Speaker B: That's about average, actually. I think I'll take that. This has been. It's all beer. If you want to see, I've been throwing a bunch of pictures on Instagram. You can see I'm actually kind of proud of the photo essay that I posted in lieu of. No, that was a video I posted in lieu of an episode last week. But I did put a photo essay that I'm kind of proud of. Tyler. Tasting a hard Mountain Dew for the first time. And again, it's kind of an epic. It was a human study in revulsion and confusion. And why was this allowed? [01:02:49] Speaker A: I also know people who have had it. And we're like, this is pretty good. Tastes just like Mountain Dew. And I'm like, what is wrong with your taste buds? [01:02:57] Speaker B: You can find those pictures on our Instagram feed, on our Facebook if you want to get a hold of us and try to do anything besides sell us penis enlargement things. That's about all the emails. [01:03:10] Speaker A: They're not working. [01:03:12] Speaker B: Tyler buys them. No, Tyler is. I forward all the penis enlargement things you send us to Tyler and he tries them. [01:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, those are the sponsors of our true. [01:03:26] Speaker B: I mean, okay. One of them is responsible for Parker, and we're not going to say who. We're going to leave that up to a surprise on her 18th birthday. Which male enhancement drug is responsible for your existence? Surprise. God help either of our children if they find this. You can leave us a rating, I guess. I always like plug a rating, but I'm not sure that you can leave us rating on Facebook. I know that you can leave us rating on iTunes. You should do that. I'm not sure if it has any effect. We seem to be pretty good otherwise, but yeah, sure, let us know. You should probably say, Jeremy, you are not allowed to do another episode this drunk. Or conversely, you should say, Jeremy, you are not allowed to do a episode sober ever again because this was the best episode you've ever done. [01:04:34] Speaker A: There you go. [01:04:35] Speaker B: This is the Jeremy we were hoping for. Like slurry completely in the weeds, randomly political. I think I got a little more political than I probably do. Although I do often call for the death of billionaires, so maybe I might be exactly right amount of political. But again, right now, demonstrating my ability to get off into the weeds. So I guess I'll leave it up to you, the listener, to decide how you know what. Send in your preferred ABV or VAC for both your hosts. [01:05:13] Speaker A: Where you would. [01:05:14] Speaker B: Like to see us aim at at any given time. [01:05:18] Speaker A: That'll be quite enough from us. I'm Jeremy Jo. I'm Tyler Zimmerman. [01:05:23] Speaker B: I'm going to go to sleep. [01:05:26] Speaker A: Have fun. [01:05:31] Speaker B: We did not talk about it next week. Are we doing an episode? [01:05:38] Speaker A: No, since it's Thanksgiving. [01:05:40] Speaker B: All right, let's do another quick outro. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Where we say that. [01:05:51] Speaker B: All right, that'll be quite enough from us. I'm not going to have another beer. I'm going to go to sleep. But we are off next week because of Thanksgiving. So happy Turkey Day, and yeah, bye. [01:06:07] Speaker A: Have fun, and enjoy your drunk family members trying to talk politics like Jeremy. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Next week, play this podcast for the. [01:06:15] Speaker A: Battle that will help.