American Beer Review LIVE!

ABR LIVE! Review #24 - Holy Mountain Brewing's Brumalia

• Alec, Brian, and Chad • Season 3

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For our final ABR LIVE! Review of 2023, we are celebrating the passing of another winter solstice with Holy Mountain Brewing's Brumalia Ale. Join us while we thoroughly enjoy this reminder of brighter, warmer, Summer days ahead. Chad and Alec share some of the tricks they've been employing in their continuing battle against self-diagnosed S.A.D.., Brian thinks Brumalia is the answer. Thank you for tuning in this year during our triumphant return and we got some great things cooking in the Discord (and Chad's Tavour crate) for you in 2024!


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Alec:

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa MUSIC.

Brian:

Welcome to another episode of the American Beer Review Podcast.

Chad:

Good times for good friends requires good beer. Lucky for us, we know how to pick all three.

Alec:

We're a group of friends who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, giving us a jump start on our craft beer journey.

Brian:

Join us today. While Brian Bad, pride myself on not getting to know other people, so do not put that on me.

Alec:

Alec. So the bananas up until like the 60s weren't entirely different species of banana and Chad Hit me like a back in bar Review some beer, talk about beer topics, whatever else comes up.

Brian:

We invite you to pour yourself a drink and hang out with us. Music To start by saying this is a by the color of this beer. Good call, Just looking at this beer in the glass, we would have no idea what this is.

Alec:

Absolutely not.

Brian:

No shot.

Alec:

This looks basically similar to several ones that we have had before.

Brian:

Yeah, this could be a not as thick quote. Unquote New England IPA. This could be a somewhat just hazy IPA.

Chad:

This could be a hazy pale ale. Oh, hazy pale, that would be a solid one of this, but I would. But I know it's not, because even from like sitting this far away, I am getting a lovely funk aroma coming off this glass.

Brian:

I know that it's not because it came out of a glass bottle.

Alec:

It did. So this was a birthday present Fancy that I got from my brother. So this is Holy Mountain Brumalia Brumalia Ale aged in oak barrels on Saturn peaches. And Brumalia is a blonde wheat ale that was fermented with a house mix culture in oak where it continued to age over for over a year. It was then transferred into oak punchins on top of massive amounts of Saturn peaches from our friends at Hallingbury and Sun. After secondary fermentation on peaches, it was aged for a number of months in oak, again before blending and bottling, fermented in the bottle with brenonomous seeds. And so Chad was just asking about what that was.

Alec:

What the heck are bredomyces. What the funk is. A bredomyces and 6% alcohol by volume, so brenonomous seeds are usually a bad thing In For who Beer?

Chad:

Hell, no, they're not so in wine, it's real bad.

Alec:

The breads are considered like a metallic taste when it comes to wine, and if you don't intend to have it in your beer, because it's almost a natural yeast, so it's.

Brian:

It is in it is a natural yeast in its original form.

Alec:

That's what I'm saying. If you're making a lager and you got some bready taste, brett-y taste in it, that's a bad thing, true? If you're doing it intentionally, you make a real good beer.

Brian:

So Belgian styles you can make a really good beer If you can make a good beer.

Alec:

So if you're doing it intentionally, so Belgian styles, you use it a little bit and then where you see, a lot is and that's what I was telling Thor is in like lambics, mm-hmm yeah, or what. Typically use it.

Chad:

Because the brettes are a family of yeast that you typically find on the rinds of fruits and whatnot, and a lot of Sends, a lot of these places that use wild yeasts, are next to areas with lots of fruit production, or they're bringing fruit into the facility putting it on peaches, yeah, and it's not being fermented until it's in the bottle, yeah. So they had all these steps of where you're picking up some of the brett peaches and whatnot, and it adds lots of layers of complexity to this because there was flavors added step by step by step by step.

Brian:

Categorized technically as a wild ale? Yeah, would be, because there are some ways where you can have Some people will have a house yeast and it is a brett that they'll curate and kind of maintain and do it. Others you can also make wild ails ails where you are literally going out and just doing an open fermentation and letting. Yeah, there was somebody I want to say it was E9 that was traveling around Tacoma yeah, we talked about that Trying to just collect the wild yeast. This to me is this is almost a quintessential holy mountain. So if you don't know of holy mountain, out of Seattle you're not from Seattle.

Alec:

Yeah, you're not from this area.

Brian:

Because there are, but there's still a lot of people who are from, who are outside of the area that do know it. Holy mountain is very well known. Yeah, for the stuff that they do, it is very kind of prestigious beer they have branched out. I mean they've made over 600 different beers.

Alec:

When they've been winning awards, they were year over year.

Brian:

I think they were the ones who initially were never going to repeat a beer Nope, that was Cloudburst. But they have always made kind of wild and weird different things. And then they also just got into like a really strong IPA game. Oh really, yeah. And once you start noticing holy mountain cans there is a distinct branding and style. A lot of black and white, a lot of almost gothic-y type stuff.

Chad:

I don't want to call it a cult, but they're sort of. I had their chance between two worlds. Their lager age is a coffee lager. I can't remember if it was a lager that was aged with coffee. Tell me more. But very complex, very delicious beer. So have you got cans?

Brian:

They do a lot of. They do 16s of stuff.

Alec:

Available. This is out of a 750. Yeah.

Brian:

Available at bottle shops, different things like that. They are two for two. For me they have. The original location is on Queen Anne and Elliot, so it's like coming out of Seattle, out of downtown, going to Ballard Like West Queen Anne. Yeah, like to me that's off the hill, it's down in the valley, like on the waterway, Like they're almost going to. Was it Magnolia?

Chad:

The neighborhood that's over there and for those not local to Seattle Seattle ish.

Alec:

Oh, it's, no, it's. If you're not north of Seattle, it is, it is Seattle, it is.

Brian:

No, no matter what. It is Seattle. And then they just opened a new location, which I was just talking to my wife about recently, because, unlike the first location, it is child friendly, is it?

Alec:

Yes, that new location.

Brian:

So would you call it Green Lake or Finney Ridge, where the new one is yeah, that's a great question, because it's like it's borderline Green Lake. Yes, I know we were even talking about something else and they called it Finney Ridge and I was like, if you're not on the ridge, you're not Finney Ridge, you're Ballard or you're Crown Hill.

Brian:

But they're not quite Green Lake either. Yeah, I got to look up and remember this specific location but it is on my list of to-dos because now they have one I can take kids to and I've never made it to their original location. I've driven by it a handful of times. I've actually got a batch 206 at Distillery I think it's right next door so I got a cool little kind of thing with that. But the peaches on this like I was holding the bottle looking to get the spelling of the name and I could just smell peaches. Oh yeah, there is. And that's the other thing, and I don't know that you guys mentioned it with the wild ales, the brita myces. Chad talked about the funk. You're going to get a sourness to it. Like, don't expect that, you're not. Like it's. You have to anticipate some kind of sour, a bit of tang.

Chad:

I hate going back, keep going back to this, but this is, it's got that tang like a mimosa A little bit. It's very sweet up front and then you get kind of that little bit of that champagne-y it's a bright well in that bottle.

Alec:

Rightness Bottle fermentation yeah.

Chad:

Might help with that and you got some. You got a little carbonation in there, but this is just. We're doing big boy glasses, since this was out of a 750.

Alec:

Which I mean gotta drink it, and I wonder how much of this was. So my brother listens to the podcast intermittently. Okay Shout out so whether he bought this Like too intentionally, Because he knows, because we go, I love my, I sell some sour, some funky, whether that was it or whether it was just the. Hey, I need to get my brother something.

Chad:

This is like. This is a gateway funk. This is you're getting lots of that peach. This is almost. I almost say it's almost. If you've got somebody who likes an apricot, I think you could give this to him. Is this are they going to like that bunk? I think our palates have been conditioned at this point so conditioned to these new wild and funky flavors. This might throw off a new beer drinker, but if you got somebody who likes that style, I think this would be a great gateway to get him into some even finger quotes a weirder beer.

Alec:

Well, and I was halfway concerned not concerned because we drink beer out of season all the time whether the fruitiness would be a out of season, Because I mean, this is the end of the year now, so last podcast of the year. But Brumalia, Brumalia, how do we read? Not a clue, Right, Brumhilda?

Chad:

what I keep calling it Brumhilda.

Alec:

There's no D Is a winter solstice celebration back for like the Roman Empire. Okay, Like Eastern Roman Empire. So it was. If they're naming it that, then they obviously intended it to be consumed around that time.

Chad:

This is a celebration of the sun coming back. Coming back. Yeah, and then, hey, you made it through the deepest, darkest port of the year, so then we're actually early, right.

Brian:

No, when is was winter solstice, did I miss it the 20th.

Alec:

Yeah, we're like a week past it. Okay, choose as much, I pay attention. This is the worst winter of my life. Oh yeah, I have no idea what changed Like after the time change. This year it's been more like depressing than any other that I have had, when it's like two o'clock and you're like I guess it's time for bed because it's getting dark out. That text, that text last week from Thor.

Brian:

It was like well it's noon it's time to start getting ready for bed.

Chad:

Yeah, I'm going to make dinner. I texted you guys at noon because I had been in my office all morning. So I was in my office working, the sun came up, had my coffee and whatnot, and then it's like one or two and we're on position in the house. Yeah, about one or two. The sun's on the other side of a tree, so it was just. I was getting that low light.

Chad:

Like it's already yeah, so I was like, haha, I'm going to text the guys hey, why is it five o'clock right now? Yeah, and then, immediately after I sent it, I went I should take a nap.

Alec:

No, it's time for bed. I'm sure the sun hasn't drifted further away from the earth and our rotation hasn't slowed or anything like that, but it's a weather. Usually we get all of our rainy, windy out of the way. We had snow this time two years ago on the ground.

Chad:

Yeah, usually our December weather is either clear, clear and cold or we get a shot of rain or some snow, yeah, but we've been getting our November drizzle and wind stretching. They said our meteorological winter just started later than normal. I still don't believe them, but I doubled down going to Germany oh right, during the change Through you off, yeah, and it was 80 degrees and sunny my entire time in Germany. I left Washington. It was 80 degrees and sunny. Had that weather for Oktoberfest, the beautiful weather for Oktoberfest, right. I got back home to Washington and it was 40 degrees and raining for the next two weeks, yeah, and then it just kicked my ass. Me and Alec are getting our ass kicked by.

Alec:

No, I'm self-diagnosing sad disorder.

Chad:

I have a sun lamp in my room, so I start the morning off every day.

Alec:

We have a sauna coming in A sauna.

Chad:

Yeah, I'm like a Swedish child lining up to get my vitamin D sun therapy every morning.

Alec:

Carving out space in my garage to put a sauna in.

Chad:

Let me know how that goes. I've been looking at those, yeah.

Alec:

But I've done this 40 times. This is the first time I'm like this is bad.

Chad:

Oh God, 40 times. Oh, fuck yeah.

Brian:

Oh shit, I think that's probably part of it.

Chad:

Maybe that's what the midlife crisis really is You're just fed up with shit. And you're just realizing well, I just got to suck it up for 40 more.

Alec:

So instead of moving to Arizona we just bought sports cars.

Chad:

I have friends who moved to Arizona. Don't tempt me. There's some nice looking condos in Tempe Well.

Brian:

I mean he did it earlier, but we know someone that just was like yes, let me also get a condo in San Diego. Yeah.

Chad:

Like. Do you know what you? Should do, but he's younger than us.

Brian:

I know you can enjoy it, but can you sub-lease it from him when he's not there?

Alec:

Oh, there's no lease. But they're like that's what I'm saying Like ask him for keys and my mom is there right now. Oh, really, well, not right now when this comes out. Yeah, she uses it probably about as much as he does, which?

Brian:

honestly he gups for her Like it probably keeps it cleaner than it would be normally.

Alec:

Yes, he's got both of the rumbas, but yes.

Brian:

Yeah, now I would say it's on my list to go down to use it, but honestly I want to go when he's there. Oh yeah, so he can show us around. The last time I hung out with him in San Diego, I had way too many Jack and Cokes.

Alec:

Oh well, you will eat and drink too much if you go with him as well.

Brian:

Yeah, but I think I'm going to bring my wife, which will help balance things out for the positive.

Chad:

Yeah, because she can't have the glute yeah.

Brian:

And she'll just glare at me.

Chad:

Oh yeah, that's a point, so it'll help out.

Brian:

But in your talk of the dark, sad winter, this is a nice bright spot, absolutely Like. I don't think I would think of it. You talked about it drinking it out of season. I don't think I would think of it. We've talked in episode past about a 14% dark, thick coffee beer and sitting by the window on snows. I don't think I would intentionally get something like this. But is this the like? Is this the sun lamp? Yeah, yes, and you know, instead of, instead of buying the 14% dark coffee beer and basically embracing the darkness and just like sitting in your cubby hole and doing whatever, this is some brightness, but still fits for a season. This is your peach cobbler after a holiday meal. This is a dessert, this is something, but yet won't weigh you down. No, the same 6%, which, for wild hails, I feel like, is fairly on par.

Alec:

We're right in there. Yeah, I don't get too much heavier.

Brian:

No, it is not. I looked at the list Cezanne's. I've had a lot of Cezanne's from Holy.

Chad:

Mountain, holy Mountain.

Brian:

And I think that that's kind of like a style that I most associate with them. This fits under that a little bit. Just going a different way, cezanne's are, in a way, that kind of funk but like a different. Different, not a sour, yes, and a wild can go a different way with it. I don't think I'd intentionally do this, but now, like I would, I would almost rather take this for a holiday dinner than a bear leech.

Alec:

Well, it looks fancier. I mean, it comes in a 750 glass bottle.

Brian:

Get a couple pour Like if everybody else is bringing wine.

Alec:

Oh, this would sneak in and if you accidentally fill the wine glass with this, nobody would actually go. I mean, yes, you're going to know it's not a wine, but and it's not going to knock me in my ass. No 6%.

Brian:

No Easy, like I would bring this if everybody else is drinking wine and I'll just drink out of the dang bottle. Don't drink out of the bottle, you guys.

Chad:

It's not just no, you got to. You got to pour it.

Alec:

let it breathe, you got to let it breathe my first Holy Mountain, even though I'm wearing a t-shirt.

Brian:

I did. It has been making me feel.

Chad:

That's why I recognize the shirt.

Brian:

Yes.

Alec:

It's making me feel more intoxicated. My wife asked if you put on like the 3D glasses, would it actually be a 3D shirt? So I have no idea. Probably I think so.

Brian:

Yeah, did the shirt come with the bottle.

Alec:

They came as a single.

Brian:

As a pair Present.

Alec:

Yeah, you said the distinctive art style.

Brian:

On the can. Is this similar? No, this is totally different. This is very like watercolor-y. No.

Alec:

This is different and that's where, like it looks like a spring, summery thing, are we drinking this 100% out of season?

Brian:

No, because, like, even here's a different bottle for a saison of theirs, oh but a black and white, and this is not as like gothic-y as I feel like some of them are, but very much a black and white is kind of the common yeah.

Chad:

So there's, there's their chance between two worlds.

Brian:

Oh, that's even different than I expect.

Chad:

Like on all their cans is typically a black background, white text, but then the art in the middle or the beer can be in full color.

Alec:

This is quintessential. Yeah, oh, okay. So this is their. Hey, it's the middle of winter, it's dark all the time. Please don't kill yourself.

Brian:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because what I'm looking at is Exactly.

Alec:

Exactly.

Chad:

Are you sad? Do you want to not be sad?

Alec:

Please drink this you don't need 14%, the one I'm looking at is Infinite.

Brian:

Visions IPA and it is literally like the triangle. So that's the thing is whole round is a triangle with the dot in it. But this is the triangle and in front is a skull with like a dead. What pear? Is it pear? What's the one with all the feathers? A peasant? No, like the, the big, all the big feathers. A peacock? Yes, that's okay. Why was I trying to get fancier? Yes, but with like a dead peacock on it. He didn't want to say a quail, no, it's not a quail.

Alec:

Okay.

Brian:

But this is the style of most of what their stuff is. So to me, yes, this is Bright Horizons.

Alec:

This is like Winter Solstice Days are only getting longer. From here, we're on the other side.

Brian:

Yes, and the and, honestly, the color of the beer.

Alec:

Also matches that, matches with that Actually Pretty damn close.

Chad:

For the top part probably Depends on the gradient yeah.

Brian:

Mmm, this is a great one to to sit with. Sit with. It has, I think, gotten as it's sat out a little longer, has gotten a little less sour or have acclimated Could be that.

Alec:

That it is or the peach comes out.

Brian:

There is more fruitiness to it as it goes through.

Alec:

Well, cause you would. As it warms up, you get a lot more flavors coming out, and this is the first time we've done a glass in a while. What do you mean Like a full glass? Oh yeah, usually we're in the, the tasters.

Brian:

Well, and with the aging of stuff too, like you're, like it's, there should be a lot more other flavors and different things sitting in there.

Chad:

But it gets fermented in the bottle.

Brian:

Yeah.

Chad:

And then when?

Brian:

it sits in oak barrels for like months A house, a house mixed culture in oak for over a year, yeah, then put on the peaches Right and then a second fermentation. I think that's part of the key. Is that running it again? Yeah, like and is when this is bottled. It's kind of shocked. It's not boozier actually based on some of that.

Alec:

Probably all of the peach.

Chad:

Yeah, and if they're the sugar from that would be, but it's blended, so they can blend it to get there. Hey, this is the ABV we want to dial it into.

Brian:

There is a great point because what they can kind of control and mix and match.

Chad:

Because each batch might come out at a wildly different ABV because they're dealing with and they can kind of play with it a little more.

Brian:

Yeah.

Alec:

Well, and this was bottled November 2022.

Brian:

So that's so, but intentionally sat when I looked it up. In unantaped it is labeled as I got to go back a little bit.

Chad:

They put in the parentheses the year yes, it was made yeah. But, 2023.

Brian:

So normally you like that. Whatever, the barrel age when we had a while back was.

Chad:

And it was like this is the 23. It was always here, yeah.

Brian:

So it's okay. That's the 23 version. This is labeled as Brumelia parentheses 2023. Comma November 2022. Right, I've never seen it like that before, but that is basically here's the date we released it, here's the date we bottled it, right, and that's a big amount of information, just to which.

Alec:

And then you consider so it's bottled in 22, sold in 23, means it was. Production was started in 2021. At the latest, yeah, yeah.

Brian:

It would have been mid to early 21, because the first oak was a year. Then the next process, second fermentation, and then it did say I forget what it said, but then for a while in the second one, a number of months. So I mean You're looking at having to start a year and a half before you bottle Summer 2021. And then another year.

Chad:

Yeah, yeah. When's the big peach harvest? Probably mid to late summer.

Brian:

Yes, so probably right around.

Chad:

Probably similar around that time.

Alec:

Could be. Yeah, I mean you could ask, uh, holland Berry and Son, yeah, where the peaches came from when their. Saturn peach harvest comes from.

Brian:

Uh, fridges yes.

Alec:

I mean it's gotta be hyper-seasonal.

Chad:

Yeah, this is going in my cellar Right.

Alec:

That's where I was going. Is this something you kinda sit on and wonder how much you can. I wonder how much you can.

Chad:

You buy one, get one, they get one, get stored for a year.

Brian:

I wonder how much you can, though. This is not a sealed bottle, right? Um, it was you can buy waxed.

Chad:

It's not corn. You can buy a, you can wax it. You can wax it yourself. Yeah but normally the ones that come like when you're anticipating the aging.

Brian:

They come pre-waxed. So I would I would love to hear what they say, but, if anything, what I would say if you're gonna hold on to it six months at the most, yeah, probably. And it would be an interesting like kind of.

Alec:

Oh, you guys are lucky. I didn't drink this. It's only because you told us about it.

Brian:

Yeah, probably.

Chad:

Yeah, after I got you put it in the discord and it was like, oh shit, I hope he doesn't drink it.

Alec:

If I had done more research and figured out that it was kind of that, uh sour, yeah, I would have. You guys would not have had any of it.

Brian:

Well, thank you for unintentionally saving for us. I agree, I would um, they have done other versions, I believe, in prior years. Um, so it would be worth like checking it out. Like I see a 2021, I see a 2021. Okay, Um, 2018. So they do it every once in a while. I think that at your longest chat, I would say wait till the next year, and you're putting them, yeah, Doing it side by side.

Brian:

But we're not doing like a three-year flight, Like you're not. I don't think that that's a good idea. Um, but this is enjoyable enough that I would buy the one bottle. Yeah, the year that it comes out, yeah, when. I would and I can't imagine them making a ton of it.

Alec:

I wouldn't have thought to Christ, but I wouldn't have been crazy. Um, I wouldn't have thought that this time of year would have been the time to drink it, but obviously that's what they're targeting. So because I would have gone. Oh yeah, this is a nice spring.

Brian:

I really this with the holiday meal would be kind of delightful, so whew.

Alec:

All right, we I mean we're not empty. No, I full glasses today. We're gonna watch some football.

Brian:

I crushed mine. I've been just enjoying it.

Alec:

So our glasses aren't quite empty. They'll get there. We're gonna savor this one. Yeah, If you're drinking the same, I would savor it as well. Otherwise we will catch you next time.

Chad:

Yeah, see you losers next year.

Brian:

Right, oh man Gosh.

Alec:

Nice.

Chad:

Well, oh, and after Brian said he doesn't want to eat more derelict beer.

Alec:

Uh-oh.

Brian:

Holy shit, he literally is hiding shit everywhere.

Alec:

Oh, oh, oh, fight oh Jesus.

Chad:

For you the oak aged saison metal witch. Oh okay, oh, oh, my God, thank you. Another derelict beverage for you guys's holiday festivities. Those are gonna be. I was gonna propose review in the next video, but you brought the size on, so now you guys got some. Oh dude, you guys got some Instagram fodder.

Brian:

Yeah, I will have to make sure that I I will take some pictures. Yeah, there we go. There we go. If you've enjoyed what you just heard, make sure you subscribe to get new episodes when they drop and don't forget to leave us a review. If you want to see what we're drinking we're not on the pod. You can follow us on social media at a beer review. Feel free to send us any beer suggestions that we can make. Chad go by. Office of War.