Decker hops back on mic to taste a new, unnamed Italian pilsner from Bobby. They discuss what makes pilsners unforgiving and visually driven, including how the first unfiltered keg pull can be hazy from yeast. This beer is a collaboration with Stefano Viglietti who owns Slo Food Market, Il Ritrovo, and Field to Fork. It's officially been named Pil Ritrovo!

Visit Sheboygan and check it out!

https://www.ilritrovopizza.com/

https://www.slofoodmarket.com/

https://www.fieldtoforkcafe.com/

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CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer!

02:10 Lukr Faucets and Pilsner Pride

04:24 First Tasting Notes

05:25 Hops Breakdown Saaz to Saphir

08:41 Italian Pilsner Origin Story

10:20 IBUs ABV and Decoction Tease

15:40 Decoction Surprise Results

16:33 Why Decoction Clears Beer

17:28 Color Control Without Fire

18:45 Old School Brewing Logic

19:28 Better Foam From Decoction

20:36 Naming Beers Is Hard

23:03 Community Collabs And Causes

23:42 Italian Pilsner Origin Story

26:25 Dry Hopping A Pilsner

27:41 Taproom Timing And Festivals

29:14 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 everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.

I'm Decker, the interim host for this wonderful podcast.

I say interim because, well, Gary, uh, they told me on the way over that he got lost, and I think he was, he was trying to figure out more about what is going on in this world.

Miss Frizzle picked him up.

He's in a school bus.

He's very small.

He's microscopic.

He's eating away sugars inside of some wort somewhere.

And, uh, we'll, we'll pull him out sometime.

But, uh, in the meantime, until he's, uh, aged fermently and, uh, and deliciously, we are here.

And, uh, I've got, uh, the man himself, Bobby Fleshman, the, uh, the brewer, the most of the name.

I would... I was gonna do the math and say, like, the 98% of the beer- The letters?

The letters, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But- Minus the two.

Yeah Yeah.

I did radio, so I, I'm not j- gonna try to do- ... math in this, uh, thing.

But we're, uh, we're up in the Prohibition Room.

How you doing, Bobby?

Great.

Great.

We're without a net today.

No, no Gary.

So here we go.

This is gonna go off the rails-

... Decker: so fast.

Uh, Gary was the glue that held us together, and now, uh, we're a free-form...

It's gonna be great.

I can't wait to see where we end up.

Yeah, and, and also we don't have Allison, so I won't get, uh, chastised as much- ... for what that's worth.

Hey, no more getting yelled at for buying barrels when, uh, you weren't supposed to buy barrels.

Oh, we should- So I guess there, there you go ... we

should start, we should just go, jump on ProBrewer and let's just start shopping right now.

There we go.

Let's do this in real time.

Hey, look, we got an open card.

We got an open tab.

ProBrewer.com.

Um, but we're- Decker made us do it Yeah, you can blame me, that's fine, but you have to name the beer after me.

That's fine.

All right, yeah.

Um, but we're here to talk about a beer, which is one of my favorite parts of these, uh, these episodes.

Um, I was listening to the one about the Hildy Pils on the way over because a Czech pilsner is a delicious way to go.

One of my f- like, it was probably the style that got me into craft lager.

I've got air quotes in this visual, uh, podcast that we've got going on.

But, um, it's a solid, solid beer, the, the Hildy Pils, one of my favorites.

There we go.

Um, but you changed... I went downstairs, tried to order one.

It's not on tap.

Uh, too many damn beers vying for that lucher.

Mm-hmm.

We have two of those faucets, and yeah, too many of them that are fighting for that, those two slots.

And now you're adding another one.

Is this- Yeah ... is this beer going to be on a Luker tap or how are we gonna- I was about to

say, I didn't think of it till now, but I think maybe this is my way of asking for four Luker faucets- Ooh

by adding so many beers that require it and having so many complaints Okay,

probrew.com, I think that's where we're- Yeah, yeah, pro-

probrew.com classifieds There we go, okay ... uh, these probably won't end up on the classifieds- ... 'cause no one's gonna l- let them go.

But yeah, no, I, the, I'm surprised they let me have, uh, the two we have.

They're the only- Are they

a,

are

they a, like, a closely guarded secret in, uh, in the Czech or-

No, I think it's the only way to s- to drink the, the beer in the Czech Republic.

Uh, here we discovered them in the craft scene five, 10 years ago, and it's starting to exponentiate in its, uh, adoption.

They are sexy.

I'm watching I'm watching beer porn to my left . Get some soft jazz going on.

David's got the screen up . Is that

a left-hand side pour?

Yeah, w- a real slow one.

I like that.

Oh, a grass one- ... the, the stainless, they're all beautiful.

Here we go.

All right.

Uh- All right ... but pilsners are kinda like the, the pinnacle of brewing.

I think I've said that a few times, how, how you can't hide anything behind them, how they showcase your local ingredients and water and hops.

And we drink with our eyes.

In fact, I just pulled each of us a sample of, of this beer to try kind of in real time, this new Italian pilsner that we're making, and the first pull of any keg that's not filtered, uh, could be a little bit hazy.

Some of that yeast has dropped out.

But you'll notice when you look at your two side by side as we have here, your first sip is with your eyes, and y- you wanna drink the one that's so brilliant on that second pull.

Yeah, that's the one that I, I got the, uh, the, the third pull I think that you got- Yeah, you definitely-

and so mine is crystal clear.

Yeah,

after like twen- 10 or 15 ounces of beer, you're

clear.

You're ready to rock.

Uh, and that's one of the, the defining characteristics of an Italian pilsner is that it is unfiltered- It's, yeah ... and with the dry hop and so there's a lot going on in the beer- Yeah ... after the direct fermentation.

Yeah.

Uh, where do we even start with it?

I mean, do you wanna do our, uh, like, what this thing tastes like before we go too- Yeah, I think- ... deep in this?

Yeah.

Yeah, we've

got David here as well- Yeah ... and, um, you know, he's our producer.

Thank you.

There he is.

That's the only words he's allowed to say, uh, besides his review of this next beer, but, um, I think we should.

This is great.

It d- what's the name- The, the- ... before we even try it?

Uh, we're gonna

call it an Italian pilsner.

I'll get into it in a minute as why it doesn't have a name yet.

Uh, but do you want any descriptors or are we going into it completely blind?

Hmm.

I wanna go into it blind- Go for it ... uh, 'cause

I think- Let's do it

yeah, let's see.

Okay.

It's quite crispy.

Mm-hmm.

That's for sure.

It's got a unique nose on it that I don't know how to place it.

I wanna say light and refreshing is where I would put it first in my head Light and refreshing.

Yeah, I, it- Is it- It's really hop forward- Yeah ... for being a pilsner.

Yeah.

And, but I... What are the hops?

Are they, are they noble hops that you're using?

Yeah, um, well, Saaz is the, is the hop that we lean on kind of in the middle of that boil, so we kind of split the difference between a hop that's used solely for the purpose of bitterness and one that's used solely for the purpose of aroma.

So we kind of toss that in the middle.

We actually toss it in, uh, at a point in the, in the process known as first wort hopping, so we'll put hops into the kettle as we're running wort into the kettle.

And the reason we do that is because the pH t- tends to be very low, and that tends to make the profile softer than it otherwise would be.

A beer that's like this, there's absolutely nothing to hide behind.

You're gonna get some of that vegetal and that tannic m- uh, nature if you don't watch it.

So you wanna watch how you, uh, throw your hops into it.

And, uh, you wanna get your, your water chemistry right.

We want to get your pH right, your temperatures, and so on and so on.

But that's a trick the Czechs use, so I borrowed that from the Czechs.

I did a first wort hop on this- Yeah ... with the Saaz hops.

But really, the star of the show here, now that I, I know this beer and I'm looking for it, there's a, a hop known as Saphir and it's grown in Southern Germany.

It's right on the, essentially the border of Northern Italy, and it comes across as kind of a citrus, tropical, but it's also floral and earthy.

It's- Yeah, I was, I was getting a lot of pith.

That's what I'm getting- Mm ... is like, it- it's, it's got that tropical flavor but, like, kind of like the outside of- Yeah ... the fruit and not really- Yeah ... the inside.

Like you, like the, a hazy IPA, you get the juicy part.

This is more of like that, uh, like the grapefruit you have at brunch- Yeah

type of thing.

And if we did our job, it doesn't smell like a, like an American IPA of any kind.

No, no.

It, it, but it is supposed to have more character than... And I love Czech pilsners and I love German pilsners, but, but those are, those tend to be a little bit one way, one-dimensional in that regard.

They stay away from, in fact, a lot of these fruitier hops that we have today were grown and developed in these German breeding programs, and they threw them into the trash can, so to speak, because they didn't wanna have that kind of aroma.

Sure.

They were bo- they were growing them for their bittering, uh, pr- capabilities.

Anyway, so this is not something you'll see n- north of the border in Germany very often, but in an Italian pilsner, it's kind of like a hybrid between what we call a West Coast pilsner and a German pilsner in that, in that regard.

Now, West Coast pilsner is gonna be really even more so hoppy, more bitter than this, and even more aromatic than this.

Uh, however, with this, we're focusing on, you know, that malt balance from those continental malts, mostly continental German pilsner.

They don't grow, as far as I know, a lot of malt, a lot of barley south of the border, so you, we're, we're borrowing a lot from the Germans and the Czechs in making this.

But the, but the star of the party is Saphir hop.

Mm-hmm.

And if, you know, we've, we've been fans of Russian River and- Uh, Firestone Walker is another brewery on the West Coast that we look up to, and they make one called Pivo Pils.

And they use in theirs, they use, uh, Saaz here.

Mm-hmm.

And I've had it and I've been inspired by it.

I have no idea how they make it, I just know that it's in there.

Uh, Vinnie from Russian River uses Aramis in, in his.

And we wanted to stand apart.

We've done enough to honor, uh- ... to, to show praise to Russian River.

Yeah.

So I wanted to kinda, in some ways, show praise to Firestone Walker and, uh, Matt Brynilsen over there.

He's just a genius brewer.

Yeah, I was looking up the history of the Italian pilsner- Mm-hmm ... because it's a... You know, any time you see, like, a new style of beer, it's always exciting to see, like- Yeah ... why was this made?

Was it a mistake?

Was it a direct, like, "I'm making this for a reason" type of thing?

Yeah.

And it kinda was a little bit of both- Yeah ... um, where he was the Italian guy that was trying to make it, um, wanted to replicate a northern German pilsner- There you go ... and then kinda messed up in the process, and it was a pilsner, so you can't really hide behind it- That's it ... like you say.

Yeah.

And so he was like, "Well, I gotta save it somehow," and so he did, and then- There has to be a

music analogy.

Somebody played the wrong chord or whatever- Right.

Yeah, like- ... and now it's there ... a Bob Dylan song.

Yeah.

Like,

um, uh, Knocking on Heaven's Door.

Yeah.

The guy that said, "Oh, yeah, I know how to play the chor- uh, the keyboards," and then was a step behind in- Oh, yeah ... every single one.

Like, yeah, and now it's like, that's so iconic.

Oh, yeah.

Um, and yeah, and it d- I think beer making is such an art beyond the science, because you can use, like, artistic freedom to make it.

And, and that's what this first kind of pils, which was, or however you say it in Italian, was this first Italian pilsner.

And, uh, then the, yeah, the guy from, uh, Firestone Walker- Yeah

he went over there-

Mm-hmm

... Decker: tried it.

Yep.

But the, according to this article, he was the, the brewer was incredibly passionate.

Imagine that, an Italian being passionate about- Oh, yeah ... a food or drink that they made.

Sure, yeah.

And, uh, he was like, "Well, I gotta make something myself." And then he also messed it up when he was in, uh, in California.

And so- Okay ... that's why- Now we have a West Coast pils ... the American West Coast, yeah- Yeah ... is, is different as well.

So- That's- ... it's a comedy of errors to- I love that ... give us here.

I love that.

And this comes in at, uh, 45 IBUs, which is a lot.

That's pretty substantial for a pilsner.

To put that in perspective, that's, that's more than Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale, which was released in 1980.

Uh, and, and it was considered, with all of its malt backbone, it was considered the most bitter thing that many pe- people in America had ever had in their life at that time.

So it's funny that we're not only adding more IBUs than that beer had, but we don't have hardly any of that m- malt backbone that that beer has.

So it really stands out, and it really, like you said, crisp.

I, I would say it's spicy and it's dry.

Mm-hmm.

And it- Definitely dry ... it's snappy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You, it's a drinkable... It's one of those beers you'll have with fish or anything fatty.

It's gonna work really well with that.

Um- And it should be light enough body and light enough in alcohol and carbs that you can have a couple of them What's the ABV on it?

Uh, just under five Just under five So it's not crazy low, it's not crazy high Mm-hmm We needed to put a little of that ABV in there to give it some body.

The ethanol itself gives it body Mm-hmm Um, I should say that the, uh, malt, in order to bolster it, we do go through a laborious decoction process, and that- That

was my next question because I wanted to follow up on you saying first wort hopping Yeah, yeah, yeah Which, um, do you...

This w- it'll lead to dec- decoction Mm-hmm Um, but with first wort hopping, do you heat up the kettle while those hops are in it?

Do you do like a- Yeah ... toasting process, what is it?

Yeah, no,

yeah, as we're... So as we're running off, we are heating in real time, but it tends to stay fairly low because we're adding, you know- Mm-hmm

we're running off from our lauter tun.

We're adding the, the, the wort So it's

immediately, so like you're putting them in and then the wort's going in

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Okay And we wanna hit that high gravity, that high density wort- Mm-hmm ... but also low pH wort.

It hasn't been buffered, or it's able to buffer that pH downward, and that has implications for, uh, the, the tannins and, and the polyphenols that are pulled out from those hops.

And there are probably some other reasons why it's done.

History is a lot of it- Mm-hmm ... when you talk to the Czechs, the Germans Mm-hmm Uh, I, I'm really falling in love with this idea of mash hopping for the same reasons Mash hopping?

Yeah, you throw them directly in with your- Really?

... with your grain, and then in that case, you're not ever heating it up, and- What would

that, would that, would that just be flavor then that it would add, or what would that do?

There, we're gonna get a... You know, I'm having a light bulb moment.

I'm gonna try to get a flavor, a hop flavor chemist on here because that is- Yeah ... some fascinating pathways that, that play out in the mash whenever you sub- you subject those hops to, to those, those, uh, kinds of densities.

You have substrate chemistry.

You have the, the substrate is so, it's such a thick concoction- Mm-hmm ... inside of that.

It changes the chemistry.

But here's the thinking, in 30,000 feet view, that you're able to lock in some precursors that give you aroma downstream- Yeah ... long after the boil.

Mm-hmm So during fermentation, uh, how it gets there, we're gonna have to bring somebody in.

It, but a lot of it, again, is tradition, and it's because it's always been that way that people do this stuff Mm-hmm Um, but anyway, they're kind of siblings, the, the first wort and the, and the mash hop.

I'm starting to lean a little bit maybe mash hop, but I still play obviously with these first worts.

Um, but then other than that, this has a, a bittering hop on this one of, I think it's just- I love that you have paper recipes Oh, man That's amazing Yeah, I'm not gonna sh- This is my very first time, uh, brewing this.

I'm not gonna mess it up telling you h- what, what went into it.

Yeah, Magnum was our, was our- Okay ... our bittering on this.

So Magnum is just one of those German hops that's made just for the bittering aspect and for the most part.

And then we really play up that Saaz at finish, and then in the dry hop, the Saphir.

And there's some Saphir in the, in the w- what we call the whirlpool, too Mm-hmm So anyway, just more opportunities to lock in that oil.

And as I'm drinking My sample here, uh, I'm watching, it, it didn't get poured off of a lucar, but I'm already telling, I can tell that it's gonna have some great foam once we get it into- Yeah, that was,

um- Yeah

w- we'll talk about that in a second because, um, one thing that we, I think you and I both have a very, uh, passionate love of Czech pilsners.

Oh, yeah I, I mean-

Yeah

... Decker: hence the Hilde.

Yeah.

Um, but- And i- and in that case, I should have maybe said to set it apart, Hilde's gonna be really about doubling down on that malt- Right

and really about their signature Saaz hop.

Right.

Yep.

And but one

thing that the Czechs love to do is decoction, which- Yeah ... is a word that you hear sometimes in craft breweries- Yeah ... um, not so much in a, uh, an ale house.

It's more like- Yeah ... this is definitely a, a lager thing, and- Yeah ... you, you also have to have a special system for it.

Um, tell me what in, uh, in this day and age does the decoction actually, what does it do?

Well, and I was gonna say, yeah, in the context of this foam, it actually is, we hope, well, this could be just arguably caused from stepping it through the protein rest to give us- Mm-hmm ... the right, um, molecular, molecular weight protein that, uh, gives structure to these bubbles.

But decoction is a way you can go through what we call step mashing, where we take a part of the mash out, we boil it, recombine it, and we hit those, those subsequent steps.

Uh, whereas we don't have to.

We can just turn on the steam and just rise up to those temperatures.

Mm-hmm.

So what's happening on that heating side is what's interesting, and there's like these, uh, these Maillard reactions again at the f- the map for that is like Beautiful Mind with, uh- What was his name?

Russell Crowe.

Yeah, it's very much like that.

There's a lot of com- really complicated chemistry that happens there, and you have to model kinetics and... But at the end of the day, you, you get what we see on the, uh, production side, you know, working with these things, what we see time and again, it becomes counterintuitive.

Like for example, when we do Pirate's Cove, we'll, that's our Helles lager, we will, we'll do a single decoction on that beer, and once in a while, the guys will talk me out of doing one.

They say, "Let's just see if this makes it better.

If we just, if it doesn't have any effect, then we'll just stop doing it.

It's so much work." So then we'll do one that, without it, and then we'll come down to the tasting of it.

We'll prefer the one that's decocted.

But what really strikes me about it is we'll hold it up to the sunlight, and every single time, the one that has been decocted is lighter in color.

Interesting.

The one that's been cooked the most is lighter.

That is very interesting.

And the reasons that I have come to believe that it's, that it's happening is because we are- We're creating conditions by breaking down all these proteins in the, in the husk and in the germ of the, of the barley and the malt.

I think what we're doing is we're creating conditions in the kettle downstream that are allowing the, the tannins and the proteins to complex and drop out in what we call hot break, cold break, and I think we see that, some of that mat- that, that material come out of solution.

We're able to leave some of it behind in our whirlpool before we hit the fermenter, and we're also seeing some of it drop out into the fermenter, and then we'll do what we call shave the cone.

We'll come in in there, we'll pull off some of that, uh, protein hop, uh, complex that have dropped out.

My point is this: whenever you drop all these particles out of solution that would have otherwise interacted with the light, you end up with a clearer beer.

Yeah.

So we're all thinking, "Oh, we're gonna make our beer darker," and it turns out, and unless you have an extremely, like you have a, a direct fire system, which ours is a steam, uh, fired system.

Steam in our system's like 235 degrees, whereas direct fire is God knows what.

So I think if you're making like a Czech pilsner on a dir- a direct fire system, you're gonna get some color.

Yeah.

If you're doing steam as, as we do, y- you don't have to worry about that as much, but you're gonna get all these other benefits, unless your goal is to get those, that color, and that's why, uh, when we're making like a Czech pilsner and we wanna get some more color, I'm starting to dabble in how pH can help us.

Mm. So there's other knobs we can turn to get there.

Uh, we can use also what's known as melanoidin malts- Yeah ... and those are the malts that have the, have been- And that's what I- ... killed at those temperatures ... was thinking

was, um- Yeah ... when, I'm a, a home brewer- Yeah, yeah ... and so I was like, I was looking into doing a, a Bohemian lager at one point, and, uh, I was like, "Oh, I gotta do a decoction."

I'd seen all these videos about, you know- Yeah ... triple decocted everything, all things like that.

And I went to the home brew shop, and the guy's like, "You wanna do that?

Why don't you just put an ounce or a pound of melanoidin in it- Yeah ... and you're fine." And I'm like- Eh ... "Oh, okay." But that doesn't provide that same w- now that you're saying it, where it like, it, it breaks it down.

It clears it out.

It, it, and- That's one example.

Yeah, and this- It- ... is also a, uh, a process that was developed well before they had like super science going on.

Yes.

Like, they were just, this is the only way they were able to raise the temperature- Yeah, they- ... of their mash ... you can measure

volume.

That's pretty easy- Yeah

back in time, and you can see when things are boiling.

That's really all you gotta know.

Yeah.

And you can- It's like

temperature, throw in yeast.

Yeah, that's it.

You know?

That's the- Yeah ... what they were thinking.

Y- the rule of thumb is you put your thumb into the, the wort, and if it's the temperature of your body, then that, that's time to go in.

That's w- that's the first step in an acid rest, and then- Mm-hmm ... you go up from there.

Uh, the Germans are very process-driven, and as are the Czechs.

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

And now we're, uh, we're here with this Italian pilsner that you made that is called Italian Pilsner.

At this

point, yeah, yeah.

I should say before we get on with that, uh, back to why these bubbles are working.

Sure, yeah A lot of those bad proteins have been dropped out.

If you have bad proteins, meaning longer chain, shorter chain- Mm-hmm ... they won't give you the structure you're looking for to make a bubble, and I think that decoction helps with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I'm- Yeah ... a firm believer in it, and, um, it's one of the things I think that sets the beers apart when you, when you do that process.

You, you could go to many other breweries in America and grab their pilsner or, and try it out, and you can tell when it's like they're trying really hard- Yeah ... but they didn't, they don't have that, they don't, A, have the, the machinery to be able to do it, or they were like, "We don't need to do that because we have modernized malts."

Right.

So why try?

But if, when you do take that step back and making like a, um, you know, the classic style in a classic manner- Mm-hmm ... you get why these beers have been the most popular beer in the world- Yeah, with- ... for- Without it, without deviating ... 200 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Without, it, and, and then you get it,

yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Uh, so, uh, the name.

It's boring today we're- What's in a name?

It's, it's- Tell us about it ... called, well, first of all, naming beers is more stressful in some ways than, uh, designing and brewing them.

It's like naming a child.

Or conceptualizing.

Yeah.

It takes forever.

Oh, my God.

And, and we've actually, we have some of our beers that have been named four different things- Mm-hmm

because we can't decide on the, the best one, or we're just terrible at naming things- ... that people don't wanna, that they're embarrassed to walk up to the menu and order.

That's a bad idea.

What

would be the most embarrassing name that you had for a beer?

Um, well, let's see.

We had a, an altbier that we called Hoffnung hearts.

That would be so, uh, like four beers in- Yeah ... "Give me a hoffsenf-" Well, yeah.

"Give me a fart." Yeah.

Exactly, and I think we named it Hopping Hearts just to make it un- to un-Germanify it.

And, and then, uh, we abandoned that, and it became, oh, eventually became o- our, uh, LGBT supporting, we call it, uh, Alt Together now.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But, uh, for a while- That's a much better name.

Yeah, right?

Took three times we got there, but sometimes we intentionally g- throw bad names.

I like giving our bocks really bad names.

Like, uh, our, our doppelbock is called Triple Debacle Doppelbock.

Bad, it's bad because I, you can't say that after you've had three of them.

No.

And then, and then the, its sibling is Triple Debauchery Rye, where we age it on rye whiskey barrels and, but it has a s- That is not

what I thought that was called at all

... Bobby Fleshman: Debau- Debauchery.

That's way different than what I was saying in my head.

I'm glad I never ordered it.

Oh, my God.

What did they say?

Triple Deduchery downstairs.

They came up with all kinds of names.

The other one, the other Bock was, uh, Bob Loblaw's Law Bock.

Like, it's a Arrested Development reference.

Bob Loblaw's Law Bock.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, there you go.

So Bob Loblaw's Law Bock, that was a fun one.

Half the people got it and laughed- Yeah

the other half would never, ever

order it.

Imagine, imagine that.

7% Bock, four pi- four pints into that- Yeah ... you're- Another

Bob Loblaw's Law Bock ... call Bob Loblaw, go, "We're

getting home."

Yeah.

So, uh, but there have been others.

Uh, our California Common still doesn't have a name.

It's called, been called Crooked Road.

Uh, the most, in reference to the Lombard Street in San Francisco, uh, we called it, ah, something else, but then the librarians took it and they ran with it, and we did a cause with the librarians in town, and they called it something really good, Card Cataloger.

Oh, that's nice.

I like that.

Yeah.

So as long as we're associated with them- So-

it'll make sense.

Yeah.

I, I, I ju- Def- Quick pause on that.

I wanna say that that's one of my favorite parts about a local brewery, it's that you're able to do that type of thing.

Mm. You turn around and be like, "Here's this fun thing that we got. We just met some fun people," and they wanna do something good in this world.

And, like, the good in the world is sometimes hard to find.

Um, but at local breweries, we, it's the same as, um, you know, the local music scene.

If there's a, a f- a thri- uh, if it's thriving, you can tell.

Yeah.

And, uh, and, and th- and that's great, and I love that you did that with librarians.

Thank you for, for helping that out.

Oh, sure.

So that's very, very cool.

We needed, we needed a name,

so we just partnered up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They know lots of words- Oh, that's- ... so thank you for that ... actually

very true.

Uh, okay, so this one, uh, we, we wanted to brew it.

You know, I... It was kinda like when we did the Mexican lager.

We, we knew there was a gap in, in the lineup for it.

We knew it's kinda hot and heavy right now.

Um, we also have this West Coast part of our brand that we're trying to play homage to, but also we have this continental European side of our brand.

This one kinda was the Venn diagram of those two things for us, and it seemed to be, uh, another pilsner that we could add and not take sales away from our Hildy Czech Pilsner.

Um, so we, we had it all finished, and no one could come up with a damn name.

So I, I have a collaborator out in Sheboygan, and we've talked about him in the past.

We do a rye IPA with him, Stefano, um, from, uh, yeah, Sheboygan.

He has two restaurants, Il Retromo, the trattoria, and Fill the Fork, and Slow Foods Market, and he's g- all this stuff.

He's just never sleeps.

And so we... It dawned on me that, hey, this might be something s- someone that's that Italian, as Stefano, uh, Viglietti, and he takes his entire crew to Italy once a year, and he's got... Like, this guy is the real deal, the- Mm ... is it the Jam- what's the beer award?

James Beard.

James Beard, that's it.

Mm. Yeah.

So he's, he's received that in the past.

Uh- So many accolades, this guy.

He's at three of the top 10 restaurants in the state.

Yeah.

Anyway, he was o- I, I'm honored that he has his name on one of our beers and vice versa.

We collaborate on that and I thought, "You know, this guy, he might, he might want to work with us on this one."

So I reached out, and not only did he want to, he just jumped all in.

He said, "All right, we're gonna need a label and we're gonna need to name this thing." So there's a contest ongoing- Okay ... at the moment that people over in Sheboygan are, are voting on the name- Oh, no ... and we're going to pull from that hat.

Okay.

Uh, we've, w- we've been seeing what's been submitted so far, and there's some, there's some good ones.

No Boaty McBoatface or anything like that?

No, but they're... We're going a little bit punny, though.

Okay.

We're gonna stay away from those really hard-to-read ones.

Like for example, Il Ritrovo means meeting place, and Pill Ritrovo- Hmm

works really well.

Okay.

So that's one that's in the, that's on the list.

But if anyone's, uh, listening, wanna email us, we have time on this one.

Uh, we may call it Italian Pilsner till we really land on one solid.

It's okay to have a beer with no name until it finds a good home.

Sure.

That's America right there.

Yeah.

Yep, yep.

So anyway, uh, if it, if we have time and tank space, it'll become a, at least a seasonal for us.

We'll just let the customers decide.

I like brewing pilsners.

This is edge- inching me toward doing a West Coast, I think, eventually, a true West Coast pilsner.

All right.

And I should have said, you know, we're talking about how this is different than a Czech pilsner or a German pilsner.

I, I, I kinda glossed over it.

We're dry hopping this.

We're putting it- Right ... hops in the fermenter.

Mm-hmm.

You won't see that in, you won't see that up in, uh, continental Europe, European brewing.

You'll see it all over England.

That's, that's how English beers are made.

But you don't see it like that in, in, uh, Germany and in the Czech Republic.

So they, this brewer I think that you mentioned, quote, "made a mistake," maybe that's part of it.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe he did some things that, that were different in that regard.

Of course, you, you give that, that then to a really famous and accomplished West Coast IPA brewer like Matt Brynildson- Right ... and he's gonna take it one more notch from there.

Then the- Well, I think- Yeah

... Decker: this is a, a great step in a direction, especially when you have, you know, you've had many great beers, and I think, you know, lager, amazing。

We're in a, a part of America where we love to drink a lot of beer.

Yeah.

And so when you're looking at a, a, a way to drink a lot of beer, the lagers are definitely going to be- This

tastes like about 70 or 80 degrees outside.

It does ... plus, yeah.

It tastes like I just cleaned up my backyard- Yes ... and I am here for that.

Yeah, yeah.

Um- And actually, we're entering 60 degrees next week.

Wow.

So the timing's gonna be just right.

Dios mio, man.

It's gonna be

great.

I can't

wait.

Um, when is this, uh, this is all, uh... Oh, I, I messed up.

Do you wanna...

You're fine.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

We have like five minutes left, so.

That's what I figured.

Okay.

Yeah, we're gonna be putting this on tap in the tap room in- Uh, I would say as soon as a line opens up.

We have so many beers.

It's like FIFA is coming up in, uh, June, right?

Mm-hmm.

And we have literally 10 different countries represented on our, will be represented on our menu at that time, and that was a pure accident.

Yeah.

I thought, "We gotta play this up." We're not known for our screens that we don't have.

But otherwise, like, there's a way to play this up.

But yeah, we gotta find a spot on the menu- That's, yeah ... on, on the

tap line-up.

You definitely do, and I hope it stays on, uh, until Lagerfest, which is gonna be, well, you know, a long time from now, but- Not

really.

You know, it's never that far away Well, when it's lagers- And the planning, it's- ... it's basically one beer away, right?

Y- yeah.

Yeah, never far away.

Um, w- before we, uh, wrap things up, we've got a, a couple other festivals happening in town, or in, uh, in the brewery.

Anything you wanna, you know, plug for today?

Well, by the time this airs, maybe we'll, we'll have missed it, but we'll have StoutFest, and if they miss it on, uh, after this airs, StoutFest happens mid-March every year.

It's our eighth one.

Um, but what's relevant to audience listening now is probably gonna be Lagerfest, if I'm being honest.

It's really right around the corner.

It's the first Saturday of October, and then, oh, before that, there's a chance this does air before this happens, our birthday's in June.

There we go.

And, uh, keep an eye out for that, and we celebrate West Coast IPA on the weekend adjacent to that.

Beautiful.

It's gonna be a big time.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you to Bobby for, uh, sharing Italian pilsner with us today.

Okay.

That's gonna wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer.

This show is produced by David Kalsow,

with music by Sarah Lynn Huss.

Be sure to join the Facebook group to connect between episodes, and support the show over on Patreon, where you can get uncut episodes, access to specialty, specially brewed beer, and more.

Until next time, please remember to respect the beer.