American Beer Review LIVE!

ABR LIVE! Review #25 Barebottle Brew Co.'s Rainbow Road Shortcut Hazy Pale Ale

• Alec, Brian, and Chad • Season 3

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On this ABR LIVE! Review, we're taking a little detour on our less hops January with Barebottle Brew Co.'s Rainbow Road Shortcut Hazy Pale Ale (say that 5-times fast). We also give give you a little A-Few-Weeks-Late Monday Morning QB and talk about the end of a couple local home brewing careers.

Bare Bottle Brew Co.
Rainbow Road Shortcut Hazy Pale Ale
- 16oz Can, Tavour Drop
- 5.8% ABV

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Alec:

What are you going side beer there with?

Chad:

I'm going with. There's one in there.

Alec:

Ooh, watermelon Hot water, hot water. There you go, ghost fish.

Chad:

Yeah, don't drink any hops, but have some hot water, right.

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 ethnic all three.

Alec:

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

Chad:

Join us today while Brian and Chad and Chad and Chad and me like a bacon bar Review some beer, talk about beer topics and whatever else comes up.

Brian:

We invite you to pour yourself a drink and hang out with us. Missing from Florida State. Qb1 injured. Qb2 transfer. Qb4 transfer, rb1 draft RB3 and another backup RB Wide receiver one draft Wide receiver. Two draft Tight end. One draft Tight end. Two transfer. Four offensive line one Defensive end draft, defensive tackle draft. Three more defensive linemen two linebackers and three defensive backs.

Alec:

How much of that do you think is them going? Hey, man, if I'm playing for the championship, I'm going to show up the draft guys, all but I got snubbed for two one loss teams.

Brian:

The draft guys are all If they're playing in the CFP they're in.

Alec:

Yeah, but we went undefeated. One, our conference, power five, power five conference, and we don't make it in.

Chad:

And I get injured for this game, that I'm not getting paid anything. Oh man, we didn't even talk about it.

Alec:

I think you Team three, team three getting benched and cut.

Brian:

Yeah, he's going somewhere.

Alec:

Yeah. So I don't like the guy, especially now. Oh buddy, he's a steal he had a turn of season last year.

Chad:

No, no, no, no, no, not bringing him back, but yes, I don't know.

Alec:

I mean, I don't want to.

Chad:

There's too many people in Seattle Seahawks Twitter going. Oh yeah, bring it back. No, the bridge is burnt.

Alec:

Yes, so he had a turn of season last year. Yes, he didn't have a couple great seasons before that, right on his way out. You pick him up for a million. You pick him up for $1.2 million. I still wouldn't. You can have.

Chad:

If you're a bubble team with a backup quarterback.

Brian:

You know what? I don't want him in Seattle.

Alec:

I don't want him in Seattle. I don't Locker room. No, no, no, no absolutely. And I'm interested to see what comes out of Denver once he's actually out of the door. Yeah, is he? Yeah, he's a locker room cancel. Well, you saw him get sacked two weeks ago and now the O-line and the O-line just walked by him and looked at him sitting on the ground. But man, $1.2 million, he's still good enough of a game manager, putting the right system.

Chad:

And Peyton's purposely calling an offense to make him look bad.

Alec:

Yeah, but Denver's paying a salary for two years. You can get veteran minimum.

Chad:

Yeah, he's, he's gonna have a if you're a bubble team that only wants to pass to the outside.

Alec:

Well, and or if you are legitimately a quarterback away from making a playoff run, yeah.

Brian:

How many teams are playing third or four string quarterbacks this season?

Chad:

Yeah, like Denver has to wait till.

Brian:

Joe Flacco Joe.

Alec:

Flacco is out winning games.

Chad:

It's amazing what happens when you don't care. He does show it like he does. What are you gonna do? Fire me, yeah, oh no, I'm gonna go back and sit on my couch, yeah.

Alec:

All right, instead of a football podcast, we do have beers to review today, brian. If you, we have beer to review. Yeah, if you can. We're back on the IPA then wait, we are on a hazy IPA 5.8%. Brian, can you tell me what the rainbow road shortcut references?

Brian:

Oh, it's from Barry Carter.

Alec:

Holy shit, brian actually has a cultural reference that he knows and is engaged with.

Brian:

I've played that one. I mean, come on, man, that stuff came out when we were in college.

Chad:

N64.

Brian:

No, Was it N64 before that?

Alec:

No, no, no, no no, it was S that came out when we were in elementary school.

Brian:

Really yeah. Oh well, I'll show something I probably didn't get to play at Tole High School, Tole College.

Chad:

I don't think it really picked up a lot of steam. Bro, I played a ton of it, oh no in SNES, but once it hit the Wii, then it got a way broader appeal. Then you had the little steering wheel. Oh yeah, then you put the Wii Nunchuck in.

Alec:

So you aren't going to be Princess or Yoshi without the rainbow road shortcut, which, as it turns out, is both a killer cheat on Mario Kart N64 and also a super juicy yeah, you were there a super juicy, hazy pale ale and with a recipe including Lightning Strikes, koopa Shells, citro Mosaic and El Dorado Hops.

Brian:

So not an IPA.

Alec:

It is a hazy pale ale.

Chad:

So what would I just open the episode with?

Brian:

So when I look for the shortcut or not shortcut, I look for the code. On this Scan, the UPC Little Cushy is the first one that shows up. Okay, grow House, powder Clouds, happy, hop of War, okay. And then I finally get to oh, so they're having fun. Oh, yeah, yeah, scurvy Fighter.

Alec:

Nice Citrus yeah.

Chad:

Yeah, this is Bear Bottle Brewing out of San Francisco.

Alec:

Oh yeah, we didn't cover that.

Brian:

Like proper, like straight up from the city.

Alec:

Bell Barter, oh yeah.

Chad:

Yeah, they have multiple locations.

Alec:

They've got three locations.

Chad:

They're the Salesforce Complex, whatever that is.

Alec:

I saw that I was like oh, I don't know what, burnal Heights.

Brian:

Salesforce Park Santa.

Alec:

Clara Menlo Park. And then I don't know if it'll pick up. Depends on what our editor does, but every single can and beer has the recipe.

Brian:

Oh, yeah, on it.

Alec:

So they have homebrew recipes for every single beer that they have.

Chad:

So I could deconstruct this beer technically and reconstruct, try to. I mean it like, because like, if you look on the hop schedules it's like this is Warpull, this is Warpull.

Brian:

This is when you hit terminal, terminal, terminal. Yeah, Wait when you're done.

Chad:

At this gravity. Yeah, so yeah, we never got to that. No, no, no, no, that's just dry hopping. Technically, when we dry hop, we were supposed to measure the gravity and go okay, we're now, at this gravity, we're X percentage away through the fermentation. Yeah, now we throw in the hop additions. At this point, when your gravity hits that.

Alec:

Yeah, I preferred wakeboarding while the beer was going in the background. Oh, I know.

Brian:

It's probably what killed our brewing, but it's a really cool thing to see. Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Chad:

There's no secrets, it's just. This is what we did. Try to replicate it, if you want to.

Alec:

Yeah, you have all the stuff in your garage, if you wanted to get back after it.

Brian:

I would have to be able to get to the stuff in the garage. I don't want to hear it.

Alec:

I do not want to hear it.

Brian:

The thing that I thought about your excuses are what I've looked at doing is buying more of a all in one, so that way I'm not having to clean 42 different things, okay, but to do more of like the all in one container. So that way Do a brewing bag Kind of, but just to get to brewing, to make it a little bit more streamlined, cause at this point I've decided Me ever like me opening it and being the brewer never gonna happen. Maybe opening one and hiring somebody slightly closer, more likely tap room, okay, I mean going off of our discussions from the last podcast.

Brian:

Probably not a good decision. Which one is probably the better? Financial decision?

Chad:

Neither Well, if you don't have a tap room over that, but if you don't have the overhead of a brewery and you're just bringing in craft beer to put on tap.

Brian:

That's my point. You need a space.

Alec:

Both of them have terrible. Oh, profitable, yeah, but I'm not like.

Chad:

I'm not doing it necessarily for the like that's why you use it as a front for money laundering. There you go. Yeah, now that you told, them.

Alec:

I'm just business. You just need to get in bed with the mob.

Chad:

Put it, put a laundromat downstairs, boom.

Alec:

There you go. This smells awesome.

Brian:

Yeah, the smell is very bright and fun.

Chad:

I'm getting tons of pineapple, fresh tropical flavors on the nose.

Alec:

Well, and the can has strawberries, oranges, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries and whatever that purple thing is, dragon fruit. You look at it. Tell me what that purple fruit is. It's not grapes.

Brian:

Oh.

Alec:

Yeah, exactly, but tons of fruit flavors.

Chad:

This is a great. I like this and that. Okay, right, yeah, this is a great sip. There's just lots of bright flavors in this and it finishes quick clean. I'm glad this is not a hazy IPA. No, this is a. This is just a hazy pale. Did they call it yeah?

Brian:

it's a hazy pale yeah.

Alec:

And it is a hazy pale, not a hazy IPA, because it's got the nose to it. Hops are in moderation.

Chad:

I get a little bit of bite at the end but it doesn't overwhelm those juicy flavors which, on some of the finger quotes juicy New England IPAs we've been having the hops always has to overtake all the other flavors. Just being able to have that little bit of hops, a little bit of that bitterness, but plenty of sweet to get all these juicy flavors is a nice change of pace.

Brian:

No, this is I would be interested in Also as the guy who brings in all the beers the only person to blame about having all the IPAs is me, you, but.

Chad:

Well, and the fact that like that is the thing, but it's, that's what's available. Yeah, that's what's available.

Brian:

And until recent events, like that was what I would have want. I mean I'll try everything. I actually went to a new brewery in Bellingham and they Lairaby.

Alec:

I heard about it. I think I either intended to, or did, post an article about them. Oh, I don't know.

Brian:

I read an article about it. Yeah, a newish, but Lairaby Lager, and so they predominantly are doing that, obviously, before I'm out right now. Awesome, I went in and got a Some kind of dark logger winter brow and then, and then a my buck, like Now you're, now you're hitting my like weird nerdy spot of like Ooh, a dark boozy logger.

Brian:

Like yes, Like, so 7.2% rich karmily like perfect, they had a deal on their four packs and I was like, can you do a mixed one? He's like, yeah, no problem, I had to let him pick and I was really wanting to have them throw their IPA in there. But he went like Tilsner, hell is logger Dunkle. And I was like, okay, give me the lock, give me the IPA, half of Eisen.

Alec:

But what did you order while you were there? Those two, so he's yeah he's probably catering your four pack based on what you had ordered so but it's still great.

Brian:

I still got one more to go, but Real solid. So where they at, they're in like kind of a, they're off of Meridian, like near, like we left Bella's fair and it's like a Two or three minute drive north like out the backside and looped around the corner to them.

Alec:

So they're like from Target there's. I know what all of that is. Yes.

Brian:

But that's a bit deep. They're not. They're on the guide, yeah yeah.

Chad:

So just outside of Bellingham it's still bellingham, still very much bellingham.

Brian:

No, where I came from is outside of Bellingham. Yeah nice but really cool space. And they got pizzas. I gotta try next time so nice. Yeah, gluten-free crust also fear If you got someone who needs, but yeah. So I forgot where I was going with that story, but we took a detour oh, from the paleo we're saying but now we're gonna hop.

Chad:

We took the shortcut on the rainbow road. There you go, went off went off in the witness the, the little cloud dude is picking us back up and putting us back on the track, which reminds me of playing right like games with my son.

Brian:

Yes, I Used to know his name. Yeah, I used to remember his name.

Chad:

I had to shove it out of the way for something else. Some other useless information.

Brian:

Oh, you have been trying to shove useless information into my brain on the discord for the last like two weeks. You me both.

Alec:

Buddy, you're a half. I've been filling my brain with useless information.

Chad:

I got this duolingo streak going. I'm shoving.

Brian:

I did. You hit 200 days. Recently I saw that well done, thank you.

Chad:

I had to switch to other languages because the German. I was hitting the wall, oh really, yeah, I was just like. I can't slog through five lessons of this today. Let's go back to the basics. Now I'm doing Spanish. That's a Japanese again.

Brian:

This is kind of perfect, of like that IPA adjacent flavoring profile like this is the way to like. Oh, I don't like IPA's like this. Yeah, have this one little bit of a gateway. Yeah, yeah, like just getting that juiciness, getting that flavor profile. I like the alcohol content 5.8 seems pretty solid I could.

Brian:

I honestly would be more worried about now that I'm getting into, like the nerdiness of trying to Not wake up with a hangover. I wonder about like the haziness of having multiples. Yeah, but I could do, I think, two of these and Then switch into something else.

Chad:

Mm-hmm.

Brian:

Yeah, like pills. Yeah, yeah, but like.

Chad:

God, this is just a solid beer beer.

Brian:

And the the can is like simple and fun at the same time, like you'll add in the brewer's recipe on the back. Yeah, pretty cool yeah and then.

Alec:

But outside of that, yeah, the front of it.

Chad:

And a lot of that is to avoid copyright issues.

Brian:

Well yeah, well, and I like that. It's just as bare, Like, but it's bare bottle, but yeah, a lot of their stuff, or does it say bottle at the very bottom?

Alec:

I don't say but bottom of the very bottom, it's kind of a cool logo. I don't know if that's what all of theirs looked like, but that's pretty sweet. The rainbow road shortcut and then, yeah, the way that fruits in a rainbow. Yeah did you ever figure out what?

Brian:

the purple thing was.

Chad:

No, I do it. Let me take me under.

Brian:

Oh, that's some type of flower, right, it could be yeah like yeah, see some statements. Yeah, they all are. They all are different variations of that, like with the bear bottle and then the stuff, some kind of design around it.

Alec:

Yeah, oh, it's a unicorn rainbow.

Brian:

This is called unicorn dust.

Alec:

It's some same yeah okay.

Brian:

It's fun. There seems to be a dust I like how I like the easy grain bill too.

Chad:

It's just to row and flick Barley, that's it. Sometime. A lot of the grain bills we've seen like that I've been able to find they're like going five or six. This is just going back to basics, like kind of not to toot my own horn, but kind of what I did is like I barely went over three. Yeah, well they, because then you did. You just doesn't have to be that hard, you just have to have sugar, especially with the pale ale that you're going to hop, have a hop schedule like that.

Chad:

I was going to say extract a lot of those flavors throw the simplicity out of the window with 10 different hop additions for a pale, ale yeah, not even just an iPad, it's like the oh, they quote the like guy who came up with the original recipe on the can.

Brian:

What do you mean?

Alec:

They have the guy's name. Oh, yeah, yeah, like the brewer, like whoever created the recipe. So I don't know if it's the brewer or just right in the recipe.

Chad:

Yeah, because it sounded like I think it was both the founders basically quit their corporate jobs and like, hey, we want a brew beer, we got good at home brewing. Sounds like they had some expertise in Silicon Valley so they had some ends Right To obviously make it as a brewery in San Francisco proper.

Brian:

Yeah, I was trying to see. Oh, there, the about our story Isn't because Lester Koga has the name on there, right? Yep, yeah, it's one of the co-founders.

Alec:

All right.

Brian:

Yeah, so there's three of them all from Cornell Business School in Ithaca, new York. Okay.

Chad:

Bunch of business nerds making really tasty beer. Yeah, who goes to business?

Brian:

school they all started home brewing, became certified beer judges and then we're winning home brew competitions. So all the things we didn't quite do, that's so good. It is really good, like it's.

Chad:

I'm glad I took the photos of this can.

Brian:

Is this the one we had? What?

Chad:

No, I bought two of this one, so some of them. There's a couple that we're going to do later this month, both us and the listener. I only bought ones because they were very expensive.

Brian:

Cans Spend beer, so you're going to do your photo shoot at this time there's a lot.

Chad:

There has been a lot of special releases coming on tour.

Alec:

Oh, it's holiday this time of year. Yeah, but not so much the holiday ones Like I've.

Chad:

there's like some. There's like some bare-legged saizons. We've got a dark sour coming up. We got some.

Brian:

Yeah.

Chad:

Some very interesting flavors coming up in our pop free hop, hop less, no less hops less hops 2024.

Alec:

How many pickle, how many pickle beers? There we go, there we go. How many nerdy themed beers.

Chad:

Sadly not as many as you like what we're going to have to.

Alec:

I'm going to have to stretch, I'm going to have to stretch it, I'm going to have to stretch it. 42.

Chad:

Yeah, I kind of I bought all the beer and then it was like, oh crap, 42. No, so we. But we came up with a little gimmick here. We're going to have a little fun, are?

Brian:

we going to talk about it ahead of time or no?

Chad:

Ah, okay, let's, let's end this episode, then we'll talk about it, and if I want, then you can.

Alec:

Yeah, let's fridge this, because I blanked on what you guys were just talking about. Oh my gosh, I was paying attention at some point.

Chad:

I haven't fridgeed, fridgeed one in a while, I'm going to fridge this one, with the caveat I live in San Francisco.

Brian:

Right easily accessible. Yeah, yeah, it'd probably be a frequent grab, a four pack, like when it's available.

Chad:

I don't know if I'm going to crack one every week, but I can see myself, maybe every other week. Yeah, one of those ones like it's it's good enough to savor, but it's also good enough I want it available. Maybe I want that, if I want this juicy flavor without all the hops, so I don't feel like I'm dying in the morning.

Alec:

The back of this can, can? This is me that I never want to get back in the room brewing. Oh right, like I want nothing to do with.

Brian:

I know all the work. Any of this? Yes, I know, I just I can't do it.

Alec:

Do you know what it would be though?

Brian:

Honestly and I I hate this too is like I would just try and make that beer or something. I don't want to follow the steps. Yeah like the degree of difficulty here is well beyond me.

Chad:

You get it to two politicians. You just call the day due to hop additions, maybe I don't know.

Alec:

But yeah yeah, the mash tamper died. I just don't want to do any of it.

Brian:

That's when you realize like there is a way, like we made some decent beer.

Alec:

Accidentally, basically.

Brian:

But that is because, because some of our favorites, did we ever make it again? We tried. Yeah, that's my point.

Alec:

Yeah, they didn't come out. This would be. This would be a bar room go to. So if I was in San Francisco and this is, they got a bunch of locations. I've been to San Francisco. I probably should have found more breweries to go to, but we were just restarting the pod, but this would be like a like a starter while I think about what I want to drink.

Chad:

This is the starter, while you're thinking about your flight.

Alec:

Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, give me a pint of this and then let me choose the flight of the things that I got going on.

Brian:

Probably closer to Chad, I would do. I'd like to see Just going on this alone, not anything else that there's it's at least a multi times a year grabbing a four pack, throwing it through assuming I'm like local, it's available. That sort of mixed four pack, no like of this having like that pack in the fridge to then like what I want to go back and grab. So maybe more beer fridge, I guess, in that aspect then fridge fridge Like a rotational beer fridge.

Alec:

It's really tasty, though. It is, in all, very, very good. All right, our glasses are empty. Now they are. Hopefully yours are too. We'll catch you next time.

Brian:

A fancy one is a four pack, not a six pack, but a four pack at $42 is way easier, but we're playing money ball here.

Brian:

I may be spent $40 on six packs the other day. 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.