American Beer Review LIVE!

American Beer Review LIVE! - Flight & A Pint #2 - Iron Horse Brewery

• Alec, Brian, and Chad • Season 3

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On today's episode of American Beer Review LIVE!, we buckled our seatbelts and headed east towards Ellensburg, Washington - home to Iron Horse Brewery (the folks who make tasty, tasty Irish Death). Joins us while we wrap up our most excellent brewery tour (check our You Tube), with a hand selected flight from Head Brewer Jake Fleming and Community Manager Christina Miller.

Iron Horse Brewery
Tap Room Info
Iron Horse: The Beer List
Iron Horse Swag

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Chad:

So yeah, feel free to go and start. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Alec:

It's a Valentine's episode with one of our first loves.

Brian:

I'm going to get this out of the way real quick. Poland, yes, the I don't know if it's given away for people coming in to our location. Nice I got some b-roll of it, but they have beer history on the wall and it says what country consumes the most beer per capita.

Alec:

Oh, there you go.

Brian:

I guess Poland.

Alec:

And that would be beer trivia at Iron Horse.

Christina:

Brewery.

Brian:

Where we are located today.

Alec:

Got an invite to come out, check out the brewery, do a brewery tour and that's a new thing. You guys are starting right Doing brewery tours. Yeah, we're starting out brewery tours again. We're actually going to have one next week on Saturday.

Chad:

February 17th. If anybody's interested. You might feel like you're yelling into it, but don't worry about it. How?

Brian:

about I turn the microphone on, so it's a whole process right. You guys are doing brewery tours, so it's like a chunk of time Ticketed like you sign up, yeah, and you purchase a ticket.

Christina:

You get a tour, a glass and then a pint of beer at the end.

Brian:

So much different from like what 10 years ago, where everybody did the brewery tour, but it was like you just kind of come in and do like the 15 minute walk around, yeah.

Christina:

This one will be a little longer maybe with a brewer.

Jake:

And we'll have like grain and hops so you can see those and taste them, things like that oh cool. And then you get a. I think you get a pint glass.

Christina:

Yeah, you get a pint glass to drink, but also we have a specialty glass that I think Ricky Wells, who used to be here, designed and it's got this little funny, like I did a tour at Iron Horse Brewery.

Alec:

Oh nice.

Christina:

Yeah, a little bit of our branded snark.

Brian:

Before we go any further, if you guys don't mind introducing yourself and your role at Iron Horse.

Jake:

Yeah, I'm Jake Fleming. I'm the head brewer and head of operations here, so I basically deal with everything that is production.

Christina:

And how long have you been here, Jake?

Jake:

Oh, long time. I've been here 14 years now so I started as a keg washer when I was 20 years old at the old facility, the little business unit that we had and learned learned the tricks of the trade from there. Tyson Reed, the old head brewer he pretty much taught me everything about brewing and Ricky Wells, who is a master Cicero Good for Ricky, she's still awesome, love her. She taught me all about beer styles and things like that. So I had two really good people teach me a lot about the brewing industry. And Tyson was a UC Davis master burrs. Oh wow, yeah, so he knew his stuff too. They taught me everything I know, so shout out to them.

Christina:

That's cool, ryan, I know. Yeah, I'm Christina Miller. I'm the newest one of the newest employees at Iron Horse. I do community engagement, events, marketing. I came from the farming world, so farmer, for about 12 years worked at PCC, so I've always worked in the food world, not the beer world, but I love marketing beer and I love putting on our big events and our small events and just figuring out how we build our community here.

Brian:

Okay, Before we get to the beer that you poured for us. I thought you were going to say it. Why, cousins?

Christina:

Oh yeah.

Jake:

Why cousins Because we're a family. You know, that's kind of we want to create that environment in the and that's kind of what drew I think it draws a lot of people into the brewing industry is that you are a family at the place, because it's a small crew, it's not a lot of people, and you just kind of you get to know each other really well and then when you drink beer with people you get to know them a little bit better.

Brian:

Yeah, when you have extended family, because you have a lot of people that come through and cycle to other things. Yeah, but like your general, like running capacity, what's the whole crew size?

Christina:

Also between 20 to 24 right now.

Jake:

Yeah.

Christina:

Yeah. Uh, depending on all together, yeah, but for distribution over five states.

Brian:

Yeah yeah, Brewing a brewery here in Ellensburg 29 people. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Christina:

Because that's regional sales marketing team, and then the servers and production and admin and all the different aspects. Yeah, and the nice thing that I like which appealed to me, coming from farming is that we all do a little bit of everything. We jump in and help out where we can, and the beer brewery production helped me with events and you know we all try to make sure that everything is running smoothly. It's not like, oh, I just sit in the office all day, I can jump in and do other things, which is really nice about the brewery world.

Chad:

Yeah, yeah. Everyone has an idea of you know, the left hand usually doesn't know what the right hand's doing, but at a place like this you have that flat hierarchy, I think.

Christina:

Holocracy, yeah, yeah.

Chad:

So yeah, if somebody, we have the running joke at my office well, if I get hit by a bus, you guys don't know how to do X, y, g. Or if you get hit by a bus, I can't do ABC. It kind of everybody has an understanding of what's going on, yeah, and so if somebody gets hit by a bus, we're going to miss you, but we're going to keep moving forward Exactly and we're going to find another cousin, but not to go to that.

Chad:

Mccarles, I like that. Everybody knows that. There's no. If everybody knows what everybody's doing, there's not like, oh, I'm being let out.

Jake:

Yeah, lots of transparency we write a lot of standard works.

Christina:

Yeah.

Jake:

For that exact instance. If you get hit by a bus or you quit or whatever the you know, you now have a whole SOPE on how that person does it and you get to interact with them every day, so you understand it.

Chad:

And that probably helps with the doing. We were doing the tour earlier with that consistency. Like you guys have to go through so much tasty, tasty Irish death, but it has to be the same tasty Irish death every time. You correct that canon. So we're doing that. Sope list everything we've got to do. Everybody knows how to do it and everybody knows don't touch that button. Yeah, we heard about that one.

Alec:

Please do not touch this button.

Chad:

You're going to screw everything up, but I kind of like that top, the way you guys laid everything out as a company my company's three people.

Christina:

So it's very easy to do, but being able to do that with 30 people is very impressive. It's huge. We use Slack, we use GlassFrog all these different formats that really help us constantly be showing the work we're doing. Asana is another one that we're using where we put in projects, where anybody can go in and see exactly how you're doing a project and comment on it or see your updates on it.

Christina:

But I think the huge thing for me, because I've been a business owner for a long time, is the transparency about the financials to employees so that they can really see like, okay, this decision was made and this is financially how that affects all of us in the long run, which I think gives people a lot of ownership to their work, to see really the ripple effect of everybody's choices, and it really gives you a chance to dig in and be like why are we going to keep doing things the way we've been doing it? Are we going to rethink that kind of thing?

Brian:

Yeah, I want to come back to that because it makes me think of the blogs. But Alec has smelled it. Jake's been drinking it. Yeah, what did you pour for us?

Jake:

Yes, so this is the newest beer that's coming out. It is an Imperial IPA and I kind of want to do a Nemoad to a West Coast IPA, but less bitter and we used Nectarone hops. I'm going to butcher this Wahidi Cryo fresh frozen hops and a little bit of Simcoe to just kind of give it some body, and then it is a 9.7% IPA. So just a heads up on that one. It's delicious, a little hot.

Brian:

Thank you for the small bowl.

Christina:

It's a part of our Release the Beast series and it's a collab with Yakima Chief Hops.

Brian:

Okay, have you previewed this one or is this this brand? So you, because the what the Hell is Logger has been the release before. That was the.

Christina:

Citra.

Chad:

Citra, and this is the first one I think we had, we did.

Brian:

And then I had the Hell is Logger on my own.

Christina:

So this is our third release of the beast. Okay.

Jake:

Yeah, and this is just kind of a series we get to kind of play around with, which is fun, because we want to be able to try different things that were not necessarily. This isn't part of the Death series or anything like that. This is a way for us to play around with styles that we generally don't mass produce.

Chad:

Yeah, and get it out to larger audience. Get that feedback.

Brian:

We said because that's the difference because you guys also run the pilot series here in the tap room.

Christina:

But that one, those are not predominantly getting pushed down or replaced yeah, or these will have placements in more stores yeah.

Jake:

So you can actually buy them a six pack in a store with these.

Brian:

The smell smells like just like the bag of hops we stuck our nose in like an hour and a half ago, so like the aroma is perfect there. No-transcript. You almost can smell that there's gonna be a little bit of like something coming like like a little boozy or heaviness to it, but it's not like it's different from like an IPA or like a stout or that type where you kind of like smell like a bourbon barrel, where you're like okay, I know, we're getting into it.

Alec:

And the taste is it's like hops, but with the edge taken off of it.

Christina:

Yeah.

Alec:

A little bit it's rounder.

Christina:

It's a west coast but it doesn't.

Jake:

I wanted to make a juicy west coast.

Chad:

Nailed it Without it being kind of that stereotypical. What juicy is today? Like this course, like if I was pouring this out of a bomber and the old days I totally, oh, yeah, this is totally an IPA. Nowadays, you don't know, it's like oh, this thing's bright yellow is this, but this is. We talked about it last week with the IPA, but this is nostalgia. Okay, like this. This hearkens back to the old days, pouring an IPA out of a bomber yeah, but it's not blowing my teeth off with that continual hops.

Alec:

But it's got enough that because we've talked about the west coast northwest being the SEC of beers, like. So if you're claiming a west coast IPA, or a northwest IPA you gotta bring something to the table, and this is taking a little bit of edge off of the hops, but still enough there that, yeah, this is a valid west coast, but giving the bite back with the booze. With that, I will feel I drive home. I will nap on the way home as well as here.

Chad:

Like, if you told me that was seven, I believe you all day, but to me them the teeth better. It's just that smooth.

Brian:

It's also got the like more quintessential, like for an imperial, that it is like a more multi-body that there is kind of like it's not a thickness, but like there's a hardiness to the body feel of it that you're not just getting like that six percent crushable IPA. But there is this that that part adds a nice backing to it and I wonder if that has to do with taking that bite off of it.

Jake:

It's relying on the malt side instead.

Brian:

Of.

Jake:

Yeah, I mean, I think total it's almost. It's close to like 2000 pounds of malt, wow, for a 30 barrel batch. So yeah, it's up there. And then we use this really cool yeast. It's called manganstini I'm probably butchering that name too, but it's from Imperial. It's a imperialist strain, is what they call it and it's supposed to impart a lot of those fruity flavors like grapefruit, stone fruit, leechy, things like that.

Christina:

I can totally taste the leechy like that yeah.

Alec:

Yeah, because there is a lot more going on on the fruity notes and I'm getting it.

Chad:

I've finished my pint already. You guys were talking.

Brian:

I got more if you want.

Chad:

I got around the board. But what I like on an IPA, especially a heavy one, as you're sitting after you've had your sip it continues to develop on the back of your tongue. Yeah, like I'm getting all the juicy notes, the leechy, that grapefruit. I love that experience, like sometimes you want to, you drink a beer, you take the swig and it's done. But I love when you you get the swig up front but then it continues to develop like I've like sit and having a whiskey or something.

Brian:

So what's the anticipated release?

Jake:

We're packaging it on Tuesday next week, so this came straight from the bright tank. Oh nice, so fresh beer Brand new. And yeah, so it should be out in the market in the next, like 14 to 16 days.

Alec:

Okay, well, and that's the cool thing with you guys, as far as your distribution model is, you've got Irish death everywhere I shop right.

Brian:

Yeah, we talked earlier about it being at Costco even yeah.

Alec:

It's everywhere, but usually those seasonals will rotate through, I mean even down, the convenience store.

Christina:

Yeah like high five. Half you probably don't see around.

Alec:

Yeah, not as much anymore. Yeah, I've had it, but they tend to have that shelf space for Irish dad or iron horse and it rotates through, so being exciting to see.

Chad:

Yeah, my local shop. You guys now have a section Nice, so it's Irish. Death is right at eye level, but then high five half midnight and then a couple other ones and I'm sure they're gonna keep you in because they've had a little niche for the released beast and it looks, and fingers crossed they move it, so it's just an iron horse section Nice.

Brian:

So you guys are distributed over five different states.

Jake:

Yes yeah, washington, idaho, montana, oregon, alaska.

Brian:

Okay, but featured. Like he said, when he means shop, he's literally talking like a grocery store, like featured fairly prominently in. So good distribution and connections with your distributor to get to that. Is that just the history of Iron Horse like? Is that?

Christina:

there's different levels of grocery stores. Okay yeah, we're in a level A. Oh yeah.

Brian:

I did not know about this.

Christina:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know that much about it, but like is you? Yeah, you Cheers, we can drink, sorry, no worries. So there's, different.

Brian:

Make lots of more juice. You can talk over it, it's okay.

Christina:

There's just different levels and so some of the smaller breweries are at level B grocery stores. So just like smaller you know where. So you'll see us like at a lot of the Kroger's PCC Whole Foods, the ones that have a larger footprint. Okay, so it's just that that helps with the distribution because we're have more brick and mortar places that exist within our level of grocery stores.

Christina:

So, yeah, I was really excited when I still see it at PCC because I worked there for a long time and they're really huge supporters of local. But even the Kroger's are supporting it too.

Brian:

So when we've talked about a lot on our podcast, like the, the expanse of the craft beer grocery selection. I think obviously COVID changed a lot of that as people were changing their buying habits. But even before that you saw this expanse of that and I think that you guys are one that fits into what we see for that local level of you're not you're local to us. I mean, it's a two-hour-ish drive between us and you guys, but so we consider you local, that you're in our state and fairly easy to get to, but your access has expanded and given kind of a really good perspective that, as the beer I mean as brewery amounts have grown that reaching almost 10,000 breweries, you guys have been able to find that spot where you are still readily available in a pretty wide footprint for a I mean for what you said a brewery in what a town of 19,000 people like.

Brian:

That's pretty impressive like that's a pretty cool thing to be able to hit and to do it. I think it speaks to the longevity of you guys and it's what creeping up on 20 years as a, as a brewery, yes yeah 2007 was when Greg and Gary bought it.

Jake:

Yeah so getting there.

Brian:

We're getting there, yeah, I mean it also to have a brand, a singular brand. I mean we talk about the variations of it only. We've actually reviewed Irish theft on the podcast but like to have that brand that also helps to carry things, the brand being the beer and the brand being the branding you guys have, like we spoke to earlier that it's recognizable that that's. That's an iron horse beer.

Christina:

Yeah, and that's something we talked about a lot. It was one thing that drew me to the job, because I knew that the branding and the marketing were gonna be really fun you know, it wasn't gonna be just like.

Christina:

You know, a lot of standardized stuff that we could it has. Within the community, there's enough interest in trying new things. Even if you're keeping in with that iron horse voice, people are open to like what you know. Okay, let's do an event with ponies yes. You want to do an event with rattlesnakes and hawks? Yes, let's do it. You know, and they and people are open. The other great thing is when we're doing the reels and doing the social media, people within the brewery brewery are really excited to be a part of that too, which is really exciting too, because making social media as a single person is not fun.

Chad:

Yeah, yeah, no, it's not fun at all, and if they let you do it, you just go have some toxicants and you just sit at the computer and go, wow, and you guys have zero veto power because you didn't play along.

Christina:

You didn't want to make it, then you see that.

Chad:

So you guys are getting shopped on some questionable. Yeah going back to. So I went to Central unsuccessfully for three well before you guys kind of really got your start going. How cool is it to have a college like over yonder? Do those? Or are those okay so, but are those thirsty college students? Did they give you good input or do you find that, you know, a beginning beer drinker probably doesn't have the palette to go? You know we should make a change with this, or?

Christina:

Jake could probably speak a little. I don't. I mean, I see college students at our events, but they're not a huge part of our regulars and the college students. I may drink a lot of, not beer. You know the white claws and that yeah yeah, I think for originally.

Jake:

Yeah, we had a lot of college students coming. We still do. We have CW discounts things like that, but you just don't traditionally see as many of them coming in anymore. Yeah, and then I was working the tap room because I was covering somebody's shift and then one of them just decided to take a leak in the pot.

Alec:

Yeah, I was like that's not okay.

Jake:

That was a fun experience to deal with. No, honestly, the college students so far, like as we've gone through, I just don't think they've. They just I don't know if it's a don't like beer. I don't think it's necessarily that, but I think, with the pricing on where beer is, yeah, yeah, I just don't think that they come in and they're like I'm not gonna go in and spend $7 on a pint when I can go spend $14 on a pintally half gallon I can run down to the ride aid and get the 30 bomb for whatever.

Jake:

Right, right. So I think that's been a struggle for us and trying to get them in to experience craft beer, because obviously it's delicious, yeah, and they're gonna be making money and better decisions someday.

Brian:

Maybe it's more about getting the alumni.

Christina:

We have worked with a lot of the alumni groups through Rugby, basketball, volleyball. They've brought a lot of their groups here for events and that's been really great because the people have really great memories of going to school at CW and Iron Horse being a big part of that experience.

Brian:

I mean, only one of us went here, but we all have memories of hanging out here and Iron Horse and that type of stuff.

Alec:

I mean, it's well, your brother went, so Ted and I were like and your sister was over there, yeah, so we have family who have been here.

Brian:

Wife at a Masters degree here. So if there's like Central has this kind of thing for all of us, that like we drive into town and there is a nostalgia there, there is this fun little kind of thing to it.

Chad:

Yeah, we did the lap around campus and I was like, oh, I slept in this field.

Jake:

There's a deep history here and it's a lot of fun. It's a running joke that once you stay in Ellensburg, I think like what? Five years and then you're stuck.

Christina:

Yeah, I moved here from Seattle about 12 years ago and I'm always like I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna leave, and then I never leave. Can't do it.

Chad:

That drive from. I'll call it Seattle, but Seattle, ellensburg, that's probably one of my favorite drives to do.

Brian:

Yeah, it's just when the weather's not terrible, it's not bad. Yeah, like you can do it in about two, like you know, mostly following the rules and yeah, my favorite part about summer is we do get a lot of people driving through.

Christina:

There are tourists who have never been here or they have lived here at some point or gone to school here, and they just love. We started doing this thing called Harvest Host so people can park their RVs here in production.

Alec:

Yeah, people love it.

Brian:

I don't even know if I was the one that found it or if, like my other friends, like, started talking about that and doing it. How often do you get people coming through and doing that?

Christina:

Quite a bit during, you know, may through October, which are the months that are bearable in Ellensburg, so that's the high point. But we've had people outside of that so we can fit two or three RVs within production, you know, comfortably. So people aren't on top of each other and they, after the taproom clothes, they get locked into production and they.

Brian:

So they're in, they're parking somewhere, yeah they're in the parking lot. Oh, in the fifth area.

Christina:

They can't get into the actual building, but they are hanging out in our production facility so they can hang out and just chill at the brewery. That's the full thing. See Jake's doing the right thing. I see why you're doing that.

Alec:

I did not know this. We should have brought the trailer and we would be here all day. We stuck with us for a while longer.

Brian:

That might have been smart. So, from people who don't know this, it's called what again? Harvest Host, and so you. There are different businesses around the country that basically make their space available. Instead of going to like a KOA, you can utilize that company's space as your camping area.

Christina:

And it's usually farms, breweries, wineries, distilleries, and it's like it works like Airbnb you set up as a person so people that stay here rate us, but we can also rate them so that you know you're really. Everybody that's come has been so chill and they don't pay. They just agree that they'll spend $20 in the tap room.

Alec:

Done and done Easy.

Christina:

Yeah, so it's been really fun during the summer when we're having a summer music concert series. They come and they get to park their RV, come, you know, have food and beer and then hang out for the concert and then, you know, go sleep in their RV. So people have really loved it.

Brian:

I think I found my new retirement place.

Chad:

You're not gonna hop on a cruise ship or just gonna RV hop between our breweries.

Brian:

Yeah, just go around and like live at different, and that would be the thing.

Christina:

It's alternating wineries and breweries so that I can balance out the gluten free and your wife can be happy. So what is this beer that you just bought for us?

Brian:

Oh, so this is like she's done this before this is the Dark Divide.

Jake:

This is the pilot bash that we did with Crucible out of Everett.

Christina:

Yes.

Brian:

Everett. They used to have two locations, I think.

Alec:

Everett's their main one.

Brian:

Yes, I think they closed. Okay, the Woodenville one.

Jake:

Yeah, the Woodenville one they had to close, closed down. There's someone I've been to Couldn't sustain it. It's big spaces.

Brian:

Yeah, yeah.

Jake:

Big spaces, big rent. So we did this at their facility and then we're gonna do another one here at our facility towards the end of March. It's different beer, different beer. Okay, still gonna be called Dark Divide, but I think this time we're gonna go for like a hazy IPA with really high, like pine piney notes and things like that that's kind of what we're shooting for, and they're really good at hazy IPAs, not on Crucible.

Jake:

They have some great, great beers, great hazy IPAs, but this one we kind of wanted to do a little bit of a mode to. Obviously we brew a lot of dark beers here. We were like well, let's make a black IPA and we'll use Citra and Nulls and Hopps and try and kind of create this almost like orange chocolate IPA kind of thing.

Alec:

Alright, I'm in.

Christina:

I'd never had a black IPA before I chose this.

Brian:

Oh, this is one of my favorite styles this is Brian's Go-Chit. Like I feel like it hit a peak a few years ago and then tapered off. I think, living where we live you predominantly can get them more than others. I think the most well-known nationally of stone did one for quite a while. But this to me it combines, combining the IPA and like a stout to me is like a great combination. I'm still very anti-black IPA as the name. What do you think it should be called? Well, cda.

Christina:

Yes, a Castadian Dark Ale.

Brian:

And to me, because it represents our area, the idea that it's hoppy but it's dark and doing that, the fact that you're calling it a black India Pale Ale seems like you're immediate.

Christina:

I have a feeling a marketing person came up with a black IPA. They're like that's more succinct, it sounds really good versus Cascadian.

Alec:

Yes, and it's black.

Christina:

The.

Jake:

Cascadian was the first thing, they created a category, yeah. So then they decided like, well, it's not that way, it's more of a Cascadian, cascadian Dark Ale, because predominantly when, like I remember, we made one like a long time ago.

Brian:

Oh really 2013.

Jake:

Even before that, it was in like 2010. Wow, I remember the label. It was a green label with a guy with a black eye. Of course Sounds about right. Yeah and yeah, that was our black IPA. And the struggle with black IPAs is they just you put them out on the market. They just don't really go well. They'll do really well in your tap room Because people want to try them. They think they're cool.

Christina:

Outside of that, like people just like see it on like a shelf and they're like nah, they don't grab it. Yeah, I mean, the flavor is like nothing I've ever tasted before.

Brian:

So you've never had one before.

Christina:

No. And I'm like this is so unusual.

Alec:

Because visually you look at it and you go. Well, I don't really want to stout.

Christina:

No. It's not really my thing, but it's not what it is at all.

Jake:

And mixes with that like that multi, like you can smell the hockiness.

Brian:

Yeah, mixes with that moltiness and you're like this is kind of weird, yeah, yeah it's a little bit of like a mind bender that you're trying to think of Like when the first time I had a white stout, yeah, and you're just trying to kind of put two into together. This is a really good version, I think it's not. A lot of times when you get some of the block IPAs, it often is just like oh, did you have a bad stout and you just over and then you just had it.

Christina:

Like you over hopped it.

Brian:

This is a better blend of it that it is, I think, a slight bitterness, but mostly you're getting kind of that fruity aroma of hops and doing that with then just that kind of like darker multi feel underneath it. So, yeah, this is the one. When you said earlier what do you want, I almost picked this one, but I was trying to avoid an entire pint of IPA, but like to see a block IPA.

Christina:

What was the next spear? You want them to try.

Alec:

I don't want to run into it.

Christina:

Crows have eyes Okay.

Alec:

And this is your recent collaboration with Acorn Yep. Oh wait real quick, I'm just gonna start pouring while you talk.

Brian:

So you said that Crucible is really good at Hazy. We had this discussion the other day. Okay, we made up.

Alec:

We made up.

Brian:

Because it goes back to also the blog posts. You guys are at least for us the torrents of like.

Brian:

all of this history of like writing about stuff and being it goes back to even Christian was talking about the transparency of finances, things. I feel like your blog posts have been very much hey, here's what's going on with our business, here's stuff fun stuff behind the scenes and what's going on like the changing of the buildings and all that stuff. Can you feel like there was a blog post sometime that said that Iron Horse would never make a Hazy?

Chad:

We feel like we saw that Ever, ever, ever started to look through.

Brian:

Ever started to look through 42 pages of blog posts to see if I could find that one. I'm sure you're right, but don't, I could not find it. You are definitely right, nice.

Jake:

No, we did. We talked about how much we hated Hazys when, like the New England IPA kind of started like hit the market where, like well, it's just people that didn't clean their beer properly.

Christina:

Right.

Jake:

And then we heard like, you know, when it was brand new, there was a lot of stuff about like how, oh, the yeast actually picks up hot particles and things like that and creates this, and it's like that's not sign of difficulty, that's gibberish. That is wrong. Yeah, completely wrong. But yes, we did write it, we did write it for a lot of people. About that, I'm sure we say a lot of things, yes, and you know, it's one of those things where it's like you start looking at the actual style of the beer and like start to understand it and kind of like try and make, like figure out why people like it so much. And you realize, okay, it's low IBU, a lot of hop aroma and a lot of flavor, like pop flavor, behind it. And so you're like, okay, now you kind of understand it. For when it first comes out, you kind of see this thing and you're like that just looks like a milkshake. They just didn't clear their beer out.

Jake:

They were like okay we'll brew for a minute, crash, but not really crash it, and then just take it, and so once you kind of start to understand more about it I think that's one of the great thing about the brewing industry is that we're constantly like pushing boundaries on things that should be beer or you know, like traditionally, like you wouldn't find a hazy IPA in like Germany, but yeah, they'd be like that's wrong.

Christina:

Listen, don't do that. You did something wrong. Well, I feel like double rainbow is the perfect example of that. You guys, it was way before I was here, but it felt like it pushed the boundaries of all those different and we've shamed that recipe so many times?

Jake:

Well, yeah, I mean Irish death.

Brian:

It is a dark, ale it is not a stout, it is not a porter.

Christina:

It is not. It doesn't fit those things, it doesn't fit anything.

Brian:

Yeah, so I get that.

Chad:

So then the question is when are we going to?

Brian:

see an iron horse smoothie beer.

Christina:

I mean, we said we'd never brew a pumpkin beer, and we did it, we did it and we may be thinking about it in the future, but it turned out really good.

Brian:

You know those? Uh here the college kids really like those smoothie beers.

Alec:

So maybe they'll draw them in.

Christina:

I love whiskey milkshakes. I've never had a smoothie beer. Oh God Like. Is it canned like a smoothie?

Chad:

No, I'm so. I'm kicking myself. I had a couple of Drecker's on the stretch, yeah.

Brian:

So Drecker is one of the most well-known ones. They're out of North Dakota. Okay, there's a few other places. I think 540 North does another one, but it is. It is a beer that, like on the can, says that you need to roll it to get the stuff mixed back together, basically, and it's beer in airports.

Alec:

Yeah, it is for sure.

Brian:

It's an alcoholic beverage.

Alec:

They can.

Brian:

And on there it literally says like gimmicks and it's like all the stuff they add in, and so you're getting like a.

Chad:

It pours like a glass of half a cup, a fruity vanilla Like neon.

Brian:

Oh yeah, A beverage it is. It is wild. I'll see, I'll find something to show you some pictures of it.

Jake:

That's too far from the right hole, but um Got a lump not being regulated by the FDA.

Brian:

Yeah, there's. Oh, here's one I had recently from claim 52 out of like that's beer, but they literally call it so it's a pureed gosa, so like a gosa base that then they're adding a bunch of stuff. I mean this, this one smelled so good because of the like I forget the oh my God, all the different flavors and stuff that were in it that my gluten free wife almost just took a drink just because the smell was so good. It was so good that she.

Chad:

But like it's but super in the fruit, like, like, they're like. You need to roll this because there's actually like we dumped pureed strawberries in the can before I have one. Last year's Valentine's Day post was a beer. They made the beer, it was a smoothie beer, but then they took a little piece of yellow cake into the can, poured the beer on top and then you're supposed to roll it, because the cake is now dissolved in the beer and it was cake. It was a cake beer, sour smoothie and it was just. Was it good? I know, yes, it was beyond good, but it was like we had just I had taken my year off Beer. Oh right, we start. They guys call me up. Hey, dude, Dude, no, no, no, no, no no.

Chad:

Whatever, whatever. Basically we restart the podcast after I quit beer for a year.

Alec:

This was your idea. Yes it was. So don't don't we're getting Blame it on us.

Chad:

We're starting the Avengers initiative. Okay, but yeah. But like and that's after all beer, was, that's crazy. Ipas, esvs, pillsner's Loggers, my beloved Keystone Light Okay, keystone Light over here. There you go and then we get Like you come out of COVID, it was like, oh okay, it's white claw season and then we come to start doing. I get these guys doing the podcast with them and I'm ordering these beers and it's like what's a smoothie?

Brian:

I knew about them, don't come out like that, but I didn't drink them.

Chad:

But me and Al our tiny little minds were just exploded with beer had kind of gone to this point. We thought beer would just stop here, and now beer is being taken to whole other levels, whole other levels. What it, what's?

Brian:

the next. What do you?

Chad:

guys think the next thing is Like now that you've done a hazy.

Jake:

Oh man, I don't know, I don't know it's tough.

Christina:

I'm excited for you guys to try the Thai tea Daff. It is really unlike anything I've ever tried.

Alec:

I'm very interested. Yeah, I almost grabbed the tiramisu death.

Christina:

Yeah, Okay, so which one? Oh yeah, we haven't talked about um, we just, we have a lot.

Brian:

So we poured as they like actually need to do some work. Um so we did a shitscree and you can make noise as much as you need to. Yeah, do your job.

Alec:

You're fine.

Christina:

We did a shitscreek themed. It's called the Crows have Eyes and it was a collaboration with Acorn Brewery.

Chad:

Now someone who has not watched shitscree. You have anything on your what?

Brian:

I'm gonna let them attack him and I will just sit back here and not say anything.

Christina:

It's the best.

Chad:

TV show ever. All I see is like the reactions you have on Twitter.

Brian:

Yes, and the stupid cheese folding thing.

Christina:

Yes, which we did use. We did a reel. Yeah, we did a reel. Okay, well, oh, I remember seeing it. I think I was gonna send it to my wife, because her and my sister got really excited about shitscree.

Chad:

Okay well, the cliff notes. What do I need to know before closing into this beer?

Jake:

Okay, so this beer is an Imperial Black Walnut Stout.

Alec:

Oh, this is the one we were talking about earlier.

Jake:

And so we did two batches of this, two half batches, because of the amount of grain that we would need, with all the chocolate and things like that, it wouldn't have fit in our mash kettle. So we did two batches and then we dry hopped it with crushed black walnuts, so it's gonna give it almost like a unique bitterness to it. It is a 10.5% Imperial, so it's pretty high. Yeah, apparently we like to brew high alcohol things.

Christina:

Yeah, I was gonna say I really like the finish on this, yeah.

Jake:

And it's a 90 minute boil. So we increased the boil to try and get some of those that better foam retention, that creaminess in there, a lot of flaked barley and things like that. And then we aged it on oak staffs and so American oak 42 inch staffs five of them just got dropped into the fermenter with it.

Brian:

Okay, you said this earlier and I was like I don't know what it means, but I'm just gonna nod my head, but okay that's like, instead of it being like in a barrel. You're like adding the oak into that instead of it, the beer going into, yeah, and so it's a way to impart some of that oak flavor into it without having to buy an oak barrel.

Jake:

So basically what they look like is they're little spirals. Just more for more surface area oh that's it Really, and so then you just drop those in there and you let it sit and it picks up that flavor.

Chad:

Is that where I'm getting like that vanilla? I'm getting a little vanilla in there and the bitterness is different too, because it's not like a hoppy bitterness.

Christina:

It's that roasted black walnut have you ever had black bitters in like a cocktail? Yeah, it really stands out.

Chad:

And the thickness and the smoothness. If you told me this was like port metro, yeah it does.

Christina:

The texture is really great on this A little bit of it.

Alec:

It's a softer mouthfeel, that extra boil To get up to.

Jake:

you kind of have to do it to get up to that gravity, to boil off some of that water to make sure that you're going to hit that 10.5%. And we could have gone a little higher but we're like maybe not.

Brian:

For the cruising. It's just by boiling it more.

Jake:

You think yeah you got to have your starting gravity, Like for this. It's got to be close to almost like 10.92. Wow, and then you have to ferment it down to close to like 10.12. Okay, yeah yeah, yeah. So yeah, the first batch we did, we hit like 10.94, and we had a Belgian candy sugar as well.

Alec:

so that's in this recipe. Oh, that'll kick it up.

Jake:

Yeah, I think 50 pounds of it, so close to yeah and we didn't quite ferment down as far as wanted to, so we actually had to just the. We used the darkness from Imperial yeast, and it's designed around high alcohol beers, but it just didn't quite get it down as low as we wanted to. So we actually had to add, for the second batch, an enzyme, and that it's called TGA mash is what it's called, I think.

Brian:

Basically what it does, is it helps convert those sugars down.

Jake:

And the second batch went much lower. So we were like, thank God, now we can blend these two and we can create this nice meld of like you're going to get some sugars, you're going to get a little bit of residual sweetness, but it's not super sugary because we would have done just the first batch. It would have been. It came out much sweeter, and then blending in that second batch really helped balance out the sweetness and kind of keep that bitterness to it.

Alec:

So this is a one off.

Jake:

Yes.

Alec:

Okay, and so this is just available here and then, I'm assuming, at Acorn.

Brian:

At Acorn, at their location just on tap In Angelwood. Yeah, tap and bottles yes, okay, so the limited run with bottles.

Jake:

You guys are getting uh, uh, yeah, we'll send you some home. Perfect awesome, they're gorgeous, Thank you.

Christina:

We have a lot of collabs right now. Yeah, the Yakima Chief Acorn, and then two different with Crucible. Yeah, we've got four different going on right now?

Brian:

Have you historically done a?

Jake:

lot of collabs, like we haven't historically done a whole lot of collaborations, um, and we kind of it feels like the craft industry got a little bit away from that. And then you know, obviously COVID happened and it was really hard to do any collaboration. Yeah, and stuff over Zoom just doesn't feel right. It's not the same feel.

Jake:

Yeah, it's not the same feel you want people to come to your brewery, like when you're collaborating, you want to go to the brewery, you want to drink some beer with people, hang out, understand them and then, uh, understand their process, see their facility, they see yours and you kind of create this like cool thing. Yeah, you know their experience and your experience.

Christina:

Yeah, because everybody's experience is different.

Jake:

Like that's the crazy part about the brewing industry. Like you go, you can see our facility and then you go to somebody else's facility and like that's wow.

Christina:

I would never thought of setting it up that way, Doing it that way, yeah.

Chad:

So if you've ever had somebody from outside come in and look at your setup and like go okay, cool. But then like run it like oh, this is the way I work, like the way you have the setup, we're going to run it completely differently, oh wow.

Jake:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean like uh. You know, for me it's more like uh, it's not necessarily the process itself, like, because you have to set up your process for brewing itself in a way that you can design it in your facility, and that's. You know, people come up some very crazy innovative ways, like I've been to some places and I'm like you've got an auger running upstairs, down and then around and coming in. I'm like that is wild. How, what did you do? Why?

Alec:

Making the space work. Yeah, a lot of times yeah.

Jake:

Making the space work, but the process itself, like what they, what different people, do with like dry hops, different fermentation temps, pitching things like that, like if you uh, you can underpitch for specific yeast strains and they're like oh yeah, have you ever tried underpitching a little bit? It'll give you this like crazy flavor and you're like, nope, never thought of that, that's cool.

Alec:

Did you guys find this out on purpose or was this an accident? Yeah, no, this worked.

Christina:

One of my favorite things we did last year. We brought back Eastern Washington Brew Fest and we did two different collaborations. We did all of the Lower County Breweries which was Whipsaw, ellensburg Brewery, brockenreef and Iron Horse did a collab of a bastardized red and then all the Upper County of Kichitas County Breweries also did one, and then we had a competition to see which collaboration would win at the Brew Fest. Yeah, that was really fun.

Alec:

What is?

Christina:

that we called ours Low Co Collab, and it's gonna happen again on June 8th. And so that's your calendar.

Chad:

Yeah, in that vein, I think we gotta be careful.

Brian:

That's the NASCAR race. Ooh.

Chad:

We can swing it.

Brian:

NASCAR comes to Portland every year, so we drive down, yeah.

Chad:

We come in here before a load up on.

Brian:

B-Line. It's the week after you guys. Oh perfect, road trip Perfect.

Chad:

Windsor Dirtbag Day is 24.

Christina:

It's in September. We haven't nailed down a date for that, but we for sure have St Paddy's Day, March 16th yeah.

Chad:

We have.5K.

Alec:

St.

Christina:

Paddy's.5K, March 16th. And then we have Brew Fest, June 8th, St Paddy's.5K. And then we have St Paddy's Day, March 16th. St Paddy's Day is 24. We haven't nailed down a date for that, so we're gonna be careful. But yeah, those are three big events. The Brewfest one is really fun because we bring all these different breweries together, and I really like meeting people from other breweries. It's a good community building thing. Yeah, Awesome, Was there any other beers you wanted to? Try Last one I wanted to try.

Alec:

OK.

Chad:

Oh, you have it. In, does it In?

Jake:

It's just not part of the event, yeah this was one of the five gallons system or the 15 gallon system.

Brian:

So like it's not carbonated and it just needs to sit still.

Jake:

So the problem with the 15 gallon system is oh my god, that smell yeah it's holy. So this is a death variant.

Christina:

Yeah, this is a Thai tea death variant. What, oh my god, no, it's so good.

Chad:

Have you had it before? Yeah, that's why I put it on it when she gets down.

Christina:

No, it was super popular the first time we had it on.

Brian:

So this is not the first run of it.

Christina:

The second run and then oh, this is the first run. No, that's the first run.

Chad:

This is still the first run. Oh OK, Is this a favorite ever in Ta Prang?

Christina:

It was, yeah, it was really popular.

Brian:

You're gonna go with it, so it's so smooth. It was really popular with women?

Christina:

I don't. It's just you know what.

Brian:

It's one of those things where it's just a dumb guy thing that you just brand it differently and they'd probably still love it. You just gotta like.

Chad:

I'm gonna, if we post this, the peanut butter song's gonna happen.

Brian:

That's what this is. So there is, because there's a little, I get a little coconut like A little.

Christina:

But it's so different than a low hot death, it's a really different taste than a low hot death.

Brian:

Yeah, and the smell is very different.

Jake:

Because it's a coconut flour that we threw on that.

Alec:

Oh OK.

Christina:

What was in the low hot death? Was it not coconut flour?

Jake:

No, it was an extract Extract, yeah.

Christina:

Which sort of changes the mouthfeel? Probably a little bit, it does.

Jake:

Coconut flour kinda adds that smooth like smoothness to it because it's got the proteins in it. The hard part is that the coconut flour settles out, and so then it kinda gets.

Christina:

You have to like emulsify it, yeah, but I can't emulsify it.

Jake:

I've tried it.

Chad:

Yeah, because it's not probably technically flour, as we don't flour. Yeah, and I'm not a chemist and I figure out how to emulsify it.

Jake:

Emulsify it.

Brian:

Protein is two of yours, and this is when I was like there's a university job, we can get some of them to we can get a guy.

Alec:

This is when my student questions. I was like.

Christina:

I was like Jake, do you just have a giant immersion blender?

Chad:

They got a baby ass chemistry building down the road.

Christina:

They can figure it out. Somebody has to answer, but yeah.

Jake:

So for this one we brewed it, I put the coconut flour in the whirlpool and then I came back later the next weekend and I made tea using cinnamon sticks and cardamom, vanilla and more coconut flour and then also chai tea and then made this like big pot of soup and then threw it in there on the little 15 gallon system, because we had a little fermenter, and poured that in and then this was born and I was like this was actually really good, I know, because you were pretty skeptical of it at first.

Christina:

I remember you were like ooh, I was like I don't know it was going to work out and I just remember people just loving it when we had it on tap. They were so excited about it. But our next one that's coming out is the tiramisu. That one you'll see canned really soon in grocery stores. Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you guys are OK with more beer.

Chad:

I don't know about my entrance here, but I was planning on sitting in Shalom. My wife won't hear this until after it's published, so I'm fine. We'll get all the equipment out of the way so we don't scare her.

Alec:

Why don't we wrap up this, so we don't get the?

Brian:

actual work job.

Alec:

Anything else you want to plug before we wrap up.

Jake:

Just the St Patty's Day. The tiramisu's coming out soon and also the Imperial IPA that you guys can try, that's coming out as well. That's going to be out in the market in the future.

Brian:

Do we want to do a quick fridging, real quick? I mean, there's this too much, I know right. I think, we're good, I mean to me.

Chad:

Both of them are seasonal.

Brian:

What's your faith? What's your faith. I'm probably I'm going to go dark divide. I'm a homework for the block right here, so I'm going to go with that one.

Christina:

Oh, that is a light colored death. Yeah, it's going to look different when it.

Jake:

Yeah, I had to. So tiramisu red coffee cake. I want to make it in a certain way, okay.

Brian:

I changed it.

Jake:

I haven't even drank it, but I've tiramisu death and I looked at it and you look at the tiramisu and you're like, Okay, it's kind of that. It's kind of like that color I got a lot of shit from.

Christina:

I actually like the color Because it's not close enough to the dark.

Jake:

It's a death variant, so it's supposed to be hard.

Brian:

But in your defense you made the sign slightly lighter, so that should be the color Right. The sign is slightly.

Jake:

It's still dark it was one sales guy who was like I love it, don't change it. And then everybody else was like no, we can't do it.

Alec:

I was about to say.

Chad:

Sorry, I'm sorry, sorry. Go chat Through the big finish. What I love about this and about what you guys do Irish Death. Everything is about Irish Death, irish Death. This looks nothing like Irish Death. It's delicious, but I know that's based off Irish Death.

Christina:

You taste it.

Alec:

Sure, we're here, the umami of Irish Death is in it. I hate the name of the word. It's not correct.

Chad:

It's a fantastic word you can use it correctly. But I can feel the threads of Irish Death. Everything that we taste in here All this delicious, dark, beautiful beer.

Brian:

Everything is even. I was thinking that even with the I can't remember if it was the pros. But in general, your dark beers are always going to have a bit of this Irish Death, Because it's the core of what you guys do Like. You talked about it like and we got.

Alec:

Well, and at some point you can clean those tanks as much as you want, but there's going to be some saturation of Irish Death, in spirits even.

Brian:

But yeah, there is this spirit of it and it flows through all of it and I mean, when you have something that is that good, why not let it go? And to do that.

Chad:

And how wonderful it is to have something you know it's going to sell, it's going to keep us afloat so we can do all these wonderful other things that we're going to do. How does that like? There's not a lot of breweries that we encounter that realistically, we probably have that.

Brian:

Yeah, nobody has the flagship as much anymore.

Jake:

Yeah, I mean we're super, super lucky on that and that allows us to play around and do things. Like you know, this Thai IST the Tirmisu, like we can play around with that and know that if it fails we're still okay.

Alec:

Yeah, so we're going to backstop. I was going to go the Crosshub Eyes as my favorite and tell I tasted the tears. I don't think I'm switched.

Chad:

I'll go with the Crosshub Eyes.

Christina:

Just like it, all of them.

Chad:

Dropping to ease after this episode and I will. In the intermediate, I will do the Cliff Notes. She's crazy. My co-hosts don't give me that.

Alec:

Oh, you'll fall in with this.

Christina:

It got me through COVID it's so brilliant when we caught him too.

Chad:

I can't do it, oh, harry, yes.

Alec:

Yeah, yeah. No, it was good Cool. Our glasses are very far from being empty at this point, hopefully. Years at home are half full as well, and we'll catch you next time.