Podcast 33: Danksgiving!

Jake and Nick hold down the weekly episode.

Jake gives us a run down of his adventures in beer collecting.

Nightshift (Everett, MA) was up first. Jake had a weird experience while getting to-go beers. He’s still making up his mind on whether or not he’s a big fan of Nightshift. They have a great selection and can pretty much everything they make. Jake was up-sold to getting a case instead of just 5 4pks of beer. We had a few of the beers Thursday night and they were all very good.

Jake’s beer muling created a need for many coolers.

He did stop at Trillium (Fort Point, MA) and got a few 4 packs and one very delicious bottle of Fated Farmer - Nectarine.

From there he covered a new experience for him at Treehouse Brewing Co. (Charlton, MA). We’ve been a couple times at this point and they usually sell cans right when you get inside, but what he didn’t realize was that the can line went all the way through the taproom area and extended his stay. Aaalterrr Ego was the star “rare release.”

After the stop at Treehouse, Jake had a total of 93 beers in his 2002 Ford Taurus on his way back to Pittsburgh for Danksgiving.

Continuing on we cover what we drank for Danksgiving. Here’s the list!

Treehouse:

Green

Aaalterrr Ego!

Doppelganger

Nightshift:

Gravitas

Out Of Darkness - Collab with Black Ale Project

Left Brain - Collab with New Image Brewing (CO)

Snowball Fight!

Lounge Out

Trillium:

Fated Farmer - Nectarine

Black Mettle

Triple Seesaw - Peach, Plum, Blueberry, Boysenberry, Strawberry, Tart Cherry and Apricot

Dancing Gnome:

Lustra

Aerobars and No Cassette - Collab with Other Half (NY)

While we’re discussing the beer, we got off on a tangent about styles and what kind of beers we like and gave our opinions on our top 3 from the day. During the conversation we hit on what is an acceptable time frame to drink an IPA and what time does to these hazy juice bombs.

Nick’s #1 was Gravitas (Triple IPA - 10.5%)

Jake’s #1 was Fated Farmer (American Wild Ale - 6.6%)

Jake had a few beers with cousin Ed and we talk about the black IPA style and some local breweries.

Nick cracked open a 2016 Bourbon County Barleywine from Goose Island over the weekend as well. Super smooth and really thick but I’m glad I got to share with a few friends.

During the Recap we hit on the book Shane was talking about last weekend. It’s called Food and Beer by Daniel Burns and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso. Link below!

Thanks for the follow Enix Brewing in Homestead, PA.

Food and Beer: http://a.co/d/3itMa4q

Steel City Beer Wholesalers: www.steelcitybeerwholesalers.com

Podcast 32: Steel City Beer Wholesalers!

Shane and Mary from Steel City Beer Wholesalers join us for a week of shares and beer stories!

This week we interviewed Shane and Mary about their history with craft beer and bringing awesome brands to Pittsburgh.

Shane has some great analogies for meeting and signing breweries and how the business operates. Tinder/food and all kinds of experiences.

We’ll list all the beers at the bottom of this post. Too many to list throughout.

Shane opened our eyes to how 12 Percent Beer Project got started. Check out their book called “Food and Beer.” They’re an import company who expanded to local beers and now they bring big hitters to a lot of the country and they work directly with Steel City here in Pittsburgh.

We discussed how Shane tied down Rotunda Brewery from Annville.

Jake is muling a ton of Boston beer home this week so we’re gonna have a crazy amount of Trillium and Treehouse.

We get Shane and Mary’s input on their top 3 favorite beers.

Southside bars to visit - Bar 11 and Jacks, for all your non craft beer binge drinking needs!

Shane’s Christmas Eve 2016 story is well worth the listen. (approximately at the 30 minute mark)

We bitch about cable and the new hotness, YouTube TV.

We dive into Mary’s story a little bit and she tells us the story of the weirdest yinzer bakery experience of all time. The French don’t do bagels apparently.

Shane explains how he acquired a few Aslin kegs around the time Juicy Brews Birthday Party was going on.

Shane gets into who the competition is in the Pittsburgh Wholesaler industry. We get the inside scoop a little bit into a big hit against their brands when they lost Pizza Boy to one of the competitors, under shady circumstances.

Mary has strong opinions about how shitty peoples’ ratings of beer are. We blast dumb Untappd ratings.

We finally ask Shane where he’s from. He grew up in LA and moved to Pittsburgh for college and stuck around because his family is from here.

We get Shane and Mary’s top 5 emojis.

Alex blasts Shane’s relationships and personal life because he works around the clock but he puts the stress to bed because he goes to the doctor and doesn’t drink caffeine.

We touched on draft vs. can… Shane makes another food metaphor.

We wrap up this week by threatening Jake to get Treehouse to sign with Steel City.

Beers:

Dorks of Hazard - Hoof Hearted (DDH IPA - 7%)

Everybody Wants Some “Mosaic” - Hoof Hearted (Single Hop IPA w/ Mosaic - 8%)

Sinners’ Sin - Rotunda (Triple IPA - 10.1%)

Cold Fire - Singlecut (DDH IIPA - 8.2%)

Blueberry Cream Pop - Decadent (DIPA - 8.6%)

Critical Thinking - Stillwater Artisan (Imperial Stout - 11%)

_______Mango - Dancing Gnome (Fruited Sour - 4.2%)

Super Duper Stout - EvilTwin (Imperial Stout - 11%)

Lustra - Dancing Gnome (NEIPA - 5.8%)

Steel City Beer Wholesalers: www.steelcitybeerwholesalers.com

Podcast 31:

Preshow Beers : Alex - Nobody’s Robot, Nick - Warm Hand Splash

Another low-key week for us, but we’re back and we’re going to entertain you.

Jake talked about his adventures on Hanover St. and Alex has opinions on cupcakes and wants to know everyone’s take on the word moist. We discuss at length the correct amount of icing on cupcakes and our other favorite desserts.

Moving back to beer, we hit on what adjuncts can be used in beers and how over used some flavors are. Some of these flavors are winners and some are stinkers.

Coming into the holiday season, we’re gonna have some stellar stouts and Christmas ales. We’re gonna focus next week on trying some of these styles and commenting on these to gear up for the holidays.

Our hatred of pumpkin spices and pumpkin beers is strong. Overall we’re looking for balance and still drinking a beer from these flavors.

Brew Gentlemen released Double Mex on Sunday. Were you able to get your hands on this special release? We’ll be tasting this one on Christmas Eve probably.

We talk about traveling for beer and what we factor into going to these places that are further away than our normal stops. In that conversation we hit on Full Pint and Brew Gentlemen and Jake and Alex relive California with Russian River.

Beer #1: Jake - Red Currant Fated Farmer - Trillium Brewing (American Wild Ale - 6.7%) Jake raved about this beer. Excited to see how this series evolves. Very sour and heavily carbonated.

Beer #1: Alex/Nick/Sara - 120 Minute IPA (2015) - Dogfishhead (Triple IPA - 18-25%) Alex was shocked by how smooth this beer was. Very malty and cloudy, but not hazy. The holy grail for hopheads does not disappoint. There’s no way to guess that the ABV is as high as it is.

Brew News!

Sixpoint was acquired by Southern Tier/Victory Beer.

Steel City Beer Wholesalers are bringing Hoof Hearted Brewing, Rotunda Brewing and Maine Beer Co to Pittsburgh.

Beer #2: Nick/Alex Etch - Dancing Gnome (IPA - 6.6%) Much better batch this time.

We’re drinking Christmas beers next week! Check back then!

Podcast 30 : Back to the Grind

Nick and Alex went to Dancing Gnome. Jake had a visitor.

We discuss pizza due to Alberta’s and DG having a collab this week called Caligula. Jake said Leone’s is no longer the best pizza near his place.

Jake took our mutual friend Alexis to a bunch of places and had a much more moderate experience with drinking. Winter Hill was first on the list. Friday they hit up the new Trillium location in Seaport, a hotbed for what Boston has to offer.

Beer #1 : Hop Juju - Fatheads (Imperial IPA - 9.0%) Super clear and really hop forward. We miss this kind of beer sometimes and its great to have a refreshing switch to all the hazy beers we’re used to.

We got off the rails a little bit and discuss our favorite Netflix comedy specials and some off of Netflix stuff too.

Of course, the obligatory “Go Vote” conversation.

Nick and Sara went to DG on Halloween. Costumes were very few and far between. Blue Sparrow food truck was there and they are awesome people and have GREAT food!

We discuss fall/winter beers, again. Alex described his experience with Warlock from Southern Tier brewery.

Beer #2 : Chameleon - Grist House (DDH NE IPA - 7.0%) Hazy and juicy, but with enough hops to keep it refreshing. Alex and Nick discuss Grist House’s wide variety and the clientele.

We went over some of the new beers coming up and we want to know what you guys all drank for National Stout Day!

Coming up we’ll be drinking a ton of stuff while we’re celebrating Danks-giving.

Beer #3: Oro Negro(2015) - Jackie O’s Brewery (Imperial Stout with habanero - 10.5%) This one mellowed out incredibly over 3 years. There’s a little bit of heat finish at the end but the balance is much nicer on this one.

Sara joined in for a few minutes to try the Oro Negro.

Jake has some comments on Henry Cavill’s mustache which spawned a discussion of DC vs. Marvel and the movies overall.

Nick, Sara and Alex attended The Community Pour at Lorelei in Bakery Square. We discuss the benefit of community and the ability to come together and support the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting.

In the end we discuss upcoming events and celebrations and we’re looking forward to having some guests out and celebrating the holidays with our friends/family and of course, beer!

Podcast 29 : Spooky Brews and more!

In a tough weekend for Pittsburgh we want to extend our deepest condolences to all those effected by the events at Tree of Life in Squirrel Hill.

Getting back to normal form we discuss beers we’re drinking and events we went to this week.

Beer #1: Mashmellow - Hitchhiker Brewing (Cereal Stout with Count Chocula - 7.3% Stout) Alex and Nick really enjoy this version of this beer. We’ve had it before but really feel like they perfected the style and it tastes like the milk left at the end of a bowl of cereal.

In our first segment of the week we all discuss our top 5 emojis. There’s no way to convey how stupid this conversation got, but listen along to figure out which ones we’re actually talking about. If you read this, post your favorite emoji or your top 5 in the comments on Instagram.

Jake went to Hop Culture’s Spooky Brews on Friday. He gave us a full review of the event and the beers that he had.

Beer #2: Mike - Magnify/Dancing Gnome collaboration (Ginger and Orange IPA - 6.5% IPA) Way too much ginger really blew out the palette on this one. Better in the can than at the Birthday Party. Glad we got to try it but it was not for us.

Jake listed his 3 favorite beers and we discuss beer festivals in general and rehash some Birthday Party stuff, but overall Jake had a good time and had his complaints kept to a minimum.

We get into some more nuances in beer styles and bash the Sour IPA trend.

Beer #1 (From Jake) : Hyperfocus - Aeronaut (New England IPA - 6.8% NEIPA) Fresh and hazy, enjoyable if you’re drinking a couple of them.

Sara joined us toward the end of the cast and gave us her top 5 emojis and gave her thoughts on the final beer of the night.

Jake’s favorite costume of the night was the Cards Against Humanity couples costume. “How do I keep my relationship status?” - “Lumberjack fantasies”.

Thanks to Hop Culture for putting on great events that we can discuss at length on these podcasts.

We wrapped up with social media shoutouts and the King ShuBoo release.

Thanks for listening!

Podcast 28 : The Weekly Recoup

Alex is back from Boston so we revisit some of the cool spots we all hit in Boston the past 2 weeks.

This episode is all over the place, we reminisce about each of our trips and Alex has a story about meeting people in public.

Beer #1: Saison Renaud - Mystic Brewing (Boston, MA) (Farmhouse Saison 6.5%) Sort of a beer/cider hybrid with apple flavors. Cloudy, but crisp. We enjoyed this beer.

Getting off topic is our standard operating procedure this week, we pretty much just talk about whatever we want and toy with some visual gags.

Beer #2: Subsurface - Hitchhiker Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (Fruit Smoothie Sour Ale 7.0%) Alex’s Untappd Recap of the Week! Alex was not a fan of this beer but the more he drank it, the more he liked it. Nick thought it was ok, but it improved as he kept drinking. 4.09 overall rating on Untappd and the reviews are glowing and we don’t really agree.

Seriously we can’t stay on topic to save our lives. We discussed Always Sunny for a solid 2-3 minutes because we love the Rum Ham episode.

We talked about what’s coming up and everything that happened throughout the week. We’re gonna revisit our segments for next week and make sure we have some great content coming out moving forward. Tune in and we’ll get you all the info you need to know!!

Jake will be reporting back about Spooky Brews on Friday and you can follow along on the IG story!

Podcast 28 : The Weekly Recoup

Alex is back from Boston so we revisit some of the cool spots we all hit in Boston the past 2 weeks.

This episode is all over the place, we reminisce about each of our trips and Alex has a story about meeting people in public.

Beer #1: Saison Renaud - Mystic Brewing (Boston, MA) (Farmhouse Saison 6.5%) Sort of a beer/cider hybrid with apple flavors. Cloudy, but crisp. We enjoyed this beer.

Getting off topic is our standard operating procedure this week, we pretty much just talk about whatever we want and toy with some visual gags.

Beer #2: Subsurface - Hitchhiker Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA) (Fruit Smoothie Sour Ale 7.0%) Alex’s Untappd Recap of the Week! Alex was not a fan of this beer but the more he drank it, the more he liked it. Nick thought it was ok, but it improved as he kept drinking. 4.09 overall rating on Untappd and the reviews are glowing and we don’t really agree.

Seriously we can’t stay on topic to save our lives. We discussed Always Sunny for a solid 2-3 minutes because we love the Rum Ham episode.

We talked about what’s coming up and everything that happened throughout the week. We’re gonna revisit our segments for next week and make sure we have some great content coming out moving forward. Tune in and we’ll get you all the info you need to know!!

Jake will be reporting back about Spooky Brews on Friday and you can follow along on the IG story!

Podcast 27: #WeGotCrunked

Nick and Sara traveled to Boston to visit Jake. What followed was a crazy weekend of craft beer, metal music and Alex talking over us the whole time.

The twins are at each others throats most of the cast due to money and swole-ness.

The gang hit a LOT of breweries and we touch on what we drank and experienced in Boston. Listen along this week as we discuss the best beers we’ve literally ever had and some great times with Jake running through Boston and hitting as much beer as possible.

Breweries include:

Winter Hill

Slumbrew

Trillium

Treehouse

Lamplighter

Night Shift

Mystic

Aeronaut

There was a ton of stuff we covered, so listen along and provide us with feedback! Drink every time Alex talked over Nick, Jake and Sara and you’ll be wasted in 25 minutes!

Sorry for some quiet moments throughout the podcast. It’s a little bit tough to FaceTime 3 people in and converse normally.

Description and picture coming soon!

Podcast 25: Live from the Couch!

This week is a very special edition of the podcast as we were recording at Couch Brewery with head brewer Cary!

Beer #1: Recliner - Couch Brewery (Oatmeal Stout 6.5% ABV) Very dark and not super heavy, we really enjoyed this one.

We fired a bunch of questions at Cary and he took them all in stride.

His first story was about how Couch got started.

Cary explains how he and his crew balance their day jobs and the brewery.

Alex asked about how Cary got into craft beer. Cary started out with a lot of imports and kind of grew into his own creations from there.

Cary tells the story of how the crew got together and scouted a bunch of places in Pittsburgh to find the perfect location to sit on the couch and drink a beer. Couch is made to be comfortable and relaxed.

The story of the bar is up next. Cary and the guys found this dive bar in Tarentum and they snagged the bar when the building was going to be changed over to a soup kitchen… Hilarity ensued.

After the bar story, Cary had to check the beer.

Beer #2: Wake Up Protocol - Dancing Gnome/Triple Crossing (NE DIPA - 8.5% ABV) Hazy as hell, really refreshing and a solid drinker.

Beer #3: Nobody’s Robot - Dancing Gnome (DIPA - 8.2% ABV) Very fruity nose. Alex and Sara got a bit of hop bitterness.

While Cary was away we discuss the aesthetic of Couch and the furniture.

We touched on some of the beers we had during DG’s Birthday Party. Hop Culture threw one hell of a bash.

Cary returns! Thanks to all of our listeners!

From there we discuss social media and technology in the craft beer industry.

One thing that stands out about Couch is that Cary and the guys built their “hot side”(where they boil the wort) from scratch and its a totally unique system that no one anywhere has it. He elaborated on the brewery business plan and how they were able to itemize purchases and time frame to develop the brewery.

Cary loves welding and basically made the “hot side” from scratch. He expands on that quite a bit.

We all start firing shots at Mike, who we’ve never met but we already love.

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! We will be running a contest on Instagram this week to give away a VIP Ticket to Pittsburgh Libations Week Kick Off Bash!!!!

Cary returns! And we fired a bunch of beer questions at him. His favorite beer is Recliner. Mike likes IPAs and Darren wanted a Hefeweizen.

Cary explained why they have a wide variety of types of alcohol at Couch. They have a full bar of local spirits to cater to everyone. They carry Boyd and Blair Vodkas, Liberty Pole Spirits, Quantum Spirits, McGlaughlin Distillery, Maggie’s Farm Rum, etc.

The orange sectional we were sitting on has a great story that Cary told.

We have a great discussion on editing and curse words.

Jake wanted to make an appearance so we put him on speakerphone.

We play Jake’s favorite game: “What questions did you already ask?”

What’s Cary’s favorite beer and style?

Jake asked the tough questions. What is the hardest part of owning a business in the service industry?

Beer #4: Atomic Punk - Couch Brewery (Amber ale with fall spices - 5.5% ABV) There is no pumpkin in this beer. Cary used Atomic Clock and added pumpkin style spices to a keg that’s almost kicked already! They’re making more though! Cinnamon nose and the allspice and cloves come through in a light and well rounded amber ale.

Cary discussed their canning process. Individually canning is extremely labor intensive. They had the whole crew on it for Atomic Meltdown.

We have a quick math lesson to figure out about 13 cases of that beer were canned.

We finish off our interview with Cary with one of our favorite topics: Can Design. So he told the story of how he met their regular Patrick who designed both cans for Couch.

We wrap up with what’s coming up and next week’s Dancing Gnome Birthday Party recap.

Couch Brewery: www.couchbrewery.com

Pgh Libations Week: www.pittsburghlibationsweek.com