American Beer Review LIVE!
Welcome to the American Beer Review podcast. Good times with good friends requires good beer, lucky for us we know how to pick all three. We’re a group of friends who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, giving us a jump start on our craft beer journey. Join Alec, Chad, and Brian while we review some beer, talk about beer topics, and whatever else comes up. We invite you to pour yourself a drink and hang out with us.
American Beer Review LIVE!
American Beer Review LIVE! Review #36 - Gold Dot Beer’s Export Lager
For our season 3 finale, we found a beer designed for connoisseurs like ourselves- Gold Dot Beer’s Export Lager. We will be taking the rest of the summer off from regular recordings, but watch for some best of compilations and maybe a few remixes of our favorite episodes.
If you'd like to reach out to the American Beer Review LIVE! crew to give us a beer suggestion or to tell us we suck, you can reach us on any of our socials (in order of how often we check it).
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because I am. I dealt with the backup audio these last four episodes and I don't want to deal with it again.
Speaker 2:No, that was a little rough.
Speaker 1:I believe you mean buddy. So who was brewing this?
Speaker 3:So this is. Let's just rip it off the fly, let's review a beer, and then Brian can go home and take care of his dying baby.
Speaker 2:You can't say it like that.
Speaker 3:Like I'm just hanging out here instead. I mean, that's literally what you're doing now.
Speaker 4:Welcome to another episode of the American Beer Review Podcast.
Speaker 1:Good times with good friends requires good beer. Lucky for us, we know how to pick all three.
Speaker 3:We're a group of friends who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, giving us a jumpstart on our craft beer journey.
Speaker 2:Join us today. While, brian, I pride myself on not getting to know other people, so do not put that on me.
Speaker 3:Alec. So the bananas, up until like the 60s, were an entirely different species of banana.
Speaker 1:And Chad. It hit me like a beck and bob Review some beer talk about beer topics and whatever else comes up.
Speaker 2:We invite you to pour yourself a drink and hang out with us.
Speaker 1:And me and Alec had to physically restrain him from leaving.
Speaker 3:Yep Doors are locked. Yeah, threw the keys down the toilet.
Speaker 1:We had to get this done so we didn't have to inconvenience ourselves later on.
Speaker 3:Alright, so this is from Heater Allen Brewing.
Speaker 2:Oh hey, I've had that before. There you go.
Speaker 3:McMinnville, oregon. Yeah, that Chad also got all the way from Tavor, even though we weren't driven there. This is their Connoisseur's Choice, export Lager, and you deserve a gold dot. So I don't know if that's part of their brand, gold dot.
Speaker 2:Is it A-L-L-E-N or A-Heater Allen?
Speaker 3:A-L-L-E-N.
Speaker 2:Alright, there I'm trying to find it A noble brew Allen A-L-L-E-N.
Speaker 4:Alright, there, I'm trying to find it.
Speaker 3:Dun dun, dun.
Speaker 2:Noble Brew, so I've had a couple of theirs, so I've had their. They have a Bobtoberfest that I've had. They also have a. It's a, I think it's a porter. Going back to our last thing, and it was while I was- in this.
Speaker 1:One is not a porter. The one you had previously was a porter. Yeah that's what I'm talking about. I might be three sheets of the wind right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit the one we had last week was a porter and we were looking at doubling up they are only rolling 70 beers on untapped.
Speaker 1:There's no cigarettes on this one are there? Oh man, I hope not, but the one that I had beers on Untapped there's no cigarettes on this one are there?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I hope not. Okay, good, but the one that I had. So I was trying to order a beer. When we were in Corvallis for the UW game, we were at a bar having lunch pre-funking the game because it was rainy as all hell outside, yep, and they had a bunch of stuff with the beers and I was like, oh, I'll take that one. And she's like we just ran out of that or we don't. I was like, ok, well, tell me, like, tell me more about what you have. That's comparable or something. And she ended up recommending this beer from Alan Heater and the idea was that it was this comparable style to what I wanted. Okay, uh, I am pretty sure the beer that, um, what is going on the connoisseurs? Oh, oh, there you go. I got it, uh, but the beer that she ended up uh, getting me was significantly boozier than the one that I was initially trying to get, but it had a really cute dog on it, so I got it anyways.
Speaker 2:This is 5.6 for a lager it's a little heavier, but it's a little boozy the beer that I had is called Sandy Paws and each year they rotate the dogs on the label and the money goes to a I got too much lights in there. Keep talking. I feel like the money goes to a charity for dogs.
Speaker 3:Is that the Starbucks logo? I mean, that's the old school Starbucks logo. I put it up there. I was trying to catch it, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:That for sure is. That is totally the yeah. That's the one they had to edit for TV, but not for YouTube, or we're going to find out, oh, well, demonetize us, naughty Mervig. Have you tasted it.
Speaker 2:So, if I am remembering what you just said correctly, I would love to know if you actually remembered what I just said correctly.
Speaker 1:This brewing company made a beer that went towards the adoption of Beautiful Dogs.
Speaker 2:I think so because every year they rotate and they made this beautiful beer that I think so because every year they rotate.
Speaker 1:They saw the name for a dog and they made this beautiful beer that I would want to drink in a dang dark, that's the one I had. Excellent, so they made that beautiful beer for the adoption of beautiful animals.
Speaker 2:This is someone else's picture. Thanks, peter D, but that's the.
Speaker 1:Sandy.
Speaker 2:Paws Okay.
Speaker 1:But they also made this beer that I would expect to drink in a deep, dark basement. Dank gross dive bar.
Speaker 2:Okay, export lager Connoisseur. One sounds a little fancier, though, than what you're saying.
Speaker 1:No, I'm, I'm having, I'm, I, I want this in a dive bar. Okay, this is dive this is dive bar lager.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it I?
Speaker 1:I'm a connoisseur of dive bar loggers and this is this is.
Speaker 3:There may be dogs allowed in this bar, but they don't broadcast it as pet friendly.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that's what I was going for.
Speaker 2:It's one where you walk in and you're like what? I could have brought my dog in here. He catches the rats. We don't talk about it. This is fantastic. I like this, your phrasing made me think there was a. This is fantastic. I like this. Your phrasing made me think there was a. It was early on in my drinking career, but we were at the basement bar Arrow, Archers, Archers in.
Speaker 3:Fairhaven yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think they mostly focus on European beers, if I remember correctly. But I had one that I was like I'll just get some light, whatever beer, and I didn't finish it. I think I gave it a few. We ended up watching like a UW football game that was on at like 1130 because they were like playing in freaking Hawaii drinking like some what I thought at the time terrible European beer. But for the life of me I have no idea what that beer is.
Speaker 3:So that's what it is, that export lager. It tastes it is.
Speaker 2:It's a European like. There's a little bit of like almost Belgian but not I was going to say more like a kolsch. It's kind of what I was thinking, it's kolsch-y. It's like a warm kolsch-y kind of vibe yeah, okay, before you kill it all, pass that bad boy.
Speaker 1:It's very good.
Speaker 3:I don't know the what did you say the gold dot thing, though I don't know marketing, you deserve a gold dot, you deserve, we'll take it. Oh, or did we get the cans that have the gold dots so we get a free tour of their? Do we get a?
Speaker 1:prize throwback, we're gonna put a little throwback in the thingy right here on the youtube do we get a prize?
Speaker 2:we need to look this up. Yeah, all right, let right, let me see if I can almost oh nope, I did.
Speaker 1:I spilled a little bit, but I mean it's, it's not a Ronye, but it is the getting Ronye on draft vibe. That.
Speaker 2:That is that is oh, it's a Dortmunder. So it is, oh, it's a European style, l European-style lager, of course. So, chad, for you I will pull up what a Dortmunder is. Yes for Chad. I mean those of us who obviously know what a Dortmunder is.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes For the uncultured among us, the uncouth.
Speaker 2:I mean Chad, you should know that's a $5 word you went to Oktoberfest.
Speaker 1:Ah, fun fact, we're running it back.
Speaker 2:Some of us are. Some of us, uh, sometimes referred to as a dortmunder export, the european style export, has the malt forward flavor, yeah, and sweetness of a german style hell is okay, hell, yeah, but the bitter base of a german style pilsner, love it okay. Lager is all about the balance medium, medium hop character, firm but low malt sweetness. I actually would wish, I kind of wish, that all my uh loggers were this flavoring. Yeah, I kind of like this. This is pretty good. Yes, like, oh. Yeah. One of my other favorites that I've had of this is um, also from Corvallis Block 15, is their Punch Out and Prost. So I really enjoyed that one as well. Yeah, this is a pretty solid, a slightly stronger version of our instant classic, the Helles Lager. So the slightly boozier, basically probably maltier version of that. This is so good, made with pure glacier water and the finest imported hops and barley we could find on the earth. Incredibly dry and sparkling lager, yeah, I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 1:This is a teen, or teeners. I'm not crushing a 30 bomb of this.
Speaker 3:You're going to do 16 or 18 of these, though I'll try.
Speaker 2:I'm not the one sitting. I'd purchase it that way, but I'm not like.
Speaker 1:I'd buy a six pack, six packs of 16s.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm here for that and give me three and then I'm gonna fall asleep because I'm old.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing, but you're getting at 5.6. To me, this is the perfect of like. You do have to be slightly aware of what's going on because, you're drinking it like it's a light beer a light beer, but it's a little boozier. So you do got to kind of slow down and be careful. Pace a little bit yes there is okay. So I don't know what I did. I clicked on wait. Who'd you say this is from I?
Speaker 3:don't remember. That's why you guys no, that's what it says.
Speaker 2:Brewed and canned by Heater Allen. This is from gold Dot Beer.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's why you. What a twist.
Speaker 2:So when you look at the brewery, it is actually Gold Dot Beer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this was a random poll, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:Shad and I. They have a total of 12 beers, Only 12? On Untapped. You're looking at Hella's Lager, Munich Dunkel Cold IPA.
Speaker 3:This export lager, Dortmunder, An IPA, Japanese Rice Lager Also on the list we were about to pull from, so you missed it. It was. We were handing beers back and forth in the fridge.
Speaker 4:Should we?
Speaker 3:taste this one? Should we taste this one? Yep, well, this one tastes like cigarettes. Who knows, this one's been in the fridge for several months.
Speaker 2:I bet you there's a lot of people who drink this one while smoking cigarettes. What are you trying to say? Just, I feel like that's a good like offset.
Speaker 1:You need to be in a dank basement bar while you're drinking this.
Speaker 2:Where legally can't. Or I could see sitting on some patio where, just like you're not supposed to have your dog in there, you're also not supposed to smoke on the patio, but someone's sitting drinking this bad boy Like and this, this bad boy like and this is their like lager of choice, and they particularly chose it because they're a little fancy with their cigarettes. They buy the European ones, but they also want a little more booze in their light beer, so that's why they're going with this one, possibly.
Speaker 2:So it's gotta be some kind of like, uh one of those amazingly specific right, it's got to be one of those like where it's the brewery within a brewery type of thing or some combination.
Speaker 3:I'm a dude playing a dude.
Speaker 1:Playing another dude.
Speaker 3:Well, it's contracted out because the cost of shipping this from wherever is pretty expensive.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of the? Um walking, walking mountains, walking mountains, the? Um new hokkaido. Yes, oh yeah, out of montana. That like where it's like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in this brewery we have three breweries and a seltzery and like those types of things, like I could easily see that they did some kind of uh variation, yeah, something along that I was going to see a joint venture from lager brewing power couple, lisa Allen and Kevin Davey. So it seems like, where did Peter come from? I don't know. Let's ask Lisa Allen, because we at least found the Allen part. So let me check this bad boy in and then I'll get back to looking at Peter Allen again this For being just a logger bad boy in and then I'll get back to looking at heater Allen again this for being just a lager, pretty freaking good.
Speaker 2:Let me look at my list. What do you got on your list? That's going to be anything special of this.
Speaker 3:This is the most drinkable beer in the last five episodes. Ooh. Yeah, it is it entirely is Well, we've had the four episodes previous to this, maybe more, but I can't remember that far back.
Speaker 2:Talladega Light.
Speaker 3:I prefer this over that 100%.
Speaker 2:The Talladega Light is better for being at a racetrack and drinking a 30 bomb if I'm crushing splitting a 30 bomb.
Speaker 1:I'm crushing the Talladega Light.
Speaker 2:I'm savoring the gold dot yes, so this to me is a more quality version, like a starter lager.
Speaker 1:I'm giving you a Taldega Light first, but then I'm going to start. I'm going to keep trying to get you into the gold dot.
Speaker 3:I would not give this to the captain.
Speaker 2:No, this is almost too fancy for him.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a good call. Yeah, no, this is too fancy for the captain.
Speaker 3:Would he like?
Speaker 2:it Absolutely Would he appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yes, but he will recoil at the abv. Oh, possibly because this is, this is, although tastier when we went to the race in california okay, again, not a nascar podcast. Uh, when we went to the race in California, the bush lights were $8. Okay, the bushes were $7. You guys went on a path of drinking bush lights because that is your go-to. My policy was slightly more alcohol in every I don't know the math 7th, 8th one. I got a freebie compared to you guys, because I was paying a dollar less every time still $8 for the venue $8 for Tallboys of Bush Light.
Speaker 2:I got $7. $7 for the Bush Heavies. So I'm going to do a little digging. On Heater Allen, I wanted to know a little more about them after that one. But yeah, I think he'd recoil at the ABV on this 5.6? Possibly that's a little danger zone Because think about the ones that he is traditionally drinking. He's not usually jumping in at 5%. They're all mostly sub-5s for the standards. But, yes, at Heater Ellen, we specialize in making German and Czech-style lager beers. These are the best possible ingredients.
Speaker 1:Well, that checks. I hate him so much I've been waiting all season to get that.
Speaker 3:How many check dark loggers have we had?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, if I threw out too many, you guys would catch on.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it says temporarily closed.
Speaker 4:Uh-oh yeah.
Speaker 2:On the Google it says temporarily closed. Uh-oh yeah, on the Google it says temporarily closed. Maybe just this location is my hope Like their tap room. Yeah, in McMinnville, I can't. I'm kind of sad and disappointed and I feel like I'm going to go down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what the hell happened. On a random side note, technically, uh, overall breweries grew last year to like 9600, 9700, something like that.
Speaker 2:So the best kind of correct what technically correct is the best kind oh yeah, so technically breweries grew that much I didn't realize also, though, that there's and maybe I did, there's a categorization. So you have, like, breweries that are just tap rooms, breweries that are like microbreweries, and they label them all, and basically it's by your like distribution size or your whether you like to be a regional brewery. You have to create a certain amount of barrels. Basically like we don't believe there's any possible way you can sell all these barrels in your tap room, so you must be distributing, type of thing. So that's how, like, you become a regional brewery or you become a whatever. But there were some that, like the overall numbers, if you looked at like regional breweries, they lost some. The overall numbers, if you looked at like regional breweries, they lost some.
Speaker 3:You think it's literally they go. We don't think you can sell this many versus. We know you're selling your kegs Like. You have receipts showing that you sold your kegs and distributed.
Speaker 1:I mean we saw your numbers. We don't really believe you.
Speaker 3:Allegedly there might be a real like verification of that Right we're not, not gonna snitch, no, yeah, this is just a money laundering scheme.
Speaker 1:You guys are just a brewery, a money laundering scheme? How dare you?
Speaker 2:uh, no, it actually makes sense because you just can like be like no, no, we're like hemorrhaging money, we're totally losing money, it's, but we're somehow staying open, that's so the last 10 years of VC yeah.
Speaker 3:Money laundering works.
Speaker 2:No, I know, usually you're trying to hey Alec, Hi Alec, I'm not telling the people I know.
Speaker 1:I'm short. Money laundering. I'm shorting the money laundering market.
Speaker 2:I'm not telling people that I know how money laundering works, because that would make it obvious that I'm doing it sir, obviously. Taproom is currently closed.
Speaker 1:I'm not a Mr IRS agent, I'm a terrible money launderer.
Speaker 2:For a remodel.
Speaker 3:Oh good for them. So they're making money or laundering it, I don't know. Check out the Taproom page for more info.
Speaker 1:Just hire yourself to do the remodeling.
Speaker 2:Giving contracts to people. You know. It's like if I knew an HVAC guy to just do a bunch of contracts for me and pay him an only beer.
Speaker 3:It's suspicious that there's a multi-thousand unit complex going in Ellensburg or Sunnyside.
Speaker 2:Washington.
Speaker 1:Weird. Yeah, that's a starbucks logo, right. Yeah, yes, it is the starbucks logo, but why? Because starbucks stole it from somebody else.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say it's, if it's from europe. It's probably way older than starbucks and it was like copped somewhere.
Speaker 2:But um, that's a really good locker. Like that's one of the ones that I like. When you go in and you're kind of looking at, um, what's on tap, you're looking at building a flight of doing something. I want someone to point out a little bit more of like. That is an anchor on your way to beer greatness to try to do like I don't want just your American light lager in my flight, but I want this. I will not buy the whatever pack of them Chad was talking about, but I would gladly cycle through.
Speaker 3:You said you wanted 18 of these. You'd buy them by the 18 pack yeah, I would.
Speaker 2:I would at least cycle through, didn't?
Speaker 1:I drink 18 of them, then I forget about it, buy another one. Then we guys asked me it's a perpetual money machine, a money laundering scheme?
Speaker 2:if you will, I would at least frequently get a four pack of that to have, that's because, four to me.
Speaker 2:Um, if you're, if you're having one for the day, there's enough kind of booziness in it, but it's still a light drinking beer. Yes, it also is a great transition, um, out of your ipas and different things to then getting into your light stuff, where you're like this is a perfect one, where I'm like I want something a little less boozy than ipas or different things, but I want flavor still. This is still more flavor than your standard American light lager.
Speaker 3:I would get a four pack of this and then not share them.
Speaker 1:Winner, winner chicken dinner cool our glasses are empty.
Speaker 3:Hopefully yours are too. We'll catch you next time after the race.
Speaker 4: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 when 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 buy off of Tavor.