Backdropped by a Irish jam session, Cari Guerin joins Bobby and Gary for her story! From growing up in small town Wisconsin to becoming a certified cicerone, Cari just loves a good beer.

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CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer!

00:54 Cari Guerin Beer Origins

03:33 Wisconsin Drinking Laws

06:10 Craft Beer Education

09:48 Cask And Sour Culture

12:21 Breaking Into The Industry

13:24 Stalking To Get Hired

15:08 Bar Staff Are Everything

16:04 Cicerone Levels Explained

18:51 Why Get Certified

19:35 Beer vs Wine Complexity

21:24 Consistency and Big Brewers

23:46 Favorites at McFleshman’s

26:02 200 Breweries and Top Picks

27:55 Costa Rica Jungle Brewery

29:06 Desert Island Beer Pick

30:24 Building the Perfect Flight

34:00 Support us on Patreon!

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CREDITS

Hosts:

Bobby Fleshman - https://www.mcfleshmans.com/

Allison Fleshman -https://www.instagram.com/mcfleshmans/

Joel Hermansen

Gary Ardnt - https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/

Music by Sarah Lynn Huss - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.huss.52/

Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow - https://davidkalsow.com/

Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co

Hello everybody.

This is Gary Arndt and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer with me again, as usual is the Master of Hops and Malt Space and time.

Bobby Fleshman.

Happy to be here for an impromptu episode.

And as you can hear in the background, probably there's a lot of Irish music going on.

So there's that.

And our guest back on the other side of the, the microphone after being on the other side and not on the other side.

Carrie Guerin, we never really got to talk to when she was a guest.

She was kind of running a taste testing for us.

So we wanna get into the details of how you got into beer, how you got into this business.

So why don't you give the superhero origin story of how you got your start?

Whew.

So, um, I like to tell people that my background, I have the drinking trifecta.

I am a German Irish

liver disease.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

That's maybe future, I don't know.

But I'm German, I'm Irish, and I was raised in a small town in the middle of Wisconsin.

That is the drinking trifecta.

Um, my dad was a German man who kept his beer next to the refrigerator, not in the refrigerator, and I truly cannot remember my first sip of beer.

I was very little.

It was never something that was off limits to me, so I just, it was always a normal part of my life growing up.

So I've always.

Had I've acquired a taste very young.

Home was New London.

New London.

Yeah.

Which becomes New Dublin this time of year.

Right.

Celebrate.

It does become Dublin every March.

Yes, it does.

So there's plenty, plenty of beer to

celebrate there.

There are, there are Irish communities around here, but not a lot.

New London And Freedom is it, are the only ones that

Yes,

I believe Freedom is also

Yeah.

That, that have like a, an Irish background.

Yeah.

New London has really embraced the Irish.

For sure.

But Germans are a dime a dozen here.

Uh, kind of, yeah.

Germans, Polish, Dutch were kind of a lot of the

in the, in, in the Fox cities.

Yeah.

When we were looking to open the brewery, we found that 75% of everyone that lives.

The Fox Valley.

Mm-hmm.

Claims German descent.

Oh

sure.

And I think 28% claim Irish percent.

Yeah.

So, or Irish descent.

So it

sense are the largest ethnic group in the United States.

Most people don't know that.

Yep.

Hmm.

Fair

enough.

And the reason is it has to do with World War I. It became very unfashionable to be German in the United States.

And there was actually a period of 18 months where there were more lynchings of Germans than African Americans.

Oh wow.

Um, because if you were German, and so the town of New Berlin in Wisconsin that used to be New Berlin and New Berlin, they simply changed the pronunciation and there were cities that changed their name.

People that, uh, there were German, uh, newspapers and like Oshkosh and around there they stopped doing that and that's when everything became very anglicized.

Hmm.

There you have it.

And World War II didn't help.

I did not know that.

That was just right.

Fueled the fire.

But by that time, a lot of the, the dehumanization had already happened.

Speaking of beer, Carrie, we're back on your origin stories.

Yes.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So your parents abused you, fed you alcohol at a young age.

I guess you could say that, but Sure.

And I should add, for those of you listening outside of Wisconsin, that is perfectly legal here.

Absolutely it is.

Yeah, it is.

Your parents can serve you alcohol.

Yep.

And in fact, at Mc Fleishmans, so long as your parent is here.

Yes.

I think you technically have to give it to

the parents.

Yes.

I was gonna say, as a beer tender, I cannot serve a beer to a minor, but I can give it to their parents and they can give it to their child.

And then how does it, I think between 18 and 21 there's a loophole.

No, there used to be.

Oh, is it?

Okay.

They close that.

So it used, the law used to state that, if, I'm trying to remember how it was, um, if you were a minor.

You could drink with your parents, which meant once you turned 18, you were no longer a minor.

Right.

But the law was changed eight to 10 years ago, I think it was.

Um, they changed the word minor to underage.

Got it.

Okay.

Close the loophole

for

a while.

I thought that that was, that

existed for a while.

Yes.

You could.

You could drink if you were nine, but not if you were 19.

Right.

Yeah.

There's a lot of weird things about Wisconsin because of the Tavern League.

Where in one hand it's, it's just a state of anarchy.

You can do whatever you want.

And then the other hand, you can't do anything.

Yeah.

Like many of the neighboring states have legalized marijuana.

We probably never will.

You cannot mail beer in or out of the state.

Right.

But you can whine.

Um, yeah.

It's just these weird things.

It is weird.

That's Wisconsin.

I grew up in Oklahoma, so these weird things I was, I was drowning in them before we moved.

Oh my gosh.

I remember when I started here and I remember asking you and Allison about what our policy was for minors and the horrified looks on your faces.

Like, what are you even talking about?

Of course, we're not gonna give beard to a minor

In what universe?

Yeah.

Like, okay.

And

they had no clue what the law was?

No.

They, they had never heard this before.

They were like, what?

Why would we do such a thing?

Oh.

In a state that doesn't even refrigerate above three point beer.

We were, we were still adjusting for sure.

Okay.

So that's your, your childhood.

Yes.

You become an adult Yep.

Of legal age.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, what was the story after that then?

Um, well, you know, growing up with that, I had kind of acquired that taste.

I've always really enjoyed the flavor of beer.

Um,

this isn't you writing in your dream book, like, I'm gonna work at a bar.

No.

Oh gosh, no.

Definitely not.

Um, but you know, in college I had a couple friends that were home brewers.

Um, I have some family members at home brewed, I personally never have, which is kind of weird to me.

But, um.

Shadow

day.

Yeah,

that's coming.

Shadow day.

Everybody's gonna get to jump in.

My, I got married, had kids.

Um, I taught my husband about craft beer 'cause he was the Bud Light drinker, which nothing.

No dissing Bud Light.

There is a time and a place for every beer out there.

I have drank my share of bush lattes.

Um, but I've just always appreciated the flavors and, and the.

The different arrays of flavors.

There's just something out there for every time and every place and every person.

I have sat on the other side of the bar many times here and I have seen people come in first time here and they literally, that's what they order.

Not knowing that

Sure.

They make everything here.

It's like, oh, well what's the closest you have to Bud Light?

Yeah.

And 'cause that's all they know.

Yep.

And I think that's for a lot of people, it's not like that's a taste preference.

It's literally, it's just,

that's all they know.

Yeah.

It truly is.

And that's really fun behind the bar when, when I can get somebody who, and we're always gonna have those people that, Nope, that's all I want.

Gimme your state street, whatever.

But when I get those people that are willing to step outside and try something different and, and that is so much fun for me when I can.

Or the person who comes in is like, I don't like beer.

What, what?

What are you gonna serve to me?

Like, okay, let me ask you a couple questions.

Let me see what I can figure out and if I can find something that they like, and then they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know I liked beer.

I like beer.

It's fun.

The, in, in the wine world, you only have, and there's a certain art and romance to it.

You only have grapes, water, and sometimes no yeast because they just go, they're spontaneously fermented.

Uh, but in, in the beer world, we're working with four ingredients actively.

We have, we have malt, the hops, the water in the yeast.

Yep.

That gives us so much more to work with.

And the way, my gosh, that malt comes so many different things in is that's been pre, we don't give these malters enough credit.

The guys that take the malt, the barley from the field, and they go through the germination process and the toasting and the kiln mm-hmm.

They generate all these flavors and colors that we take credit for as brewers.

We blame those guys when things go south.

We always say these fucking monsters, they, they, they threw us, we throw them under the bus.

Let's say it that way.

They do so much work.

But yeah, in the beer world, we have so much more to work with.

Yeah, there's, there, there really is something for almost everybody out there.

There's a flavor that we can find for you.

We can go as sour as you want.

We can go as hoppy as you want.

Yep.

And every multi,

a lot of people have never had anything like a sour.

Yeah, true.

They wouldn't think of that as beer.

True.

And we do traditional sours here for the most part.

And that, and that's a very different animal than, uh, a, a fruited sour where you'll dump, I don't wanna say dump, but there's, there's a way that you can make beers sour really quickly.

And there's a way you have to go the long route and, and they, they're very different.

So yeah, there's, they're puckering.

I've been many like convenience stores around here and you go into their beer cooler and I looked once

Yeah.

Every beer they had was just a light lager.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's all they were.

And that is what to most people, what beer is.

Yes.

Cult 45 era.

Absolutely.

They've never had.

A caspi probably.

Oh gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Can, can we get cask

at QuickTrip?

Oh my gosh.

You think we could talk

QuickTrip?

If I had to go cask the first two years I worked here, if I had a dime for every time somebody came back up to the bar with their, their dimple mug of tall mast or mild or whatever that cask beer was and was like, Hey.

This beer is warm and flat.

Oh, no, that's, that's, that's what it is.

That's, that's beer

translation.

This is, this beer isn't Miller Life.

They just didn't understand what it was.

And, you know, that was one of the things that was a little bit of a shift for me coming here, was the educating of, of our, our clientele.

Because people didn't know what Cask beer was.

Mm-hmm.

And so to have to.

That was, that was another part of it.

Or even with the sour beers, a lot of people I had come, same thing.

People would come and be like, we think something might be wrong with your beer.

It's really, really sour.

Well, 'cause it's a sour beer.

And, and the educating was, was a really, it still is, it's still a fun thing to do.

And once in a while, I've talked about how Steve from Stone Arch, uh, he, he didn't say this so much, but.

He implied that if he had a chance to, he would open a pub like we have opened here.

Oh yeah.

Where we could, we could focus on ca scale.

And he, he and I talked about this before we opened this and we knew it'd be uphill.

And it has been uphill, but it's paid off.

It's created, oh my gosh.

Quiet the following.

We

downstairs.

Yes, there is definitely a, uh, a hauler.

Cult of the cask, if you will.

Yeah, there is definitely what, what we call 'em, pinhead.

I call 'em pinhead.

Pinhead.

I like

because the

small, the smallest

version of a cask is called a pin.

I, I've

never

had a, or they could be our f firkin patrons.

There's so many F word combinations.

I never had a sour beer before I came here.

Ever.

Yeah.

Um, and it's probably my favorite style of beer now.

Yeah.

Or at least some of like the Berlin or Weis, the gsa, the, I love the gsa.

It comes from that sort of that wine cider quadrant a little bit, yeah.

Of the palette.

Yeah.

So that makes sense.

We even within that, that Ultima, the, oh

yeah.

So we do that wine.

Many people,

I get people that beer that say they don't like beer, and they're like, this is not beer.

I'm like, yeah, it is.

And it's a beer that really doesn't have a category.

I mean, there's very few beers like that in the world.

So it's a good crossover that way.

It's a fun one.

Mm-hmm.

So when did you get your first job in the industry,

actually?

Oh, I used air quotes

around

industry.

Yeah.

It was,

put that in the, in the transcripts, air quotes were

years, I don't even know if it was, I don't know how many years ago, 10 plus years ago.

Um, I was a regular at Stone Arch and, uh.

One.

Andy?

Yep.

He's now one of the, now he's like a, he's

GM over

there.

He's the brewer.

Yeah.

He's, he's a head brewer over there and,

and no, he is a

full

blown

GM now.

Oh, he's the GM now?

Yeah, he's the whole thing.

Wow, okay.

Yeah, he was, he was a bartender and he was bartending in the tap room, and I was hanging out one day and he's like, man, I just wish I could get a Saturday off.

I'm like, I'll bartend for you.

And it was kind of a joke, but then he's like, really?

You want to, I'm like, yeah, actually I do.

And so they threw me behind the bar and.

It's all downhill from there.

It's all plateau from there.

It's all, yeah.

It's an industry where, yeah, you can look at it either way.

Yeah.

I kind of got thrown into it and I loved it, and here I am,

and then she started stalking us and 20.

Six, oh gosh.

16, seven

something

Right after, whenever the news broke.

Well, because at that point is right when you were leaving there.

Oh, that's right.

I left there.

I was just coming into that place.

And you were leaving

to build this place.

Yeah.

And I heard of this being who was called Bobby and heard all these things about Bobby, and that's

on

his birth certificate, how much he knew about it.

Yes.

Birth certificate, how much he knew about beer and, and all, all this stuff.

And then I, at one point I had heard that he was opening a brewery, so I did stock him on, on Facebook, found the brewery, and I messaged him and I said, Hey, here, you're opening a brewery.

No, you're not anywhere near hiring somebody, but when you get to that point, please reach out to me 'cause I'm gonna work for you.

When we finally sit down to do an interview, it really felt like a foregone conclusion, and it was me and Layla.

I think Shane was part of it too.

Maybe Shane was there.

I think he was too.

Think we were sort of the first three people working here the whole time and, and yeah, it felt very, very ceremonial at that point.

I've, I've had interviews like that.

Uh, the internet company used to have in the nineties.

I remember our guy who was our top programmer, he came in, uh, we used a, a, a platform that was really new at the time, and he had, he just, his, his resume.

Was a stack of code that he had written and it was like here, and I was looking at, I was like, you figured out ways to do things that aren't in this package yet.

No one has figured out how to do this.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, he, he never got a college degree.

Best, like I said, best programmer, we had best employee.

Like if he had any, at any point ever come to me and said, I want a raise, I'm like, okay, I have to.

Yeah.

Because we're screwed without you!.

Yeah.

And we, we talk about this a lot, how the, the person standing behind the bar is the last one to touch the beer, and the only one that a lot of people ever have contact with.

I should

say Carrie touches the beer.

She'll put her finger in it

and everything.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, any chance I get,

wait, we, if we ever get Mike on this, we have to make sure we're not literal.

So Mike's another one of our original og, which is

he's number two.

Id

like number two to

remind him that he is number two

and he's coming back for more hours these days.

It's like what's old is new.

But yeah, these people are everything for us up there.

Uh, they know us only by the face of Carrie or Mike or whoever is standing behind that bar and if they touch their beer or not.

Um, so one of the things we wanted to talk to you about is that you are a cone,

a level one.

Yes.

And so explain what that is.

'cause a lot of people, it's, it's a word they probably haven't come across.

Sure.

So it's, it's, I liken it for people who know a sommelier in the wine world is the equivalent of a Cicerone in the beer world.

Um, cone is a. I don't even remember how many levels there are now.

I think there are four now.

I think there's four levels because

there was such a huge gap from

two to three.

It

was stupid.

Yeah.

Level, level four, you can control beer with your mind,

basically.

Basically.

That's kind of where it is.

There's like 18

people in the world that have it.

Yeah.

So ridiculous.

Something I'll never see, uh, level one certified beer server.

It's just how it, it fits with what this place is.

It is learning how to respect the beer.

It's learning how to pour it properly.

It's learning what a, a clean glass looks like.

It's learning, um, if, if the beer's not pouring properly, what, how to troubleshoot.

It's learning how to help people find a beer that they are going to enjoy.

Um, so that's that level one.

Level two is just learning so many things about beer that.

There's a big test that you have to take for the level two.

I'm, I'm hoping to someday take it.

Um, but

you got

this, you got, there's a written test that's just all sorts of beer knowledge.

But then there's a practical, and I liken it to, if you've ever seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, where he is tasting the milk and he's like, this cow got into a field of onions.

And it's being able to taste these beers and tell what's wrong with them or what style it is.

And if you have a couple be, you're just

like,

do you have tots?

I mean, that's always a fair thing.

That's, that's like a pallet cleanser.

Those tots,

I always remember the, the movie, uh, sideways.

Oh yeah.

He convinces him that

No Low.

Well, there's, there's a moment where he convinces him that, to, to, that, that there's like, was it crayon or, or Eraser?

Eraser,

I think maybe

eraser.

And he convinced him of it, and then he slapped him in the back of the head because he was just leading him on Yeah.

To see how much bullshit he would buy into Oh, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Have you seen the uh, apple TV series drops of God?

No.

No, I

haven't.

I recommend it.

It's in English, Japanese, and French.

It's about the world's greatest wine connoisseur.

He dies and his daughter and the son he had in Japan that nobody knows about, have to compete

Oh geez.

For his estate, which is like a hundred million dollars collection of wine.

Whew.

And season two just started.

So

good tv.

Nice.

Uh, so why get a Cron certification?

What, what is the point of it?

I should, oh, go ahead interjecting just a little bit.

I think the Cron program exists because, was it Ray Daniels that started it?

And I think Randy Moser might have been involved as well.

I think Randy Moer was involved based in Chicago.

Yes.

They, based in Chicago realized there wasn't, there really wasn't an analog in the beer world.

For what Somalia was, just to reinforce your point and, and that beer is the every man's woman's drink.

Over the course of history, but in reality, there's so much sophistication that could be celebrated.

Yeah.

I think that's why they made it, they wanted to tell people in this way by, by creating this, this certification.

But anyway, so why this

real

Sure.

And

going off that and, and what I'm about to say is not a dis on wine at all.

I love wine, but

No, go

ahead.

Disarm wine.

Um,

has, you know what, you know, has wine makers drink while they're waiting for the wine to finish

beer?

Yeah.

Yeah.

True story.

Wine.

Has very limited number of ingredients.

You're not gonna introduce adjuncts into your wines typically.

Um, it's, it's grapes.

It's water.

I mean it, it's very limited ingredients.

Beer, yes.

If you're looking at the Rhine Heitz Gobot, that beer Purity Law, that's just those four ingredients

not brought, just to call back another episode, Bob, business Opportunity.

But there's all these other things that can get introduced into beer and on, on top of that, if you look just to look at a hop.

There are how many different hops?

Well over a hundred different times, 150 times of different hops, and it's, it's ridiculous and can use them.

One hop in a beer.

You can use two hops in a beer.

All the, the unlimited number of combinations of, of things.

So beer is very, very complex.

And,

and the caveat is, none of us are wine makers by trade.

We, we've dabbled in wine, so we don't mean to talk down to that industry.

Not

at all.

Not at

all.

Lot.

Lot.

Not a

lot.

That, that's why I said, I'm not saying this as a, anybody with wine,

wine making money, farming.

Sure.

And

that's kind of how they market their industry too.

I mean

that's, you know, I, I

think there's more, more chemistry and artistry and beer.

Yeah.

Because you're not, you're, you're selecting your ingredients from a much bigger menu.

Yes.

Yeah.

Whereas

there's

so many more different combinations.

Your average wine maker is gonna have a vineyard and maybe they may blend grapes from some nearby vineyards.

Mm-hmm.

But it's not like, oh, we're buying something from the other side of the world.

Right.

They're just, you know, and then they, they mash it and then they let it

say, and I find, I find there's a lot more leniency and very batch variation because we talk about vintage and we celebrate the years.

That's not how beer is.

No.

And I've said that many times.

You gotta be able to execute the same product year by year, regardless of how that product came out of the field.

Oh yeah.

There is definitely something with beer to be said for consistency and that's, um, when I hear people dis the big beer makers, the Miller, the Budweiser, um.

There is something truly to be said for the consistency in those big mass producing breweries to be able to grab a Bud light off a shelf and you know exactly what you're gonna get every single time.

Mm-hmm.

That is not easy to do.

So there's, I mean, I'm, I'm never gonna dis the mass producers.

I don't necessarily drink a lot of that 'cause I like craft beer, but there is something to be said for those mass produced beers.

Oh, I've noticed it here and I, I think I've, I've told Bobby there are times where I've had something amber or something where mm-hmm.

For whatever reason, that batch is particularly good.

Sure.

It's not that other ones are bad, but sometimes it's just like it goes to 11.

Yeah.

And, and

sometimes I, okay.

Question for Bobby on this then.

I feel like sometimes it's maybe that you weren't able to get a particular hop.

And you have to substitute with something else.

I,

I was about to point that out.

Uh, on our scale, we don't have access to the ingredients, the lot sizes that, that these big brewers do, and we are navigating that.

The other thing though, on our scale, we're only entering our, our eighth year and a lot of these macro brewers we're talking about are 200 years old.

Mm-hmm.

And they've had that many years to dial in their recipe.

Right.

So as much as I get shit for fucking with recipes.

It's part of what it takes to, to, to develop your, your menu and then to execute on that is where the technician's hat comes on, comes into play.

And you have to be able to, to repeat that recipe once it's, once it's been, uh, uh, embraced by the, the people that spend their money.

So, yeah, I think the, the big guys have have realized who they are, and now they've gone into technician mode for the last a hundred plus years.

So you, uh, presented a fe to Comli to Bobby, uh, that you would work here.

So what is your, and we talked about this on a previous episode.

What is your favorite beer at Mc Fleishmans?

Oh, that's such a hard question because I love so many of the beers that they make here.

Then let me flip it.

What is your least favorite beer?

Oh, my least favorite.

Um,

the ones like, yeah, it's not my thing.

I, there are a couple different ones.

I'm, I'm not a big fan of a wild sour.

Um, if they get into a little too much funk, not my thing.

Um, if you start using the terms wet horse blanket to describe a beer, it's just, I'm, I don't care for that.

And I know some people love it, and it's a very traditional style.

I can appreciate it for what it is.

I'm not gonna ever order that beer.

Um,

so people love that

stuff.

And

yeah, for people listening, that's, uh, that's, it's now since been, uh, identified as a yeast.

It's called Myis.

Yeah.

Which means British fungus.

If you're breaking that word down.

Uh, and it's what was found in the staves of barrels over time.

So a lot of your porters and IPAs, and you name it, finished this way over time.

Yeah, for sure.

And, and so they would, they would actually start blending new and old, and this is how some of your porters came about at the pub.

Mm-hmm.

They would blend the new and old, which is gonna really south and the really fresh stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So not, not my, not my style.

Um, oh.

I, I don't, I, I appreciate the stones throw.

It's, it's, or, or, yeah, the stones throw.

It's just, it's not my beer.

It's a great beer.

People love it.

I am so happy that people love it.

It's just not my, my style.

Um, I tend to lean more toward.

A little bit bigger beers.

I shouldn't even say that though.

'cause I love a good Kolsch or a good pilsner.

What are you drinking right now?

I am, I'm drinking the public house pint dry Irish Soat

with a soundtrack playing in the

background with, with the I, yeah.

It felt right in the moment with the Irish music playing.

So in addition to working here, being a cerone, uh, you've also visited a great many breweries in the state of Wisconsin.

I have.

I, I have.

So 200 plus.

Yes.

I didn't even know there were that many.

Um,

and not all of them in Wisconsin.

Some are outside of

Wisconsin.

Do you have

tasted, but

how many beers?

Probably,

oh, what did I say?

Like 3,400 plus.

Something like that.

So fl men's aside, what are your favorite breweries in the state?

Gimme a time.

Oh, in the state?

Five.

Um, yeah.

I love Central Waters.

I love the, the space.

I love when it's, I've

heard that a lot.

Summertime.

The one, the Amherst, the Milwaukee one is fantastic too.

It's beautiful old church building.

It's gorgeous.

But the Amherst location grabbing a beer sitting outside.

Oh, their anniversaries next

Saturday.

It is.

It's 'cause coming Saturday.

Need get

tickets.

I got,

yeah, I

got you.

Yeah.

Excited.

I got

EIP tickets.

You do.

Nice.

Yeah.

Denny.

Denny.

Oh, nice.

Oh man.

It's gonna be a fun time.

We all know the same

guy.

This is

one guy.

We all got the same guy.

But to grab a beer out there in the summer and sit outside is just, it's, it's my happy place.

Um, I, I love going there.

Um, outside of Wisconsin, they're

also a really environmentally

friendly They are, yes.

Brewery as well.

Yes.

They're super, super, super green, which is amazing.

And

their barrel

aged beers

are just,

um,

I was just

gonna go into that Unparalleled.

Their, their barrel program is phenomenal.

The stuff they're putting out in the barrels is just world class, I think.

Um, and I, and I know a couple of the people that, that are there.

They are great people that work there.

Um.

Yeah, I just, I love going there.

It's just, I can go, I can take a deep breath and relax when I go there.

Um, so many other breweries, there's some, so many great breweries in Wisconsin.

Um, but like outside, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this one in.

The most surprising brewery I ever stumbled upon was actually in the jungles of Costa Rica.

Yeah.

You showing me pictures of this place?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This, there was a brewery out in the middle of the jungle, surprising

the fact that there even

was a brewery.

It was, well, that was surprise number one.

But the bigger surprise was that I had one of the best cultures I have ever had in my life.

It doesn't hurt that the

amazing

that the weather was what it was.

Oh, for sure.

It must have matched perfectly

for Oh yeah.

It was perfect weather for that.

Yeah.

But it was, so the lacing on the beer was amazing, but literally just out in the open, not even in a building, it was out in the open in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle.

Love that.

It was so cool.

And someone said, this is a good place for a brewery.

Let's

do

it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was so fun to go there.

And they're making, well, it's, it's sort of a lagger, it's a cool fermented ale.

So, yeah.

In the middle of Costa Rica.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I don't know how they, how they lagger that beer.

Yeah.

Because it was like 90 degrees.

Yeah.

But it was so good.

And your favorite non Mc Fleshman Beer year.

Um, okay.

I, I will, I'll give you my, my Desert Island beer.

Uh, Bell's two hearted.

How

do

you

spell that?

Bells.

Bells Brewery.

Okay.

Two Hearted Ale.

Two hearted is a, it's a fish right?

In the,

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The fish is a lo, the logo is a fish for that day.

Yeah.

They named it after that fish.

Yeah.

Two hearted.

And it's, it's arguably the best.

It's

double IPA in the United States.

It's

so freaking good.

It's just hits.

Where's

the brewery

in Michigan?

It's, it's between Pliny the Elder, which we're gonna have an interview with the owner of Soon.

Oh fun.

Uh, Russian River Brewing Company, but it's our, it's between that one and, uh, Bell's two Hearted as to who makes the Best West or Best American double IPA.

But yeah, that's a good one.

That's all Centennial Hops.

That's a, that's all

Centennial

Hop beer.

I love the Centennial Hop.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that little resine Danky.

You don't have, like, you don't have any, uh, number twos.

That's your number one.

That's

your, that's my number one's, right?

That is, that is, if I can only drink one beer for the rest of my life, that's the

beer, not the worst choice.

Okay.

Yeah.

Final question for you.

We get people listening to the show from all over.

Let's say we had someone recently come here from OUTTA state because mm-hmm.

They wanted to meet me and I didn't know they were coming.

You're behind the bar.

They order a flight and they, you have full sure choice on what they're gonna get.

What are you gonna pour for 'em?

Uh, for sure a cask beer, depending on what's on and what else I pick is going to determine which cask beer, but for sure a cask beer.

Uh, I will probably pull something from our luer faucet because that is another beer type of pour that a lot of people don't always know about.

So I like to introduce those two different kinds of faucets or pores.

Um, gosh, it's really gonna depend on what we have on, um, okay.

I'm just gonna go with any beers that we have.

I'm probably gonna pour a, uh, a tall mask from the cask.

I'll say a Schwartz beer from the Luker so that we got a lighter and a darker, not a hildy.

Ooh, Hildy.

Ah.

We have so many really nice light beers.

And trust me, Hildy Hildy, she's my girl.

I take her on vacation with me.

I have pictures of her in Costa Rica, the beach.

I have pictures of her on the beach in Florida with me.

I have pictures of her in Cancun.

She's my girl.

I love her.

Um, but if I'm gonna do a lighter, um, beer on the cask, I'm probably gonna go darker on the looker.

Uh, then I would probably go with maybe like Pirates Cove, just because it's such a staple for us and it's just a great beer.

And then what would that fourth one be?

That's a tough one.

I might go with something kind of different that they've never experienced, like an Ultima Rose, just because it's such a unique style.

If they're giving me nothing to go on, just to give them a real total array of different stuff, couple beer flavored beers, couple not so beer flavored beers.

Not one.

I mean, of course Tall Mast, but not one west coast IPA.

That's fascinating.

I know, right?

I mean, I don't disagree with the

choice.

That's That's where, that's where I go.

Yeah.

If I'm drinking a beer, typically I lean toward the west coast.

Yeah.

But if given no direction, I know that's kind of can be a polarizing beer for people.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm probably gonna stay away from it.

Fair enough.

Just 'cause I like it doesn't mean everybody does.

Joel would not be nodding at this point.

I know he wouldn't.

To be fair, there are a lot of IPA drinkers out there.

There are,

but,

and they'll find

their way to those.

But if I, and I, I did throw a Tall Mast in there.

Granted it's and English IPA, but I like, I, I like to give that beer to an IPA drinker because it is so different.

I always love the comment when they drink tall mass, which by the way is one silver gold.

Gold in the last three years US open.

Yeah.

And they always come back and say, that is a really interesting direction to take an IPA and I ha I just, I can't help, but you know, I don't have enough time to explain to them that that's, that statement is completely upended backwards from the truth.

Yeah.

That's where it all began.

Yeah.

Alright, well that'll conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.

The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kalsow, and if it wasn't for David, this show would not exist.

Please join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and to support the show over on Patreon where you can get bits that don't make it into the regular show, as well as special things like events and special beers that are brewed only for Patreon members.

Links to both of these are in the show notes, and until next time, please remember to respect the beer.