The Driest January and Cyberpunk Beer

[00:00:10] Speaker A: New brewery goes full cyberpunk. [00:00:13] Speaker B: The driest January is a threat to british pubs. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Find Nemo anywhere except a beer label. This is. [00:00:20] Speaker B: It's all beer. Welcome to it's all beer. If the regular news makes you want to drink, just wait and see what will happen when you listen to the shit hailstorm that is the craft beer industry. You basically turn into an mcs. You're painting, but for chronic alcoholism. I'm Jeremy Jones. [00:00:40] Speaker A: I'm Tyler Zimmerman. [00:00:43] Speaker B: How are you today, Tyler? [00:00:45] Speaker A: I'm good. How are you doing? [00:00:50] Speaker B: I've got word today that they're still keeping it a little bit under wraps, so I'm going to honor that request. But a fairly prominent California brewery is looking to expand into Idaho, so that's going to be exciting. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Do I know said brewery? [00:01:13] Speaker B: You do know said brewery. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Well, when we wrap up here, you're going to have to tell me. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Okay. Everybody else going, God damn. I'm going to get inundated with people going, which one is it? I told him I wouldn't tell anybody quite yet. He's kind of keeping it on the DL until a few things get wrapped up. But that was the highlight of my day. I don't know. How about you, Tyler? [00:01:35] Speaker A: I'm just getting prepared for the gauntlet of events this weekend. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Is February a high time for beer events? I know destination beer was last weekend. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not a part of that. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Okay. Congratulations. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole having to donate beer thing really just rubs me the wrong way. [00:01:59] Speaker B: But that's fair enough. [00:02:02] Speaker A: But no. I have two different tap takeovers and then a grocery store tasting, and then next week have another tap takeover, and then the week after that have doing beer at the McCall winter carnival. [00:02:23] Speaker B: If I told you at any given time that you could either do a tasting at a grocery store or put a paperclip directly into your eye, which one would you choose? [00:02:36] Speaker A: A thousand clips. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Just one after the other. I wonder, because that seems like a vaguely horrific experience. [00:02:45] Speaker A: And the worst part, it's one thing when it's in Boise. This is in Ontario. Oregon. [00:02:56] Speaker B: The only thing Ontario has going for it right now is legal can. [00:03:00] Speaker A: And I didn't even set it up. I'm filling in for my coworker who set it up is dead, and then realized his father was going to be in town this weekend after he had already booked it. [00:03:14] Speaker B: That's dick. [00:03:15] Speaker A: And I'm like, but I'm a good guy. [00:03:22] Speaker B: And what are we drinking tonight? [00:03:25] Speaker A: I'm drinking what I had in my fridge. So I'm drinking a loads of Larry Lager from Stockhead brewing. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Just happen to have one of those laying about, don't you go out and get beer for this auspicious podcast, you lazy son of a bitch? [00:03:43] Speaker A: Sometimes. But we're doing it on Wednesday night instead of Thursday, so it threw off. [00:03:48] Speaker B: My at your behest. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, and yours. [00:03:55] Speaker B: This is mostly your scheduling conflict. Well, mine too, anyway. Okay, fine. [00:04:00] Speaker A: What are you drinking, Jerry? [00:04:02] Speaker B: I went out of my way, okay. [00:04:04] Speaker A: To go get 5ft from where you clock out. [00:04:08] Speaker B: Turned around 5ft. I'll have you know this exact can was 6ft away from where I had to clock out. We talked about it. We got it in. I had to try it. It is the Firestone XPA extra pale ale, a designation I am proud to say has never, ever been used in the history of craft beer. And that sound you're hearing is Tyler trying not to scream while I tell you what. I'm going to take a moment. I'm going to sample this beer. Would you like to fill the dead space with a rant about this. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Extra pale ale already came, had its time, and then converted into session IPA because they realized customers were too dumb to understand what extra pale ale was. So they were like, well, it's kind of like an IPA, but you can drink more without being fucked up. So let's call it session IPA. Well, then that didn't work. Then it became locale IPA. Now, apparently it's trying to go back to session IPA because people had the memory of a fucking goldfish. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Please tell me that that has been a rant you launch into, at least at one grocery store. And if not, you absolutely need to. Maybe on your last day, just, oh. [00:05:34] Speaker A: No, I would run into that if someone's like, have you tried this new style called an extra pale ale? And I'd be like, well, I guess. [00:05:44] Speaker B: Today is the day I lose my job. [00:05:49] Speaker A: If I went out for that, I'd be proud. I'd be like, you know what worth every second? [00:05:55] Speaker B: If you're listening and you want to annoy the piss out of Tyler this week, apparently, go to Ontario, visit grocery stores until you find him sampling beer and ask him about and just remark how much of an innovative style that you find the extra pale ale. [00:06:17] Speaker A: I had someone ask me not too long ago if we were going to do a west coast pilsner, and I don't think my eyes could have rolled any harder. [00:06:27] Speaker B: So as for their pale ale 3.0, their grand reboot of a pale ale, to try to differentiate it between this and an IPA, it's got a very prominent, very nice tropical fruit. We talked about what hops were in it. I know strata isn't among them, but I get like that pineappley tropical fruit, almost coconut aroma on it. That makes you think strata. It's got a very bright citrus peel, like tangerine peel, mango, pineapple. Hop flavor cleans out very nicely with a moderate amount of bitterness. And it's a very drinkable beer. Is it all that distinguishable from an IPA? No, it's not. What is the alcohol of this? He asked quietly to himself. You make it hard to. It's at 5% alcohol. Yeah, it doesn't quite have as much of the heft as, say, a 5.3. [00:07:48] Speaker A: According to their website, this just says 5%. Well, fuck you, firestone. But Nelson, Sabin and mosaic. [00:08:03] Speaker B: I do get that kind of sharpness on there. But again, almost make me think more strata. But it's a nice beer. Is this going to be the beer that makes people remember what a pale ale is and reawaken the style? No, it tastes like an IPA. You can say XPA, extra pale ale session IPA locale IPA. Drink this, you fat fuck. IPA. We should make that a style. It's just kind of a low. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Shove it down your gullet, you alcoholic inbred. [00:08:45] Speaker B: That's a lot to get on one can, but I think we can work on that. But it's a nice beer. While we're talking about things that make you never want to drink again, dry January is killing England pubs news now. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Brits do dry January. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Brits invented dry January. [00:09:12] Speaker A: What? I figured that's, like, sacrilegious. [00:09:16] Speaker B: You would think that seems almost quintessentially american. But no, this actually comes from british tradition. Or by british tradition, I guess. I don't know british from the last ten years or so, but no, they were the ones that. And giving the predilection of our british neighbors for self annihilation. It actually sort of makes sense of any culture. They would designate one month going, how about we just lay off this one month the rest of the year? Balls to the wall, puking in a garbage bin and passing out on the subway or the tube, as they say. But one month, we'll give it a rest. [00:10:07] Speaker A: And then you got the Irish and the Scots, who, if they took a month off, would collectively die from the hangover. Correct. [00:10:19] Speaker B: To be fair, I think January was always a rough time for pubs. I mean, even when dry January was a relative oddity, January just feels like a good time to reset the booze tolerance, like Christmas and New Year's are boo soaked bacchanols that leave your average imbiber broke and hung the fuck over come January 1. And it seems sort of natural to just want to take a bit of time off only to let your liver heal. And if nothing else, just, like, see if you get the shakes. Even if it's just for a couple of days. Like, not drink for a couple of days. Are the DTs hitting? No. Okay, I'm probably good. As opposed to, like you mentioned, like, the Irish or the scotch. They're like, I do not need those pink elephants showing up. We better probably just keep on pushing through this. [00:11:13] Speaker A: They're like, do you want to survive this? Don't stop. [00:11:17] Speaker B: At least I think that's what separates your run of the mill booze hounds from your hardcore alkies. The guys that you run into that make you wonder if you've actually ever seen them sober that look like they have Parkinson's. [00:11:32] Speaker A: And then they take that first shot of the day, and they look like the most skilled surgeon with the steadiest hand. And you're like. [00:11:43] Speaker B: That first one. Be like, holy shit, are you drunk already? And then they have a couple of drinks. You're like, oh, you were stone cold Sober. Oh, mice. Oh, you have a problem. Those people that make you go, I previously would make jokes about myself being an alcoholic, but I need to reevaluate because next to you, I'm a basic. [00:12:07] Speaker A: I'm a nun. [00:12:08] Speaker B: Yeah. It's also hard to tell how prevalent dry January is in our neck of the woods. Reports vary from a shrug and a dismissive comments to the fires of hell are consuming this brewery and everything we've ever worked for. So I suppose it depends a bit on your customer base. I don't know. Dry January in your deck of the woods, what's it like? [00:12:35] Speaker A: You notice an impact. But that's not necessarily all dry January. Some of that has to do with, it's wintertime. People don't want to go out when it's snowing. Everyone got their credit card bill from the holiday season and realized, oh, fuck, I need to stop spending money at the bars. So it's a noticeable drop. But it's not all dry January's fault. [00:13:07] Speaker B: Well, and that's why I said January. That's where I think it came from. I mean, January just seems like a good month to just reset because, yeah, the weather is fuck awful and. [00:13:20] Speaker A: You. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Just spent all your money on Christmas. But according to this article, Magguardian, Great Britain, the situation is leading more toward the apocalyptic. James Tapper explained in an article that pubs are trying to augment themselves while trying to keep people coming to the pub, even explaining, with no small amount of desperation, that a pub is more than just a place to get shithoused and make bad decisions. It's where life happens. The Guardian reports that it is the driest dry January ever. The British Beer and Pub association says that sales are overall down 7% from this time last year, and specifically sales of spirits have declined by 29%. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Oh shit. [00:14:06] Speaker B: Alcohol change UK. You might remember them from a piece last week. They are the killjoys throwing a minor hissy fit about the Olympic pairing with the ab InBev, which put me in the very unenviable position of having to defend the IOC and ab InBev. So fuck those people. Seriously, if whatever you're doing or saying is forcing me to come out and say, hold on, ab and Bev isn't that bad, then fuck you and the horse. Actually, better yet, fuck you with the horse. Alcohol change UK began the dry January campaign eleven years ago, so they are actually the appearance of dry January. You can blame them. And says that a record number of people downloaded their try dry smartphone app. I think an app that would make. [00:15:00] Speaker A: What? Why do you need an app to not drink for a month? Like, how fucking technology dependent are we? We should do fucking dry January from technology. [00:15:13] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure if you look for it, there's an app for tracking your poop. And I don't know, you look that up. [00:15:24] Speaker A: There'S an app to track your baby's poop. [00:15:28] Speaker B: That somehow makes sense after I've had a baby. And did he poop today? Did he poop yesterday? Has he pooped this week? I don't know. And then you find out, oh, yes, there it is. All at once. Parenthood. [00:15:42] Speaker A: All up his back. [00:15:44] Speaker B: Parenthood. It's awesome. Highly recommend. According to a survey issued by the British Beer and Pub association, it says a little over 2000 people they surveyed, 263, or 11%, reported taking part, and a third of those were doing it for the first time. I should note that. Just says that their exact wording were 11% attempted dry January. And if you've been in this business any length of time, you'll notice that a lot of people fail at about January 10. [00:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah, shit. A lot of people fail about January 3, when the hangover wears off. And then I think it's like, statistically, by January 17 or 19th, most people fail their New Year's resolution or give up on it. So dry January is kind of lumped in with that stat as well. [00:16:52] Speaker B: The survey reports, to no great surprise that younger people are far more likely to take on dry January. But there's also been a surge of older people putting down the booze for a month or even for good, along with increasing studies that pretty much put to bed the idea that booze was ever good for you at all. Add to that the UK economy that's still reeling from energy hikes and as a result of the war in the Ukraine and the general chaos from Brexit, how is that going for you guys? Great idea. A lot of people who don't have the money to make a stop at the par. Let me try that again. There are a lot of people right now who just don't have the money to make a stop at the pub, part of their daily routine. So how's a pub supposed to survive a bad dry January or going forward at all? Well, James Watson, an advisor for campaign for pubs, says what he calls low no low alcohol. No alcohol has got to be part of the equation for pubs these days. Coffee, craft soda, and of course, the recent release of several higher quality non alcoholic beer options. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Or hop water. [00:18:07] Speaker B: And know they didn't mention hop water there. I don't know if they're just not worth mentioning in the article if they're not a thing in the UK. It wouldn't surprise me if that's an american thing with our predilection for hops. [00:18:22] Speaker A: But yeah, give it a couple of years. [00:18:27] Speaker B: A big part of the equation that, and we've talked about this as far as the craft beer and landscape as it matures, booze isn't enough, sadly enough, or maybe not, to stay in a business. People can drink at home, and actually, after the pandemic, they've been increasingly prone to the pub or the brewery. It's got to be a meeting place, a third place, as the article describes it, as in a place that's not work or not home. It's a place besides that you regularly go to. It's worth finding a reason for people to gather, whether it's jam sessions or writing circles or even a trivia night, as the collapse of places leaves precious few where people can gather. And typically those other places get rather fussy if you try to bring a beer in. So in the sake of being able to gather with friends and bullshit, or gather for some purpose, make a point. We are now in February. If you've successfully done dry January, I think you should treat yourself to a visit to your nearest brewery to double down February, because it can't be entirely up to that one guy who's drinking. I think he's up to, like 500 beers a year. What's going to happen is just that one dude is going to be responsible for financially propping up every british pub. Well, him, via the money he raises on instagram. People will still be buying beer, but they're not going to be drinking. They're just going to be buying that one dude beer. Who's going to be drinking it all. And that's not a healthy life choice. [00:20:23] Speaker A: It only kills one liver, though, instead of a bunch of livers. [00:20:30] Speaker B: So do you think that might be a better idea then? Just general? Just like have one designated drinker for a population, maybe which. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Speaking of that, one of my coworkers got a text message from one of our distributor reps out in pendleton, Oregon, and it was a note that the retailer had left by the slot of our product. That was out of our imperial IPA. That's 9% in a 19.2 ounce can. And it goes, we need to up the amount we keep here. We have a regular that drinks six of these a day. [00:21:16] Speaker B: Holy drinks. 619. Two s of a 9% beer every day. Again, there are people out there in this world that where you kind of go, do I have a drinking problem? And then you go, oh, no, I don't. [00:21:37] Speaker A: We did the math. It's like seven and a half pints of beer. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Seven and a half pints of beer. Of seven and a half pints of 9% beer. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm like, he's drinking almost a gallon of 9% beer every day. I'm like, that is great for our numbers, but that dude is going to die soon. It's kind of terrifying. [00:22:03] Speaker B: In other happy news, Tyler, what's next? [00:22:06] Speaker A: Well, what's our favorite thing to talk about on this podcast? [00:22:12] Speaker B: How much you hate slushy beers. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Besides that. [00:22:17] Speaker B: How much you hate pastry stouts? [00:22:20] Speaker A: Besides that. [00:22:21] Speaker B: How much you hate new incarnations of IPA? [00:22:25] Speaker A: Besides that. [00:22:27] Speaker B: How much you hate just how much you hate, Tyler. Just the random. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Well, I was thinking terrible beer laws, and when beer laws are trying to. [00:22:41] Speaker B: Get changed, that'd be a close, like 10th, I think. Yes, we talk about them a lot, but I don't think they're my favorite. My favorite is just when I find one. I often pick stories based on how much I think they're going to piss you off and lead into a long rant. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Well, Georgia, their craft brewers guild decided enough is enough. And they are warning state officials that if something doesn't change, breweries in the state are going to go belly up. So if you're like, well, what's going on, Tyler? Right now, breweries in the state of Georgia are prohibited from selling directly to local grocery stores, restaurants and bars. They must hire a distributor for selling to outside establishments. They can sell it in their own establishment, but they cannot sell it outside their building without the help of a distributor. So a new bill is working its way through the general assembly that would change that. They are trying to get the ability to self distribute and calling out kind of the outdated beer laws that require smaller companies to go through. The large distribution companies, usually with contracts that are almost impossible to get out of in some states are impossible to get out of and really kind of limit the revenue that you can have as a smaller brewery because you're paying a margin to said distributor to sell your product, as well as the breweries who choose then to not go with a distributor are losing out on some potential advertising almost where if they sell it to a place like where you work, Jeremy, and someone comes in and goes, oh, what's that? Beer? And you're like, oh, this is a brewery right down the road. They could then go check out that establishment as well. [00:25:07] Speaker B: I don't think that's how it usually works. It's usually of, oh, I've never heard of that brewery. Where are they? Oh, they're in. Oh, and they move on. [00:25:18] Speaker A: But best case scenario, fair. So they are pushing. The head of the brewers guild in Georgia claims that he already knows of several breweries that have decided to shut their doors because they just can't make it without the right to self distribute. Idaho, for all its shitty laws that we have, is a state that does allow self distribution. It is a state that I can't believe. I always have to say this is fairly progressive with its beer laws. [00:26:01] Speaker B: Really. I think if we've learned, you and I have learned one thing about doing this podcast and covering beer laws is that Idaho is not good. [00:26:12] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Idaho is not bad. Not because that there is some forward thinking or some strategic planning when it comes to building the industry. It's mostly because the laws were too archaic to really deal with craft beer. And when it came time for craft beer to happen, most legislators said, do things whatever they want. We don't care. We're really busy collecting money from. [00:26:41] Speaker A: I was going to say. And then they got painted in a corner where they're like, the government shouldn't control enterprise and craft breweries were, like, perfect. So we can do what they want. [00:26:50] Speaker B: And they're like, ooh, wait, you got, like, three old Mormons that would be like, you know, craft beer is a sin. Like, fuck you and the horse. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. But the craft brewers guild in Georgia does expect strong opposition from the distributor lobbyist, but say their bill has bipartisan support, and they're hopeful they can get this pushed through and enacted into law to help smaller craft brewers in. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Feel. I I keep on feeling we should go through and do a survey of all the beer laws and try to distinguish which one. Georgia never fell really on my radar, except for a minor tiff between the. I remember Georgia. Due to how they enforced the three tier system. I believe they were the ones that couldn't get hard mountain dew or had trouble getting hard mountain dew in. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Oh, the humanity. [00:27:53] Speaker B: I mean, that's almost a credit to their. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:59] Speaker B: If you want to see what hard mountain Dew is like, I have a photo essay on our Instagram feed. Go back and scroll through some of those, and you'll see several pictures of a man first taking a drink and then questioning his will to live and then questioning, really, whether the universe should exist if it's allowed something like this. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Oh, I question every life choice that has gotten me to that moment. At one point in time during that, I was like, fuck, I should have stayed working at DirecTV. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Sad state of affairs. You're like, directv? That would have been better than this. It was hell's butthole. But right now. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Jeremy, what do we got next? [00:28:47] Speaker B: Marketing IPA to kids news. Now, Tyler, how do you feel about marketing beer to kids? I assume you're a huge fan. Huge fan. [00:29:00] Speaker A: I'm kind of over the whole super cartoony beer labels that are like, that looks like it's just going towards kids. If a kid wants to drink, like, whatever, I don't really care. It's not my prerogative. Am I going to sell it to you? No, because I don't want to get arrested or slapped with a fat fucking fine. But if you want to do it, not my problem, not my monkey, not my circus. But on the flip side, I got to say, one of the biggest strokes of marketing genius was the fucking Joe Camel from the. That 90s is like nostalgia. Joe Camel is pure marketing bliss. And the pinnacle, because that camel was more recognizable than fucking Ronald McDonald and the golden arches they mentioned. [00:29:59] Speaker B: It was more recognizable than Mickey Mouse. Even the article that I got this, which. [00:30:03] Speaker A: So I'm like, two, shit, it fucking works. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Which I gotta I'm thinking, what trailer park? Where is someone, if you show a kid a picture of Mickey Mouse, he goes, I have no idea what that is. And you show him Joe Camel, like, oh, that's what mommy smokes. [00:30:22] Speaker A: Camel bucks, baby. Camel bucks. [00:30:26] Speaker B: It's funny you should mention that. And I would judge you for saying that you don't. You're. You're not terribly concerned with kids drinking. But then again, I have sold all the ingredients to make booze to people I pretty sure were underage and have felt nothing except for a source of admiration for the coming generation. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. In Idaho, there's no law to buy brewing equipment. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Is there any law anywhere that you can't sell yeast and sugar to somebody? [00:31:02] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure somewhere in the deep. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Mean, because I don't know how you could legislate yeast or sugar. Like sugar. You definitely can't. And yeast, I mean, you could say, well, you can't buy brewing yeast, but an enterprising, individual baking yeast works. All right. It doesn't work great. I don't recommend it, but it does fucking work. So the ingredients are available, and they are available to anybody who's enterprising enough to figure it out. But, yeah, I've also had this moment that you mentioned where I looked at a brightly colored can advertising a jolly rancher whipped cream tootie fruity milksweek dessert sour and said, at some point, someone is going to dig up this whole marketing to kids thing, and you all are going to have a hard time denying that you are not trying to market this directly to kids because there's a cartoon bear in front of it chugging from a jar of honey? [00:32:00] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. The only time I really got upset when someone was like, this is unnecessary, is when was it Ohio banned founders. [00:32:13] Speaker B: Breakfast out with a kid on it? Which is like, a little bit. Okay, whatever. It's not that. I mean, it's one on one hand, you're like, fine, if it'll make you guys happy, but I think you're missing the point. Well, it seems a version of this has struck New Hampshire. This comes from New Hampshire public radio by Todd Bookman. A group of teens are calling for lawmakers to re examine laws around beer marketing, saying that beer, especially craft beer, increasingly features bright, colorful cartoon characters, sometimes even characters that children would recognize. And because of that, they are maybe inadvertently or although you get the sense that the kids are accusing them directly of marketing beer to children. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Why do these kids care? [00:33:07] Speaker B: They had with them several empty cans of beer, including a beer from Concord craft beer. Finding Neipa was the name of the beer in the font of finding Nebo with some colorful fish. And of course, other references to the cartoon finding Nemo. The group Dover youth to youth charged that such cans that feature cartoon characters kids would recognize encourage kids to drink well. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Also, can we stop the blatant trademark copying and infringement and just blatant knockoff of so much intellectual property and craft like that would be awesome. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Danny. Lynn Sommer, a member of the group, said, quote, they're most likely not going to pick something that's a big, boring bottle of beer. Kids go for something that's more enticing to the eye. [00:34:04] Speaker A: So do adults. [00:34:05] Speaker B: First of all, you are adorable, Danny. I'm fairly comfortable assuming that the closest thing that these junior narcs in training have gotten to a deliberate behavior is accidentally being at a friend's house five minutes after curfew only to look at their phones have a panic attack for an additional ten minutes before tearfully calling their parents. Let me put one fear to rest. Any kid that's likely going to want to get their hands on some illicit booze is not going to pick a hazy ipa just because it has a cartoon character on it for no other reason than that it's probably a $6 can of beer. [00:34:46] Speaker A: I was going to say four beers for $24 or 30 beers for $24. I know what Tyler teenage math is saying and I'm going get me two of the 30 beers. [00:35:01] Speaker B: Exactly. You don't go shopping for a hazy IPA because it has finding Nemo on it. You do what's God intended. You pay a hobo to go in and buy you fucking steel reserve if you don't, just smash and grab it outright from a convenience store. Bottom line, a hazy IPA is not the ideal teenage booze. And if they had any or you. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Get a plastic fifth of vodka, again. [00:35:31] Speaker B: You almost had to go. You guys have never done anything remotely like wrong, have you? Again, you guys are adorable. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Talk about privilege. If you and all your friends are drinking hazy ipas to get drunk at party, that's being a rich motherfucker. [00:35:50] Speaker B: But I will say that their point is well founded, if only because given the hysteria that does occasionally flare up around these kind of advertisements, it's a good idea and good business to avoid it altogether. If it's not a local group of board, soon to be hall monitors, then it's some church lady with a bee's nest upper hoohah or some Karen whose husband is banging his secretary to avoid her for some reason. I can't imagine why someone is going to throw a hissy fit. And it's best not to have a product that they can wave in from legislators in some legislators face who needs to drum up outrage about something other than the fact that he's completely in the pocket of his corporate masters. There's just no upside to it. So here's how it works. In New Hampshire. They have a liquor commission and one of their duties is to approve all alcohol labels. And it is within their power to block any label that could induce minors to drink the bill youth to. [00:36:51] Speaker A: What the fuck have they been doing then? [00:36:53] Speaker B: So the bill youth to youth proposed. Well, their idea is basically that. I mean, that's basically what the language says. It just says that you can block a beer label if you think it markets the kids. What youth to youth proposed is adding language to this law that spells out, quote, cartoons in particular, as well as toys, robots, fictional animals and creatures that are consistent with other products marketed at miners should be banned from labeling on beer labels. It would also create a board to handle appeals for rejected applicants, which is yet another good reason to be mindful about how your marketing looks because this of course sets up a whole new layer of bureaucracy that you'll have to deal with as a small business. You don't want these people to feel like they have to step in. Nothing good comes of it. It's one of those, when I was reading this, we were talking about something completely different, but the language applies. You want regulations because this is how you get regulations and they ain't fun. [00:38:04] Speaker A: You want FDA regulations, this is how you get, right? [00:38:08] Speaker B: This same type of idea to Concord's brewing credit. When the New Hampshire Liquor Control Commission brought up the Nemo themed label with the brewer, they had, quote, a constructive conversation with the brewer and Concord Craft agreed to change the imagery, which I can assume from Concord Craft's position was, yeah, sure. We are very sorry we did that. Did we do that? Whatever. Okay. Yeah, but of course another layer of bureaucracy is going to cause problems. If you look at that list once again, cartoons, toys, robots, fictional animals and creatures that might be marketed to children. Go through your local bottle shop and peruse the shelves and you're going to realize a problem pretty fucking quick. Let me put it this way. If those same little narc kids go through our shelves, great notion is not going to be a thing anywhere in the Pacific Northwest because that's kind of their motif. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Prairie came to say great notion is one of the biggest offenders. When you brought this up in my. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Mind, which some of their beer, I kind of go, guys, you are the poster child for this. So I dial it back like five points. All right? But for example, when it comes to cartoons, okay, are we talking about direct references to well known children's characters? Because, a, fair enough. Don't do that. B, like Tyler said, copyright should step in at some point in time. You feel like the copyright owner might step in and go, hey, maybe don't put our kid's character on a beer, you degenerate fuck. [00:39:59] Speaker A: So would pelican, for example, would that violate this law? [00:40:05] Speaker B: But that's a good question. Are we talking about any colorful human like or animal like renderings and holy fuck nuts? Peruse the same shelves with the loosest definition of cartoon in your mind and you end up with a situation like what Cher brewing out of New Hampshire faced even before this law was even proposed, when the commission that we brought up rejected a label of his based on the idea that it might influence a minor to drink. And the offending image in question was a rendering of the co owner's dog by a local artist looking happy with his tongue out. Now, what the exact nature of this was, was it like a cartoon dog? Was it a realistic was. It's hard to tell. But he later appealed. But you could see where this could get truly absurd real fucking quick. [00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:00] Speaker B: To quote Dan Ennis, a republican state lawmaker, quote, the hard part for me is, how are these decisions going to be made? And that is where it just gets messy. And he's right. Never mind about colorful images on cancer beer. What about, like, alcoholic monster boozy Mountain Dew spike, sunny delight, eggo waffles, brand liqueurs? Which is a thing I've just found. [00:41:23] Speaker A: Out about Lipton hard iced tea. Arizona hard iced tea. [00:41:28] Speaker B: The question becomes, where do you draw the lie? At branding to kids and branding to nostalgic adults. And my personal response is that you can't. Adults pining for a simpler time when their lives were nothing but sugar and transformer under ruse are basically as discerning as your average child. So if you're marketing to one, you're marketing to the other. My quibble is not with this youth group specifically. Again, these flare ups happen. I'd be lying if I say it. I'm not a little worried about a society producing a generation of young people who seem perfectly willing, if not eager, to tattle to the state house. But that's beyond the capabilities of our industry and definitely beyond the focus of this podcast, and they shouldn't be listening anyway. But if on some incredible off chance, they or teens like them are listening right now, shut off this podcast now or I will, bitch. I will call your parents and tell them exactly how many times I've said fuck. Okay, you might be skeptical whether or not. [00:42:32] Speaker A: Fucking losers. [00:42:33] Speaker B: You might be skeptical whether or not I actually have your parents fucking phone number. But I would retort, could you physically withstand the parental disapproval when in just this rant, you've heard the word fuck? Two. No, three. I think you've said four times in this rant alone, never mind the rest of the podcast. Didn't think so. All right, I should take care of them. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. [00:43:00] Speaker B: There's a bunch more. We will tell your parents that you heard that many fucks. You should be ashamed you heard this many fucks. Anyway, these hissy fits have happened before. They will happen again. Maybe we should count our blessings. That was a finding Nemo IPA. Because imagine what would happen if these kids found out about pastry stouts. Never mind the labels of the beers themselves that. Well, never mind the beer labels. The beers themselves sometimes seem like what would happen if you gave a five year old complete freedom to make a beer when you get a lacto bomb, chocolate, chocolate, caramel, marshmallow fluff stout. And even without even the suggestive marketing on top of it, it's going to be hard to say that no part of you realizes that some kid might be interested in this. At least with an IPA, even a hazy ipa, they might buy the can. Take one. [00:43:55] Speaker A: Be like, this is terrible. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah, some of those stouts and dessert sours, a kid is going to lap that up like it's the candy that it goddamn is. I'm just saying. [00:44:08] Speaker A: And then they will die of diabetes. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Much worse than the alcohol. I'm just saying that in this frenzy of trying to concoct new flavors and new labels to compete in increasingly crowded and indifferent market, it's worth a brewery taking a moment to look at their marking and say, is this a Joe camel situation? And not like the brilliant marketing way and this is going to come back and bite us in the ass type of way and maybe take another run at it. And the thing is that Concord brewing is not the worst offender. I'll throw their beer label on our instagram. I'll throw it up as the COVID of this episode, probably. But you kind of go and like, oh, there's much worse offenders of this idea that I can name off of top of my head. We actually named one. And the fact that that wouldn't have registered among the top ten beers I'm a little concerned with. That's worth keeping in mind. And great notion. I mean, seriously, some of it, dial it back like you make good beer. You make good beer, but dial it back just a little bit. You want regulation, this is how you get. There's, there's this group of narcs in Oregon, you know there are. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:45:36] Speaker B: Tyler, what do you have for us? [00:45:39] Speaker A: Well, Jeremy, we're going to talk about a new brewery opening up, one that embraces AI, wild yeast and beer futurism, whatever the fuck that don't. [00:45:52] Speaker B: I hate them. I want them to die a slow and painful death and then burn in a fire. [00:45:57] Speaker A: So a new brewery opened up in Columbus, Ohio, called Species X. [00:46:04] Speaker B: All right, now I'm going to go on a rant. The letter X is increasingly being tainted. [00:46:11] Speaker A: Stop. Just leave it to porn. [00:46:16] Speaker B: It's a rather innocuous letter. It was at the end of a lot of words. Not a lot. Xylophone only exists to have a word that starts with x in children's books, okay? Otherwise it's a great letter to end a word with. It's an okay letter to have in the middle. It's not a leading role. Quick. Throwing it up like it's edgy. Cousin of Z. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Well, so if you're like, what makes this brewery so special? It's promoting itself as not just a full service brewery in taproom, but a research and developmental hub for experimental brewing. They are going full neon theme, baby. They're promising it'll be experimenting with AI data modeling, wild caught yeast fermentation, and genetic engineering to brew some cutting edge craft beer. When the fuck did AI start brewing beer? I know they're just talking about naming the beer or developing recipes, but I was like, AI can't brew a beer because they don't have. [00:47:25] Speaker B: So, yeah, the Terminator is only like another couple of years. [00:47:31] Speaker A: But the head brewer, Bo Warren, is launching two series. Bo Warren. [00:47:42] Speaker B: I don't know what this guy looks like, but I can already tell you what he looks like. He looks like that duck fucker we were looking at last week. [00:47:53] Speaker A: But he is launching two series of beers to celebrate tech culture. So you'll have the silicone series, or silicone species, and the carbon species. So, silicone species will originate from artificial intelligence and machine learning, building unique models to generate novel beer recipes with human engineered guardrails. The carbon species will include fermentation methods that are both novel and ancient, such as yeast hybridization, genetic engineering, mutagenesis, novel capture and spore germination. And the article has some of the different beers they're going to be having. They're going to launch with three beers from each series, ranging from light crisp lager to a unique triple IPA made in collaboration with prototype brewery as well as a sour. There's some fun collab ideas going on there, they were saying. Species X is also partnering with John Crone, author, leader, or leading thinker in the field of machine learning and host of the Super Data science podcast. And Jeremy, do you remember platform brewing? [00:49:20] Speaker B: I do remember platform brewing. They were doing their own experiments in mold you to the genesis and unique augmentation of worker platform Genesis. [00:49:34] Speaker A: If I remember correctly, Species X is in the same building. Well, it took over the former platform brewing. [00:49:43] Speaker B: At least they'll have a lot of unique spores to work with. [00:49:49] Speaker A: In one of the pictures, you can see a table with a computer that looks like either code or Chat GPT on it by some of the fermenters. They are serving beer, spirits and wine alongside food. They'll be open Wednesday to Sunday, and the founder actually used to be head lab tech and lead brewer over at Aslan Beer Company. [00:50:22] Speaker B: They've made some good stuff down there, but everything's gotten from them has been like, oh, they did do a fantastic smoke cezanne. That's about the best I can say for them. Everything else has been vastly overrated. [00:50:43] Speaker A: And damn, their beer prices at their taproom? Fairly affordable. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Even with the. [00:50:52] Speaker A: So $6 looks like almost kind of the price across the board, except some of the silicone species are seven and eight. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Fair enough. But the first thing that comes to my mind, okay, so we're in an era where there's actually been a not insignificant backlash against AI when it concerns, especially, like, labor relations. Never mind what happened to Sam, Bankman, fried, and the rest of the crypto bros. And the general anxiety that we've watched, as the likes of Elon, Musk and Zuckerman have said, oh, Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg. Thank you. We've watched their utopic visions kind of crumble into a vicious cage match. Well, I was going to say a totalitarian scheme of surveillance and marketing of every action, and you're going to take the glorification of that and apply it to craft beer. Guys, you are a few years too late for everything you're doing. [00:52:29] Speaker A: I'm like, this just seems like the ultimate hype brewery. Like, trying to be like, buzword picking. And my guess they're out of business in, like, two to three years. [00:52:44] Speaker B: Again, this brewery opening up, or they. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Completely rebrand, changed their whole theme, because no one gives a shit that your recipe was created by chat. GPT. [00:52:58] Speaker B: Well, yeah, never mind what you're trying to do when you're talking about the genetic engineering of yeast, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Imagine how soul crushing that, trying to explain that to a customer who doesn't understand what a pale ale is. What person that comes up and goes, I only like ales, but I don't like any of the light beers. Well, what's that one? Well, that's the one we've crafted. We actually use CRISPR craft nine to take the genetics from a Cezanne yeast and a belgian yeast to craft something. Well, is it an ale? I guess I don't like ales. I only like dark beers, like porters and stouts. Good luck, guys. I hope I wish the best for you. [00:53:53] Speaker A: I don't want anything with an IBU over 25. I'll take that 10% imperial stout. That's 100 ibus that I don't know. [00:54:03] Speaker B: Again, I wish you the best. I wish you the best, because I don't actively wish bad things happening to people who seem to be setting themselves on fire. It just seems to be piling on. Tyler, do you have anything else to add tonight? [00:54:21] Speaker A: Nope, not tonight. [00:54:23] Speaker B: This has been. It's all beer you can get a hold of if you'd like to get a hold of us. And if you work for this brewery and like to explain why us luddites are wrong for assuming that this is going to die in a pile of broken dreams and flames, you can send it to us at it'sallbeer [email protected] or just have one of your robot minions just deliver it directly to us, and. [00:54:55] Speaker A: Then I'm going to walk in that door like the fucking Terminator with just wild yeast in a Cannon, just spraying it everywhere. [00:55:04] Speaker B: You can get a hold of us at [email protected] we have an Instagram where I post some fun pictures and such, including a complete douche nozle having a duck orgy. You can check that out. He probably looks like this guy. What was his name? [00:55:21] Speaker A: Bo Warren. Bo Warren. [00:55:23] Speaker B: Yeah, he probably looks like Bo. Or you know what? Bo Warren aspires to be this guy. You can go check that out on our Instagram feed, which also feeds into our Facebook page. I keep thinking we should do with Twitter or x receive my previous rant. Pretty much becoming a dry hole for us. I don't know. We should probably pick another social media. What do you feel about TikTok, Tyler? [00:55:55] Speaker A: Goodbye. [00:55:57] Speaker B: Are you willing to bust out some dance moves for this podcast? [00:56:01] Speaker A: No. [00:56:02] Speaker B: You won't just go out and get a beer? You won't bust out some dance. I'm starting to have some serious concerns about your commitment to what we're trying to do here anyway. You can pick up the podcast on itunes or overcast. That's the one I've been trying to figure out for the. We're on overcast. We're also on. Yeah, I guess Google Play went away. Was it YouTube podcast for there? [00:56:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:28] Speaker B: And Spotify. You can look us up on Spotify. There's the other one I keep on forgetting. I wrote it down. [00:56:32] Speaker A: This. [00:56:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's some premium level marketing. Because I am on top of it tonight. And if you'd like to, you can leave us a review on our Facebook page, I think on iTunes. I still haven't checked that for a while. I probably should, but. End of good marketing. But that'll be quite enough from us. I'm Jeremy Jones. [00:56:56] Speaker A: I'm Tyler Zimmerman. [00:56:58] Speaker B: I'm going to drink a beer that was not created by robots. [00:57:01] Speaker A: Have fun. 10% close.