Beer of the Day Podcast - Midwest Trip Part 1 - May 26th, 2017 - Beer of the Day

This is the Beer of the Day Podcast. From Beer of the Day world headquarters in California. This is the beer the beer of the Day Podcast. We've been busy traveling in the three weeks since the last show and where have we been we've been in the Midwest and between everybody here on the show tonight we visited six different states twenty seven different breweries throughout the Midwest and we brought back plenty of beer to try tonight.I'm Dallas Heliker, joining me tonight Britton Minor, Joel Minor, Steve Williamson and from Pasadena Jeff Miller. Lead to birds everybody hello know how they gone hey out of one of the biggest crowds we've ever had on a podcast and we're going to break this into two parts we have so much beer to try that it's impossible to just do it on one show so we're going to do split up the trip into two separate episodes here and we'll start out with the first state that we visited which was Minnesota Jeff Hugo Lance and I flew into Minneapolis and I arrived about an hour and a half before they did and so not wanting to waste any time I jumped on it. And got and told them to take me to the best brewery in town and they took me to steel toe. So. Half hour ride from the airport twenty three dollars and then I was sitting in the corner of the brewery there and it was pretty cool there was a lot of people watching the the hockey game and very laid back atmosphere just a couple of people work in the bar but there was a steady stream of

people coming in the whole time doing grower fills. Probably as many people coming and bicycles as there was in cars big bicyclists bar they had a huge bike rack out front outdoor seating people enjoying one of the best days of the year that they have weather wise in Minneapolis and I tried three of the different beers they had their red I.P.A. I tried their English better. And then I also tried the size seven I.P.A. which Jeff and Lance and Hugo happy tried tonight. This was by far the most popular beer that they were filling growlers with I'd say probably at least seventy percent of the people that walked through that door were filling up their growler with size seven so the really enjoyable experience of as for a first brewery just why I was killing time waiting for these guys to fly in so we're drinking this beer now and yeah we were not able to go to the brewery but you know this looks like a really nice Spearman the clarity on this is incredible it's one of the clearest bears I've ever seen sort of a golden amber color. Good kind of thick foamy head I like the idea of birdies kind of being like the way deal but your place used to be we had to go in and get your fresh supplies for the day and go in there feeling your growler like

that move a lot where you're grabbing your beer and you're drinking that night or the next day and he's got to go back later on that we can get some more yeah we went to several grocery stores and stuff in Minneapolis and they had it there at the grocery store. Or you know several places but this is a brewery for the locals and if you love that you can really tell that get that impression just sit in there. So this beer I mean it's it's interesting I mean there's a unique flavor to this I mean there's a little bit of citrus a little bit of tropical fruit it's it's pretty bold I mean it's seven percent seventy seven IB use it's not a light I.P.A. I mean it's very you know pretty happy but there's like an interesting at first I thought it was like a soya sauce taste it might be like mommy very unique for an I.P.A. would you clean up your glass after the last show. That Strange Brew from New Zealand Yeah. Yeah you know mommy monster I suggest right down soya sauce and I can't get it out of my head the note that I keep. Keep going so as I recall I was. Impressed by how West Coast this kind of was you know you don't know what to expect going to a new place and trying beer in the city for the first time and I kind of thought that if they just had dropped his beer off in California that people wouldn't really think twice about it yeah I mean it's pretty West Coast in style but there's a fair amount of malts I mean I think it's multi-year than most of the beers we would have in

California at least from the I.P.A.. Style it's well balanced it's a quality beer. I think is a lot happier than a lot of the different beers that we had out in the Midwest especially them having so many pails I really enjoyed not this beer but another

beer that we had it blew their door but the loosies I thought they put out really good food there and this beer went perfect with it. Agreed. So then our next stop was certainly and this was the next day our first stop of the second day and we had

arranged to take a tour there with a guy named Jeff who. Runs the warehouse certainly big battery so this worked out really well because Jeff crown or is somebody he works at Certainly and we actually met him in California a few months ago at the Melvin top take over at Beechwood And so we you know became friends with him and contacted him ahead of time and he you know gave us the V.I.P. tour we had lunch with them they have a huge restaurant certainly I mean they have tons of space for food and really you know phenomenal food but he just you know took two hours out of his day to spend with us and show us the place as a props to Jeff Wade a great time and really saw a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on and certainly. You know throughout

this trip we went to a lot of breweries big and small and this one was on the bigger side it kind of reminds me of a lot of like when we were in St Louis they had Schlafly huge brewery but really it only distributes to that city so it's like Certainly

we've never had a surly beer here I haven't anyway. I've never seen any way to get it not on tube or anything like that so I didn't really know what to expect but they are a I guess on the global stage a medium sized brewery but maybe top fifty I think they're the third biggest in many in Minnesota and third or fourth Yeah so production wise but they're there breweries is huge in and really well put together like they I guess this is their second attempt and it's a fairly new brewery location so usually a brewery starts out they kind of grow organically and then once they they make it big then the bill the build their their humongous new brewery that has everything designed exactly how they'd want to want to be done well let's open this one

up and try it because this is one we had on tap at the very So we brought these cans back. If I recall is one of the better beers I mean all of their beers are good but this is one of my favorites from that location. Thank you I think this was the first way the first one I had of the second one I had at the lodge they're really good food at their at their restaurant and then upstairs they have a whole nother restaurant that is they have a chef that pair makes specific pairings for different

beers so that if you're ever in the area want to check that out it was pretty good too well this part is really light. It's like a little bit cloudier of a Bud Light. And it's only in color twenty five and it's only four point five percent but I think it has a little more flavor than you would expect from a beer this low about all the great aroma Gaddis not really getting using. Which is that or over a little a grapefruit or Lebanon piff there's something I think you're spot on with a great fear for sure and a little bit happy but not overly so pleasant pleasantly happy yeah the citrus hops I mean it's Lemon grapefruit orange. Thought a little like pine or some but then yes it was also great for that I think that pretty much nailed it so it's very light colored I don't know if we said that you know it's fairly translucent but if you're a pretty light. Golden yellow color with a very white fizzy had a little a little bubbly Yeah it's pretty fizzy and then it totally goes away except for just like a cup of course bubbles that are left over the crisp mouthfeel the small little carbonation bubbles really does make it very drink a ball low hop low bitterness I mean maybe I would say low hop but low low bitterness it kind of reminds me of like a squirt soda you know kind of how it has kind of has that very tropical. Tropical tropical citrus type. Taste and kind of bubbly and sits on the tongue I like this a lot the only thing that I would say that hasn't already been said is that on my first sip I thought it was a little bit thin and a little bit watery. Like it's not a super concentrated flavor but that's not a bad thing this is a beer that I think of as more like a session I.P.A. Yeah you know it's a pale ale but I think a good pale ale to me has the hop profile of an I.P.A. and I think there's a good amount of hops here but it doesn't have you know it's light bodied still and so I don't know if you know breweries don't always use the term but I would call this like a session I.P.A. I remember having this at the brewery at lunch it was perfect with the Brussels sprouts with the fish sauce on it and out that was kind of an interesting take on Brussels sprouts but this year went perfect with it the citrus just cut through that pungent taste so that just the session P.A.. Session. It's very good. So you know we went to other breweries as you say we had a few other breweries in Minneapolis too I mean we don't have we have one more beer to have after this but there's a few stops I made in between that I think we should go over a few of those places indeed. Indeed ironically is one of the breweries we went to. So yeah we went to a bunch of places I mean I don't think we need to mention all of them but indeed it was a really nice brewery in Minneapolis. I think all of us our favorite beer there was a bread saison called Helio tropic which is not the style that I think we normally gravitate to it was delicious I mean we did a taster of everything and then we went back and had we each had a glass of this Helio tropic afterwards it was that good I agree. We went to what was the other ones we went to we went to modest was our our first stop with the whole group was not modest. They had a very good new in. You

know New England style north northeast style Pale Ale that was probably the favorite there. Inbound which was down the street from Fulton inbound was good because I think the the ambiance there was something we all enjoyed I mean it was a new location and. I think we all just really thought like if we ever own a brewery this is a great way to create a tasting room and if you go to do a recap of all the food pairings he had with every brewery you know it's good like that we try to go to fall to

they closed at six o'clock. It seems a little early to close in a brewery so yeah how many breweries did you guys go to twenty two I think on the whole trip Damn it's a lot. And we were average about five a day yeah you're going to love it more breweries than we did sorry eleven times more breweries. Out of all of the berries that you went to how many beers do you think you guys tried collectively between all of you all the different beers all that her breweries. With a lot but. But I mean at some places we only had one beer I mean we're pretty good about you know if four of us go in there get tasters and small tastings Or maybe we'll have four different beers that we each get one of and so we try a good representation of the beers from a brewery it's hard when you're at work and you tell your friends oh I've probably had like a thousand different beers in last year and a half like instantly everybody's like hey we have employee assistance program that helps you through it being an alcoholic because that's a lot if you tell someone that you've had a thousand different beers in the last year and a half there's instant like oh but there's instant judgment because they're doing the math Yeah I know they're like wait a minute well

it's tough because you want to try everything and some of these places have twenty plus different beers on tap and yeah so you go up and you say you know I want to taste everything so shared amongst. For people it's not that bad right it's true but then you go to five breweries in a day and by the Fourth Amendment One. Of the recap isn't as good on those. One that we do remember very well was fair state. This was a brewery on the like North east side of town right. Sorry I just opened this and it was feeling out a little bit sorry I haven't Sometimes I hate it when that happens I'm excited about this brewery and also the beer that you guys have chosen for us to try. Yeah this was so good so this was one of our favorite stops for sure overall experience and this beer was excellent so we had a bottle of this at the brewery with one of the owners you know we he gave us the V.I.P. tours and Matt very cool guy you know he found out who we were he was just sitting there doing some work and he showed us around we didn't He was a builder though so we were sitting at the bar trying some beer out and then the guy that was behind the bar poured beers this other guy that was sitting at the table there started like coming up and yelling at him

and stuff and they confront him. Like who this guy and then he walks behind the bar and it turns out he's one of the owners of it and so he started talking to us and then he he gave us the grand tour Yeah super energetic nice guy and. Yeah he just gives the tour and it's like well let's open a bottle of this and so we shared this bottle and it was so good I mean so we we each brought back a bottle of this it's a mosaic sour this beer is five point three percent twenty five use I think it's made exclusively with Mosaic cops but Britain mentioned it before the show but it is a great label I mean it was like something you'd see in the seventy's show I love it it's pretty grounding. This pours even lighter than the last beer I. Say it had like a very pale yellow so it could be lemonade almost Yes Oh yeah that hazy too yeah. What about that aroma its mouth fantastic it's like a super reserved light funkiness which is what I love thought that is try this maybe a little lemon. It's a pretty hazy beer too I mean Britain mention the color but it's pretty hazy with the A lot ahead I mean it's a pretty highly carbonated beer and this big white fluffy head. Of the first sip was really sour but it smoothed out real quick then when they got even a little sweet at the end it's fantastic yeah the mosaic hops come through really strong I mean you. Very unique hop flavor and it's very distinguishable as mosaic and I think that mosaic tops really do well with the sour it works well as ours not absolutely what I was going to say because when was it a couple shows ago we had quite a few beers and I didn't like any of it was just like OK I guess I'm not a music hop fan this is fantastic and I think that actually mellows out the hop a little

bit. And like Steve said earlier it finishes off like very smoothly and when we were there so they make this and then they make another one was it with Simco. So we had both of those in you know we we have limited space when we bring beer back so we thought this was the better of the two I think they were both very tasty but we chose this one to bring back just based on the the taste that we had there at the very it's such a strange sensation for me that you know someone who has found that I enjoy sour beers I've never come across a forum where you get it's really sour upfront and then there is I mean there is no lingering siren is this at all it's like a summit is all evaporates on the back your throat and it just finish is so clean and crisp I mean like. You know you have sip after. Sippin you don't feel like you have that sour mouth you know it's it's very nice and I agree usually you get that kick in your molars Yeah that comes through you know you drinking a sour but kind of just levels off right before that happens it's a fairly mellow sour I mean I don't think any of us are are huge fans of the really sour beers and this is you know I don't want to call like an introductory sour but it's on the lighter side of a sour beer and for a lot of us I think that appeals to us when we're getting into the sour area though for me there's always a hard there's I have a hard time toeing the line between tart and sour like when does tart become sour and I would actually say that this beer is. War sour than tart but like Jeff said it's a very reserved sour and it's not it's like an introductory sour it's pretty easy to drink there are thousands there's a couple times I've had like high end mimosas with a really good champagne this has really good quality mimosa taste to it without the sweetness that is often associated with the most like I am loving this beer I could tell they go for that I'll tell you what sours a lot of times they. Let him say don't resemble a beer they resemble some type of fruit juice concoction in the with sour innocent yeah this maintains a beer quality because that music hop quality is so so strong that it's it's like you're drinking. A liter I.P.A. that has sour qualities to it in the mouth feel on the spear is amazing I mean yeah just every sip of this I mean just the texture and I mean it's a little dry that I you know I appreciate it extension of flavors. This is just an excellent overall beer yeah you know you mentioned the most the part in the sweetness and that got me to thinking like this beer isn't very sweet but it's also very balanced like you're not missing any sweetness that there but it's not. No I don't say other than I am like super surprised by it and it's fantastic you know very well done so it was kind of. Interesting contrast between certainly the big brewery in Minneapolis and then a couple breweries later we go to fair state which is still on the very small side it basically doesn't really distribute too much I mean they distribute at the some liquor stores and stuff right around town but they don't have major distribution. Everything is brewed right in there. They're bar which is in a like a strip mall kind of thing not a strip mall but just on a downtown street and then everything's in the basement so you go down to the basement and there's all these rooms and oh yeah we bought we run the place next door so get out and this and then they got this room for the one of their people it's like a microbiologist and there's all these like microscopes and lab equipment down there it's like the mad scientist lab and it's all. You know just whatever space they have they have expanded into it and it's like organically growing that was cool I mean being from California that's something you don't see too often where we're in the brewery they only have a couple tanks I mean it's a small place and you go below ground and you kept going down to this basement level and it's another level lower There's like two levels of basements where they keep all their barrels and that was pretty cool because the temperature is obviously much cooler and that's just something you don't see at breweries that we go to in California yeah definitely a cool experience and the beer speaks for itself. So then we spent two days in Minneapolis and then it was time to hit the road and head down to the next stop but on the way out of town we hit one more Minneapolis brewery and that was forage or and this was a really interesting place that's worth mentioning Jeff brought back a crawler from them but I didn't have. Room to bring it back but. A lot of good beers there but they have a restaurant too and just the what's cool about them is the beyond of their place it's

basically everything is built from things that they have foraged or scrounge to from around town I love it like every like the tap and holds one is a screwdriver that they have you know will the new thing and what is some other you know there's a socket wrench and then one is. A piece of rod iron The someone's grandma had or something and there's all these different things but like the bar is made out of stuff they made the tables themselves they put pennies on all the tables on them. Lacquer it so it's like clear on top and you see all the pennies and then you can hold your beer up into it and see what cut your competence was useful. Nine hundred forty six yeah. There are a couple hazy I.P.A. S. he's a pale ale a hazy I.P.A.. It was so it was in Rochester Minnesota I don't know if we mentioned that it was like halfway on our drive even Minneapolis to Dick or Iowa so we made a good stop had some tasty beers had some pizza that was awesome too there's your beer beer food pairing. But it was a cool place highly recommended and those of you guys you don't know Jeff has hit a lot of states and is traveling any new state you haven't been to before you know I've been to all these before but you know it's different to spend time and go to these breweries I think when we're on the trips I've been to forty nine states but even Alaska Alaska Yeah but on the trip we try to figure out how many at how many states have I had a beer in which is only been for the last you know fifteen years or so and the list is a lot smaller so maybe fifteen states but it's nice to have a beer in some of the states that have never had a beer there before one of the interesting beers at the high. Abear that I've never even heard of was an imperial Berlin or wiser with a biscuit It was an eight percent Berlin or wiser which I thought was really interesting. Yeah that's pretty high off or for that style. Remember what what the moose's name was and it was Daniel Daniel Yeah they had it they had a middle it was on the wall that had been shot in one thousand nine hundred four and in Canada in Canada he was a little dusty. He was still hanging in there literally hanging in there. Concludes the first day of the trip and we have many many more to go. Coming up next we talk about our trip to toppling Goliath in the corner. And the grandeur we took there. And much more when we come back right here on the pier they. Are and if you enjoy this podcast and the beer of the Day website and want to know how you can support us you can do so by shopping on Amazon through the beer of the Day website we have a banner at the very top of the site that says support beer the day by shopping on Amazon and you click that or you go to Amazon dot beer the day dot

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it has like a bite in the aroma that really like tickles your nostrils. Well is what's the A.B.B. on this. I think it's a percent they don't they don't put it on the the bottles but I think it's a percent. I just had a taste sort of I my goodness the mouthfeel and the bitterness hits you so quick and it's like it tingles your tongue but doesn't last too long well no actually it does but it is amazing mouthfeel the sugar coat your mouth in it is a fantastic I.P.A. it's a lot sweeter than I would have expected even almost almost sugar even almost like a. Like the bottom of the Kool-Aid container where like it didn't the recount of formulated is not well dissolved I kind of graining us to it I don't know. Actually But for one thing I disagree with John on the bitterness I don't think it is that bitter actually think it's more sweet than than better it's not that it's super bit better is that you can just taste the bitterness right away well I don't like it's like instant bitterness but you know that bitter bitter there's a lot of like Juicy Fruit qualities to it it is. You just take a sip of this and for me it's everything that those ne ips were but you know just as good or better or better it's so balanced I think this beer is very refreshing it was by far my favorite of the trip I think the whole experience at the brewery with the owner and the executive Brewer just made it that much better and having it straight from the tank there it was so delicious and just brings me back to that moment that's great so just take us through the our experience or yes a similar situation I mean when we go on a trip like this we we try to reach out to some breweries and make contact ahead of time so I got in touch with Clark who is the owner and president of toppling Goliath and how did you get in contact with him well I just sent. An e-mail through their website and you know I told her we were whatever and the president of the company responds like the next day inviting us for this

special tour that nobody else gets to do because there were let me get a well where they make the beer is a different location from their tasting room so he gave us this address it's like out in the middle of kind of no where is no no cell phone service no G.P.S. So we're like looking at a map trying to figure out how to get there so we meet him at the brewery it's it's not a huge location I mean there are going to expand we could talk about that but it's a and not a huge location a Clarks there

and he introduces us to basically everybody who works there and he's very personable he knows everybody very well and we just get this grand tour and we had I think three different beers right out of the tank at least one or two were the day before

they were going to bottle it so it was you know as fresh as you can get and he just showed us around the whole location where they make their beer at the current time. I think we had kings to the that was going to be tomorrow the day after we were there yeah we had a. Seasonal beer that they make in celebration of these mushrooms that grow in the local area doesn't have much for a minute to say was it a mushroom beer because that would be interesting mushrooms and I asked that question. I think

we had a double dry hop pseudo sue you know the day before they were going to bottle it so it's awesome experience just being there and then you know so we had a few beers there and then we drove to the new location that is under construction. Dallas you want to talk about that place Yes So this is a I mean the first place was pretty big they had like a half a million dollars to spend on the new brew house at the old new location that we too are but it took us over to this. Massive project and

we walk in there and there's construction crews putting up the pipes and stuff and he kind of gave us a tour of this building which is just you know the walls aren't even in yet it's just the studs and you walk from room to room you know through through the. Through the found on the foundation and through the holes in the studs in the walls and he says OK this is going to be our kitchen and this is going to be the employee break room and here is our our restaurant the tap room and then and how they had had a planned out where they had the indoor grain silos because this is you know the weather's not good there so everything's indoors huge place for the Greens to come in it gets brewed in to be here and then the spent grain goes out the one side on the other side of the building they have the kid exam the packaging materials come in they get cleaned they get filled and then it goes out the other side so one side of the building massive building it's on like twenty five acres I don't know what they're spending but it's millions of dollars and they are their name is toppling Goliath and you sort of get the sense that Goliath might be like and Heizer Bush you know like they're they're growing to where they're going to they're going to take some take some of their share I think market share also it's not like a Jewish thing it's not like Jedidiah Levi working there no I mean you don't know until you go there but they have big aspirations and but it's still a kind of a real small company I mean we met their their head brewer. Really smart guy I mean Clark is the kind of guy you get the impression where he is good at hiring Rivera's smart people and talented people and lets them do their job and. It was a very impressive operation they had there when this new place it's basically designed every single aspect of it by Clarke and and Mike. Brewer had were and so they you know doesn't seem like money is an issue it's whatever it was going to cost they're going to spend and but they're very involved I mean this is the owner of the company who is involved in every little single detail of this project and it's engineering and designed it like architecturally exactly how he wants a brewery to be and it's very efficient in I

mean it was it was impressive but it's two guys basically design everything and then they hire the people to do it I think to put into perspective for the listeners their cold storage was bigger than most breweries that I've been to just the cold storage alone with that expansive huge location and it's this is a pretty small town in Iowa I mean we can't lose sight of that this is one of the most. You know famous breweries in the U.S. and it is in this small town in Iowa but they're making an incredible beer and obviously looking to grow and produce a lot more than they're making right now I didn't know there were big towns in Iowa there's no I don't know that I saw but they're going to I think the place is going to draw two or three people and people looking for beer and stuff and it's going to be a boom to the entire town you can tell that right off the bat I mean it's a destination and we're going to go back there sometime after it opens to see what the new places like. Certainly. Definitely a good time. And as you can see the the beer King zoom in this is. Quite an impressive double I.P.A. and this is easily one of the best double I.P.O.'s I've ever had I mean it's just high quality excellent flavor mouth feel I mean we I don't think we said enough about how good this is but it is really awesome beer Jeff want to talk about so for the name come from now go ahead. I don't know the story you know you go. Know you have. So want to get one of the things that I found out was talking to one of the guys at the bottle shop in Chicago was letting me know that when they tried to get distribution rights in Illinois one of the pre-requisites they had they asked him because of the conflict with the name Sue is that they don't need to education programs in Chicago and it's all derived from the fact that there's a the most complete. Skeleton at the Field Museum in Chicago and so that's what they had asked and I think that that's where the name is coming from from from the T.-Rex Sue at the Field Museum Yeah the dinosaurs named Sue. I once heard of A Boy Named Sue. So then we finished a tour and we went to the tasting room there very very small little tasting room maybe. If it's twenty people you know incredibly small and we go up to the thing and order some some beers and we had this king Sue and Hugo and Lance order King Sue and the girl that was working the counter there says. One for each of you are you going to share in the Lancers Well one for each of us and she says are you going to be drinking any more after this. Yeah probably. So what leads me to believe that King sues pretty potent whatever the A.B.V. is. But yeah it was a huge contrast there their current tap room is going to be dwarfed substantially by. Their new facility that it's going to be a year away from from opening so very cool place so that the tasting room there at toppling Goliath and the. Lady at the end of the bar started up a conversation asked where we're from or whatever and she's like oh well. What you know why you're here you should go next door and check out pulpit rock brewery and we didn't even know about it it wasn't even on our radar and so I looked it up on the map and it's just a block away so we walked over there and exact exact contrast you have the huge brewery toppling Goliath and then there's a little local pulpit rock next door just for the locals you know just the very very small brewery very low production and you know nice atmosphere for sure. Just you can just see the difference between two different size breweries within a block of each other and we had a good time I mean Alex was working and we became instant friends with her and she you know we just hung out for a lot longer than we expected and we're probably there two hours just drinking beers which meant that we drove across Iowa Wisconsin really much later in the night than we had planned to but you know it a good time it's not the same experience as toppling Goliath but that good beer is from a small place in the same town so we rolled into Madison Wisconsin about midnight went to the hotel bar had a drink and then it was off to bed woke up the next morning and we drove to New Glarus Wisconsin and New Glarus. A big brewery there small and there's big and then there's New Glarus which is a baby the thirtieth biggest brewery in the country and I think they probably based on what I could tell produce. Seventy five percent of the beer for the state of Wisconsin it must be that way because interesting thing about this is like Dallas said it's one of the biggest breweries in the U.S. but they only distribute in Wisconsin so for them to be that big in terms of production people in Wisconsin must drink a ton of this beer and it's well known it's one of the oldest breweries but. They drink so much of this beer across that state for this to be as big as it is yeah so just a word of warning normally I will arrange the beers in order from lightest to heaviest as we drink the beer this show is ordered by the order that we went to the brewery so we're going from a very heavy pseudo sue to a very light. When I say kings who heavy pseudo Sue everything everything said. Every getting into to a light spot of cow. He puts the

hardship to the gears here through this month like a pale yellow to the thing that I'm not a thing about it is that it's got like a two finger head that not going away is like very beautifully real nice laugh real foamy. The aroma is like one of my favorite wasn't ever had ever on a beer it's like a pastry like you know like a fresh pastry out of the oven like a strawberry strudel Yeah but it is a new is a very weedy like you like fresh a field of wheat Yeah yeah very again very weedy very sweet I knew Steve was going to like this I mean I don't know if he's tried it yet but this is like their flagship beer this is spotted cow they don't put very many details on the can I don't know what I'll call percentages it's four or five percent it's

pretty light. It's a farmhouse ale but at first we thought it was a pale ale but it's kind of like a pale farmhouse say oh I don't know what you guys think when you try it yes smells like those soft buns that you get Logan's roadhouse or at Texas Roadhouse Yeah that soft buttery like fresh idea of and roll. Yeah I think a pale farmhouse Jeff that's that's a very good because it has that real slight funk to it but then the does just that it's definitely full bodied I mean you wouldn't use that descriptor at all it's real almost like a light. A light. And how many different beers do they brew there as you like a ton cause or is this like their most famous beer or do they have a staple beer this is their most famous this is their staple but they

did brew six or seven different beers that I saw. I mean so it's an interesting place because. They're tasting room they only have like five beers on tap maybe six and it's the tasting room is inside like a store where they serve like if you like a

gift shop they sell merchandise it's not your typical tasting room by far. They don't they don't have any I.P.A. as we did notice that they had one I.P.A. in bottles that you could buy I'd say they probably make twelve beers but they only had six or so on top that we could try. The plate and huge It looks like solving on the outside like data should village it's like very it's made up to look like European. It's like a Swiss town where this is not very stucco facade everywhere just it was huge.

Self guided tour writing the art our tour guide Dallas made it enjoy it yeah so they give you a beer for the Taster And then you walk from the gift shop and you can just walk around the brewery yourself you just can't go to any of the doors marked Brewers because they're locked if you tried Yeah but you can see they have big windows on every single thing part of the brewery so you can see the whole operation just walking around I'm commenting a lot on the labels and cancer day but I'm totally digging this it's like it's a thumb print of the state of Wisconsin that's a really neat design on the can't I agree completely I notice that when I was there they had that all over the gift shop very cool but you know the place is huge like they have these. BARNES But everywhere in Wisconsin there's a bar and everyone has a barn a silo and a house the barn. Always painted red the silos kind of a wood color and the house was white Well this they had a couple of barns in the back but they weren't barns they were look like blimp hangers they're huge and those are where all the the brewery operations are but outside it looks like just a huge version of your normal Wisconsin form. I think Jeff had an unsuccessful mission of trying to bring over new players beer spent force he. Kept check in the bacterial gate to see if everything was properly stored in the for the first in our minivan. And then just beer just came spilling out he looked very sad and we tried to bring back a few more beers but a few of them broke and. We ended up chugging them in the parking lot of irony. Because they were squirted out everywhere and we had to just down them wastes not gentleman. But let's go back to this beer because yeah I actually want to talk about it. I enjoy this and I don't think I gave it enough credit at the time location but I really enjoyed the creamy mouth feel on this it almost taste like there's lactose or something it's a farmhouse ale that isn't really funky it's not sour or anything like that but this is just something I could drink all day long on a hot day it's refreshing it's got that really interesting creamy mouth feel and I like this a lot more today than I did at the brewery Yeah I wanted to say that I can understand why this is like their flagship beer and it's very popular because I think that. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who hated this beer it's very like universally appealing like just that it's got a creamy mouth feel I wrote down from my description it's like a creamy multi sweetness to it it kind of tastes like apple sauce. It's fruity it's very crisp and like Jeff said you. Hot day and be very satisfied with it I think anybody you pull him off the street and give him a beer and like his

beer whether they like beer or not it's very refreshing I don't think anybody here what would have any trouble drinking a six pack of this I mean. It's perfect for that you know here's some barbecue have some beers I mean you could just because drink of them exactly. Incoming transmission You've Got Mail. Comments this week. We had a rush of people started up on the site we had all kinds of I can't even approve the accounts fast enough and it's crazy how many people are signing up on Trader Joe's HOF morale Bock I had the. Box from Trader job back in New York I moved to Florida in two thousand and eleven and came back to New York and had no they say that they don't ship this beer below Georgia so I guess they still have it in New York we have it here in Trader Joe's. Joe's pretty good beer selection for the money. And on misery Bay I.P.A.. Says I just opened up a bottle that I got from the beer club of the month first impression love it wonderful happiness great fruit pine not too sweet I think it's lovely not too high on the alcohol but it's more than consumer beers I would buy this beer so that is from Erie Brewing Company in Erie Pennsylvania never had it before but it's a good review for it. On our previous podcast. Oh Buck I know Rich. A rich he says another great show I listen to your comments and posted my first description and beer photo I'll be in Madison the first week of June and looking forward to hitting some great breweries I was there last year in strong. We suggest hitting the three breweries the following three breweries carbon for winter very good time. Vintage brewing. We went to that one that was a cool place to it was like a. Full blown bar and restaurant but their beer was good and he suggested the gin jug Ninja was a ginger ale beer which was I really enjoyed it and. Contort or porter I don't know if we had. Was a good spot very dark sinister red lights. Good or brewery my opinion of the best of each of these places enjoy the trip Well Rich we did enjoy the trip and we thank you for posting the beer of the day you've posted petite sour raspberry and we featured it as the beer of the day May eleventh so it's definitely good when listeners and users of beer the day post beers because then

we can feature those peers on. At the beer the day. And send it out to all the followers of beer the Day Thanks Rich for sure. OK. So we'll get that in the mail rich if you post a beer the day we feature it as the beer the day will send you a part glass to just go to birthday dot com and click here. Are those going into the final beer of the night. Strange Brew time we have from. A company in Lake Mills Wisconsin the blueberry thrill double I.P.A.. This was the next stop right after New Glarus we started a New Glarus in the morning we drove all the way back to Madison past Madison all the way through and. This was the next stop we had made Jeff you've got me visible thought I meant in the US I wrote that down. Absolutely a little bit not not as much as that beer from was at the last show of the two shows I go to shows though I think it's a subtle to do a blueberry muffin but no. You know it smells a bit like a blueberry muffin color wise it's kind of reddish maybe some bluish tint to it but it's a reddish I don't know what color would you describe this us like a. Chunky lump copper. And there are some serious legs on this glass from the poor I mean it is I mean guessing it's going to be syrup I don't know we haven't tried it yet but it does look like it's got some techniques to it but smell therapy too I would say like it smells very sweet. Kind of off white foamy head yeah lots of lacing on the glass and it does smell Serby it was brewed with a hill not a cup or a large amount a hill of blueberries. Must be the royal measurement system. This is a double I.P.A. nine percent. I don't think I've ever had an I.P.O. blueberries and. I think it's extremely sweet the double I.P.A. what I think we've already been so and then these blueberries very very sweet but user mention of this this one was bottled a while you know the hops apply faded quite a bit I don't know if the hops a faded but the bitterness hasn't I still think it has like a pretty pronounced bitter finish but it is very sweet as well. The thing that is interesting to me is that I expected this to be highly blueberry and you could only aroma but this is an I.P.A. first and foremost the blueberry is just like an added little side taste with not the featured presentation right I almost if you gave this to twenty people and you had them taste it not smell it which is pretty much impossible but anyways if you gave this like twenty people I'm not sure if most people would pick out blueberry I'm not sure if I would have Yeah I agree I don't know I get more blueberry than I think what you guys are getting on it I mean maybe it is I know it's called what the name is and what to expect but it's definitely in there I mean it's not hidden at all in my opinion it takes a bit like a blueberry puree was used I don't know how exactly they use a blueberries in the brain process post it like appear on the hill and if you miss them are. Probably used to track and tractor. And roll down the hill I also feel like it's multi like I feel like there's. Like you know hops the faded a little bit it's still better but I also think that there's a very strong backbone that you can taste. And you guys go here. We did so I've not had a bad beer from this place and this is by the way I like this beer I feel like it's well bouncers no real off putting flavors to it. It's balance for how high the A.B.V. is well say. What was your guy's experience like there were all their beers gigs I have not had a lot of a lot of them or so they had two different tasting flights that you could do one was like the basic one where they do all their basic beers and then they had like the reserved one and one was like ten beers and one was eight beers some like that so there was a lot of beers to try and their line of all the glasses and we just kind of went around the table and tried all of them you know rapid succession and. There was quite a few good ones in some really strong. So it was. You know some somewhat of an adjustment on some of the yeah I really enjoyed like the barrel aged ones I mean they probably had close to twenty beers that we tried in seven or eight of them were barrel aged and they were all very smooth I mean we've had dirty old man on a previous podcast we have a couple more in the cellar right now that are just aging in will probably get better in time but I really enjoy it like their core beers were were pretty good but I really enjoyed their barrel age stuff and I have to share that they had one of the best brewery dogs I have ever experienced. Ever What do you mean by breed dog breed dog the dog that at the brewery. He was pretty friendly every breweries does seem to have the dog under the bar and I mean let's just call it a staple of a brewery there was a lot I can't remember the specific beers that we had that were good but it wasn't taken to good to know to that point but. I do remember that on the podcast when we had old dirty man on a dirty old man dirty old man that was what we just came across to you I'm sorry if I needed a dirty old man that was my favorite beer that showed possibly my favorite beer of the year it wasn't my favorite beer of the day when I visited the brewery they had better beers than that there can be true OIG No not a true No because I had it and we tried it and it was quite good but there were maybe two or three more that were even better take me there. I think if you do make it there do yourself a favor and grab the premium lite I think

that's where most of those better beers the Dows was talking about were on good base for sure but don't grab the brewery dawg it's disrespectful he's very nice. Final thoughts of his beer the glad I tried it don't know if I'd have it again I think the blueberries don't necessarily add too much to the beer it's already a good beer but I'm not sure. If the blueberries make it better but what with the solid ratio bothers me. I think our beer had more sediment than yours as. Well. This was good. We should also mention when you know we went back to Matt we stayed in Madison and had a great time in Madison so when we left Tyron in we went to a couple more breweries we're not having those on the show tonight but we want a carbon for which everybody recommended you know when you go to these various We always ask where else should we go and everybody said carbon for it's interesting spelling is K R B E N and the number four they had really nice beers and then we ended the night at ale asylum which Dallas mentioned previously so really cool scene in Madison up and coming B.R.C. and all all of these towns and went to have seen incredible growth in craft beer in the last couple years but we had some nice beers all over the state of Wisconsin. That Martian sunrise that carbon four was pretty memorable. Indeed it's a good name for a beer sounds like a fantastic mix of the Martian sun right. It doesn't good all right well let's go to conclude the first half of this episode we're going to recap the beers we have will pick a beer of the day from the first half and then we will get moving on to the next half of the show Britain so we start up the show the boys in Pasadena did the size seven I.P.A. from steel Tara burrowing in St Louis Park then we went on to thoroughly extra citrus from thoroughly Brewing Company in Minneapolis and we went on to mosaics Our from fair state Brewing Company also out of Minneapolis and the second half of the show we did the king Sue from toppling Goliath into core Iowa the Spotted Cow from New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus Wisconsin and we finished it off with the blueberry thrill deep from Tyra Nina Brewing Company out of Lake Mills with Scott. All right I'm going to forego the wheel this time Hugo goes first pick his favorite beer. My favorite beers guy became so. Great beer short and sweet Lance. Great beer. Britain mosaics our great beer restrained authority excellent blew me away I'm chasing it I'm going to keep chasing it with ours now had to get the restraint aside and I did it's perfect but if I was stuck on an island I had to choose one beer through rest of my life out of all these I would choose mosaics Our that's my choice yeah agreed mosaics our hands down it was by far the best. Our was quite good but King's two excellent beer I got to go Kings to my style I guess I have the tiebreaker Jeff the deciding vote. I'm not going to go on for too long both of these beers I would rate a five rating which is rare for me to give a beer or five rating to both of these are some of the best I've ever had from the style but I got to go thing Sue It's it's my choice spear of the day I'm a I.P.A. fan at heart and that is one of the best double I.P.S. I've ever had. Are

that's going to conclude the first half of our recap of the trip to the Midwest. From there we constantly with down to. Illinois and Indiana and Burton Joel were in Cincinnati Ohio and so we have beers from all those states on our next program and we will see you then for Jeff Miller, Britton Minor, Joel Minor, Steve Williamson, I'm Dallas Heliker, you've been listening to the beer the day podcast.