Man Cave Happy Hour

Grandma’s Hooch, Exploding Bottles, And The Beer That Made A Man Fall Off A Desk

• Man Cave Happy Hour

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A quiet Monday at a local brewery turns electric when a homebrew guild pulls up chairs and starts pouring stories. We begin with two teachers who fell for British cask ales, came home to stovetops and driveway boils, and helped fuel a club where curiosity ferments into craft. The thread runs through every glass we raise: the right community turns “someday” into batches, medals, and the kind of know-how you can taste.

Live from Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. https://kbrewery.com/

We ride the arc from origin tales to technique. Water chemistry becomes a secret weapon, revealing why southeast Michigan’s tap water is a dream for brewing and how salts and profiles shape style. Then the pours arrive: a wild, 18-year-old cherry farmhouse ale that over-carbonated itself into legend; a meticulous Belgian golden strong dry enough to pair with food, yet sneaky at 9.5%; and a velvet American barleywine hopped with El Dorado, all malt depth and quiet power. The mead table steals a scene, too: a fire cider sizer crafted from cider reduced over 18 hours and dosed with fireweed honey, plus a macadamia blossom bochet kissed by Amburana wood that delivers natural baking spice without a single clove. Along the way we unpack staves vs chips, surface area, aging time, and the real economics of scaling niche styles.

What ties it all together is the guild itself. First-Monday meetings mix social flights with pro-caliber education, from hops and IPAs to yeast behavior and carbonation targets. Members bring clean American lagers that chase consistency, herb-lifted basil wits that perfume the room from a half ounce of leaves, and fresh-hopped pale ales picked one day and brewed the next. Some alumni go pro, others just brew better, but everyone learns faster through honest feedback and shared palates.

Pour a glass and come hang with us as we celebrate the science, bravery, and joy inside every fermenter. If you love craft beer, mead, cider, or just a great story that starts with a hand-pulled pint, this one’s for you. Hit follow, share with a friend who brews or wants to, and leave a review telling us the one style you’re craving next. Cheers.

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www.ManCaveHappyHour.com

Jamie Flanagan @DJJamieDetroit

Matt Fox @fox_beazlefox

August Gitschlag @rawgusto

Merch www.WearingFunny.com


SPEAKER_03:

I said hey!

unknown:

Hey!

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to the Man Cave Happy Hour! I said hey! Hey! Welcome to the Man Cave Happy Hour.

SPEAKER_04:

We're gonna drink a fine whiskey and smoke a really fine cigar.

SPEAKER_05:

It is time for Happy Hour, the Man Cave Happy Hour, Whiskey, Cigar, Spirits, the stories that go along with it. I would be Jamie Flanagan. You are Jamie Flanagan.

SPEAKER_06:

Otherwise, sexy Matt Fox. Um, the guy that's looking strangely at me, and I want to go home with him would be August Kitchener. Oh, any time, buddy. I got room for you. I got a I got a clean pillowcase. Oh, yeah, just one? Yeah, just one. Okay. That's all I got left.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh my. So socks by the side of the bed that aren't as clean as you'd want them to be. All right, so make cave happy hour. We are out and about. We're at Coonin's brewery. In Warren. I always want to say distillery because it's always distilled, distill, distill. And I'm always like but uh we're the brewery and winery, uh, the original OG location on Mound Road in Warren. Yeah and uh they're having a brewmaster get together. What is it?

SPEAKER_06:

Okay, it's the uh Kunning Gilder Brewers, and we are joined by three of the founders, and you can hear the club back there all drinking their beer right now. Everything you guys bring in here is your hobby beer, right? Yes, correct. All right, so tell us tell us who you are because both of you guys have been on this show, but different context. I'm Barry also, Mike Spears. And you are on our show once with the Trian Mead, right? But you guys really started here as hobby brewers, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, tell us how that all got started. Well, tell us about your childhood.

SPEAKER_02:

Tell us about your brew childhood. Do we? I mean, how far back do we go? Do we go to England? Wow, quickly, quickly, all right, quickly.

SPEAKER_06:

So there was a light, and I saw it.

SPEAKER_02:

And my mom and dad really liked each other. No, well, so it kind of goes like this that Barry and I we're teachers together, and we got to know each other pretty quickly. And we started talking, like, oh, we're gonna brew beer, we're gonna brew beer, right? Of course, at the time we were probably gonna brew what we thought was a great version of Butt Light.

SPEAKER_05:

Um like an oxymora.

SPEAKER_02:

We talked out our asses for a couple three years at least about doing this, and uh, one of the things that we did as teachers, I'm a foreign language teacher, he's a social studies teacher. Is that he does he does spike with the douche. So uh we uh we were involved with a program that did student travel overseas, so we would chaperone dozens and dozens of kids all over the world, right? So we were on a trip to Great Britain and Ireland, and we tried for the first time oh my god, cask conditioned ales.

SPEAKER_04:

Repeat that cask conditioned ales, specifically a lovely thing the British call a bitter, a banner, yeah. We fell in love, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Because we're still in love, like we'd had the quote unquote micro brews before, you know, Sierra Nevada pale ale, that was a thing, and we liked that kind of stuff too, but we hadn't really experienced anything like this, like locally brewed, conditioned in a cask, in a basement, naturally carbonated, you know, hand pole where they you know they they're pumping on this cask to pour the beer, and we're like, Okay, this is what we want to make, yes, right.

SPEAKER_06:

And you had not you had or had made beer before. We had not made beer yet.

SPEAKER_02:

And then we actually named our first beer over there before we ever brewed it. But that's a whole different story.

SPEAKER_04:

What was her name? Well, it did involve a woman, but one of the teachers on the group on in our group, um, a couple of uh Welshmen took a fancy to her and they thought Kit was quite the saucy minx.

SPEAKER_06:

Ah, yes, yeah, they called her a saucy minx. So we had a name for her beer, we just didn't have the beer. And it is repeatedly on tap here now.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so yeah, we the second they called her that, we're like, that's what we're gonna call her. It was immediate.

SPEAKER_04:

It was like oh my god, that's our beer name.

SPEAKER_02:

And when we got back, it was probably still another year. Then we brewed some beer and got to brewing.

SPEAKER_06:

And that means she was like in the driveway, or did you do it here or in our driveways?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, went to a hardware store, bought some stuff. Actually, our first batch was a stovetop batch, just using extract malts and uh malt extracts rather, and uh, and that was successful, and that was enough to get us going. And then we ended up in the driveway because you need to be outside to do that stuff. Okay, so you made that beer. Then how did it end up becoming this club here?

SPEAKER_02:

It was sitting amongst. There was a go ahead.

SPEAKER_04:

There was there was already a small group, a core group of people that had started to meet, but they were kind of moving in fits and starts, and we found out about it, showed up to a meeting one night, and we haven't stopped since.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that was 2006, I believe. Somewhere around there. So, um, we've been brewing for a little bit at that point. So we came to the homebrew shop here.

SPEAKER_06:

Actually, maybe it was even before that, maybe which was across the street here for a long time.

SPEAKER_02:

We'll have to look and the club is 20 years plus or minus of two at this point. So we came here to buy homebrew supplies. Uh, met our pal Skip. Uh, well, actually, it was Ray Sherwood the first time we came in. Actually, running the brew shop initially, the owner of brewer at Sherwood Brewing, and uh got us started here. And there was a homebrew club here, so they had just started it. They were maybe eight, nine, ten, four members that had founded it. Barry and I were the first new members beyond the people that had founded it, and we joined them and we've been in the club ever since.

SPEAKER_06:

So, what did you bring something of your homebrew with you tonight to share here? Because I know that's what people do, everyone brings something that they want to show off from their best.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't currently have anything in the pipeline, so I didn't bring anything, but I did I did bring something.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, this is fun. This is uh it's not it's not brewed.

SPEAKER_04:

This is not a beer, and uh it's um it well. My family lovingly refers to this as the hooch. The hooch. My grandma H or With a capital H. And so my grandma used to make this, and um it's it's real simple, it's just vodka, fruit, and sugar is really all it is. Oh, you cook it down? No, no, you just soak the fruit in it, and it'll you know, it'll uh extract the juices from the fruit.

SPEAKER_06:

Do you distill it in any way, shape, or form? You just cook it out.

SPEAKER_04:

It's already distilled, so basically we're just flavoring it. Put it in the cup, put it in the cup. I brought it, and the beautiful thing about this stuff is I mean, it's 80 proof vodka. Um, and can you are you allowed to say which kind of vodka or uh I bought it in a very tall bottle at a warehouse club store, so it's Kirkland. Kirkland, and uh so my grandma would make this, and she always kept it in a in a cabinet by the kitchen table, and we and we'd be we'd be sitting around the table, my grandpa and I, and my brother-in-law, and my uncle, we'd be shooting the shit about whatever, you know. And uh one of us would one of us would lean back, reach into the cabinet, and pull the bottle out. Well, then usually that was the end of any productive uh work or anything for the afternoon. Oh, that doesn't suck. Oh, you're surprised. No, that does not suck. And there's a really great story that goes with this. It's a sleeper, my brother-in-law's brother, that's Steve. We're all pretty tight. And well, we were out to grandma's and we were drinking on the hooch, and Steve had to go home and help his his wife Jenny um uh decorate the Christmas tree.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So Steve thought it was a good idea to get up on top of his roll top desk to put the star on top of the tree.

SPEAKER_06:

Was the roll top up or down?

SPEAKER_04:

It was it was it was in position where it needed to be but he was standing on the smooth top in his socks, and yes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. His feet shot out from under him, he ended up in the tree. He still can't live that one down. That was hell out of 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_06:

That's because of the hooch.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's all because of the hooch. Yeah, grandma's hooch, and I'll tell you, we went through a lot of this stuff. So I actually I I stumbled on the recipe, grandma's hand ready. So after I got done sobbing, I went, okay, gotta make some, and uh, and this is it.

SPEAKER_06:

So, what did you cook this down? Uh was it a it's real simple.

SPEAKER_04:

You just throw frozen fruit and sugar into the into the vodka and uh let it soak for three weeks and then filter. Okay, what kind of berries did you uh it's just raspberry, just raspberry? This particular one, yeah. We made uh blackberry version, sort of uh grandma's yeah, you know, and okay. Uh but I gotta say it's better than actual yeshi. But uh yeah, well you can use any fruit you want to do.

SPEAKER_06:

I know that we're bold statement. That's a bold statement because we were just drinking on the icebox earlier. Oh, yeah. We had a bottle of icebox, yeah. Yeah, the raspberry iceberg very goochie, yeah. It is, but what do you it's a lager? But on the back end, I'm like, I looked at August and I'm like, yeah, wait for that Yeshi to kick in because it it's very prominent because of that.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, they put a ton of raspberry in it here. But this this is delicious, but yeah, and and you know, there's other fun games you can play with this too, you know. Sure, put it, put it, put it in prosecco or something like that, you know. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What's a sleeper though?

SPEAKER_06:

You it is, it is not taste as strong as you can hear the the gang has begun their social hour and they're starting to all try each other's stuff. They get a little bit louder. The word as the night goes on comes to mind.

SPEAKER_02:

We call this the sharing of the brews. We have our meeting with business. There's usually business of like what's coming up. We have a chili cook-off coming up on, I believe, the 19th, whatever Sunday is closest to the 19th of August at the second Kunin. Come support the club. Uh, homebrew festival in August. So we'll we do a lot of planning for that, and then we also usually have an educational component to the meeting. So today we are talking about hops and IPAs. The last couple meetings, we had uh Steve Smollenberg, who's been in the club for many, many years, talking about water profiles, and you know, that's a big part of brewing is the water chemistry here in southeast Michigan. We're super fortunate we have some of the best tap water on the planet. It's really good for brewing beer. Yeah, but depending on the style of beer you're brewing, you may adjust the water chemicals, you know, you might add certain sort of salts and things like that. Yeah, things like that. So he did all this.

SPEAKER_06:

Is where it gets nerdy and cool.

SPEAKER_02:

It does where it gets nerdy and cool. Yeah, um, those conversations, you know, they start one way and then they sort of evolve, you know. And at one point he's talking about something that wasn't on you know, wasn't in the lesson, so to speak, but because somebody asked a question and it was fascinating. We have so many members with so many varying degrees of experience and years of experience that people will jump in.

SPEAKER_04:

So the educational component to this club is great, and that's and not to mention we have access to a lot of pro brewers in the area who just come to hang out, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

You know, like when does this happen on the monthly or on a quarterly?

SPEAKER_04:

It does on the first Monday.

SPEAKER_06:

I sometimes find myself here on the first Monday of the month.

SPEAKER_02:

Gee, I wonder why. There's a plethora of folks from this club who have started as home brewers and gone on to open breweries. Yeah, yes. Zach, the owner of Urban Rest, was a former member of our club. Um, who else do we got? Anson Village Sunday. We have uh Cadillac Straits. Cadillac Straits Area. Uh he's here. We have uh um Stumble Bun. He was in the club for a little while.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um isn't that a lions play? That was my kind of is changing his nickname and called. I mean, lots of folks. Uh Don from 51 North is deceased. Uh not well, Don's not deceased, the brewer is deceased. Uh but so we've had a lot of folks come to this club and open breweries. Very nice are we doing the meads for four years.

SPEAKER_06:

We have a beer that uh Nate put down. Someone grab that guy behind you and hey, and get him in a seat here for a second. We need to talk about your beer. He poured a beer here. We're gonna someone surrender their spot here for a second. You get the crappy chair. Uh, your name, uh rank and serial number, sir?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh Nathan Widener.

SPEAKER_06:

Founding home. OG. OG, okay. Easy gets. So you brought this over here, and you put it down in front of us. Like, okay, and I'm like, we're gonna get John. Nate, what what do we have here?

SPEAKER_01:

So this is a uh it's uh it's a farmhouse ale that we brewed with Dan Rogers and one of our founders, other founders, Ron Bridges. Yeah, yeah, we did it with uh Michigan cherries and left the pit in, so you get a little bit of that kind of quality coming through at the end.

SPEAKER_06:

Holy carbonation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's very carbonate.

SPEAKER_06:

It's flying right out of my mouth.

SPEAKER_01:

This beer was actually brewed right around the time that we were forming the club. This is 20 years old, uh right around there, yeah. Probably about 18 years old, yeah. Yeah, 2008.

SPEAKER_06:

The cherry character is amazing in that. So let me ask that question. Because that's the first thing that hits you is the carbonate. Why so heavily carbonated?

SPEAKER_01:

So it has a brewer.

SPEAKER_06:

Why so carbonated?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was aged with the wild yeast on top of it, so it continued to carbonate inside the bottle even after it sat there for all those years.

SPEAKER_06:

And it doesn't, you gotta make sure that sucker doesn't blow up then, huh? So I did have a couple of them that were bottled.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so CL2 are your two byproducts of fermentation. Right.

SPEAKER_06:

So yeah, yeah, it continues to ferment in that bottle. That's a control level that you have. So it doesn't quite the squad here. Sometimes they will blow up ideas. We have quite the squad of people here. So, Nate, you're in. Spears, you go find someone for that chair now.

SPEAKER_02:

Find someone to put in that chair. I'll get somebody in this chair. I'll get something very interesting. Yeah, you go out there, go out there and recruit. That's the first time I've been kicked out. No, you're not gonna be kicked out, you're a recruiter. You're a recruiter.

SPEAKER_06:

Share, share, share. So, Nate, I know you used to work here.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you start brewing from working here, or were you working here because you were brewing? I was brewing here first and hanging out with the uh we had there was a couple of things. Yeah, where I first got my wine kits and everything.

SPEAKER_06:

I all my supplies came from you know brewing world too.

SPEAKER_01:

Right on, right on, yeah, yeah. It was right on the other side here of Kunin Hardware.

SPEAKER_06:

Right on the other side of the other parking lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, yep. So uh used to used to pick up all my supplies and everything and met a lot of people in the club and or met people that were gonna become the club. So yeah, it was an awesome time there.

SPEAKER_06:

Yep, very cool. One and only Bill Belair is joining us now. Welcome to the Man Cape Happy R. What's going on? So have you been a member of the club here? Uh six years of KGOV. So six years. Uh before that, I was in a club called Men's Metro Anologists and Zymergists out of Richmond faster. Metro Anologists and Zymergists. So, and uh we mostly did men that's very show rogety sounding. And uh, we did mostly wines, um, and I kind of like was their beer contingent, but uh they kind of dissolved, it was a bunch of old dudes drinking wine. Uh, and then after they kind of like folded up, I found a new club, and that was a KGOB. So how long have you been brewing your own uh brewing started in 2007? 25 now, so you're you've got some I've been doing it a while, experience, if we will. Yeah, and uh, I'm also the uh I'm beer czar for the KGOB, and I'm the president and founder of the Michigan Mead Coalition. Michigan Mead Coalition? Yeah, nice. So I actually brought two different meads here. If you guys want to try some meads, twist my art. So our first exposure to mead was a wholly decent exposure, and that was the Tri Axel guys having them down. They had them in studio. We had them in studio a couple years ago, honestly. And yeah, it was I'd had their mead, of course, but these guys were predominantly a bourbon and spirits drinking podcast. So to have that mead come in was like, Oh, what the hell? This is a thing, and especially they talked about how complex and they're getting the certain kinds of honey. So, what are we looking at here? So, the two I have right now is a fire cider sizer. So, a fire cider. If you've ever heard of an ice cider, an ice cider is they basically um freeze out all the water out of cider and leave just the the sugars and then ferment that, and it makes this very sweet, very alcoholic, very viscous um uh cider. Well, I did I did kind of the opposite of that. I boiled cider for like 18 hours. So I went from uh it was like 18 gallons of cider down to six gallons of cider. Wow, so concentrated the hell out of it. Yeah, got rid of all the water out of that way. What did your house smell like afterwards? Oh, it was smelled amazing, it smelled like just cooked apple pie. And then uh it like it boiled for like 23 hours, and then uh I used that with and then dosed honey into it the entire time to tell the yeast just dyed up. Uh was it or like natural honey, or was it just honey out of the bottle? No, it's uh this is actually made with um with fireweed honey. So it's actually honey made from the the flowers that bloom after a forest fire in like the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, it's just a bit more specific than that. My goodness gracious, man. And this has won many awards on a full moon. So the the literally the flower only happens, it only blooms on a full moon every 12 years. The flower only only blooms and only comes up after a forest fire. And so this is the honey made from uh the honey from that, and then a sizer, because we we're not probably they're probably not familiar with sizer, is the mix of a mead and a and a cider. It's a sizer. So this is roughly half honey, half cider, and it's uh 15 and a half percent alcohol. All right, we'll give it a shot. It's not gonna go crazy with these 15 and a half zers here. School night, so they say it is a school night at the moment. It is this one's mine. Where's your lovely wife? She also is in the business, isn't she? She is, she is at home, did not feel like drinking again, so she decided to stick at home and that's very responsible of her and hang out with the dog. Any children? No children, just the dog, the dog, just the dog, and the dog's name, Cooper, Golden Doodle, yeah, most adorable thing in the planet. Cooper's around Cooper's circle. Cooper comes around wise eyes. Oh, yeah, wise eyes wise eyes, yeah. That tastes like it took you 23 hours to get to the first ingredient. That's a that's a lovely, lovely. This is not alcohol. No, this is this is this is infused water, is what it is. This is 15. This is made at home. Holy snikes, man. Yeah, this is professional machine professional level shit. Wow, agreed, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_05:

That is gorgeous. So now, when you're creating something like this at home, this isn't something that could be done on a grander scale. Oh, it does. They do. I mean, just because it seems like it'd be so cost prohibitive that this has just got to be a passion project. I mean, uh, you're not gonna find this, you're not gonna find this tasting like this anywhere.

SPEAKER_06:

You don't find a lot of this, no. Uh, but I mean, ice ciders are made in a lot of um you know, like northern northeastern um uh Ontario, yeah. And um, so you get a lot of a lot of ice ciders in Montreal areas, in northern New York, things like that. Um, Niagara area has a lot of a lot of it too. And so ice ciders are a little more popular than firesiders, but firesiders are starting to become more of a uh a thing, especially in areas that don't necessarily have great areas to freeze things.

SPEAKER_05:

It just seems so the process just seems so cost prohibitive to really do on any kind of grand scale because you have to wait for a fire.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, these guys make ice wine uh in upstate New York and in Ontario.

unknown:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

We did we had some ice wine with Mrs. Vino.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, yeah, I will I will say again with gorgeous, so that is with uh fireweed honey. Mike, this might be the one that I only want I've ever had, but fireweed honey is used in you know some meateries and things like that too. Um, it is very big on the homebrew in the homebrew circuits. People love that honey. Um, it's great. I'm blown away. This is just this is amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, so the way we're gonna do this, Bill. You're here. Nate, your turn to go find someone to put in that chair, and then we'll do somebody to bring some. Yeah, meantime, identifying was yes, you do the bubbles in that were just so like bam, right in my mind. This one is much less less alcohol.

SPEAKER_05:

What it what is what is that comparatively?

SPEAKER_06:

So, this one is a Mount Marensi cherries with uh uh and uh orange blossom honey aged on Ambriana wood. So Ambriana wood is uh a wood from Brazil. Sorry, I gotta do it. It has this absolutely amazing spice and cinnamon character that you just can't get any other way, and it is um it's magical, it literally makes any beverage just so much better. Wow, and I and I'm sure it's beautiful, but I don't want to stray away from the from the home model from the fire cider. I don't want to stray away from that at all, but I will. It is gorgeous, it is amazing. It also shows that even though it's a home brew club, like is what they call it, they're making wines and meads and sizers and ciders and all kinds of kombucha guys have come through here with you know it's not a one-free. It is not, it is not no. They there's a lot of creativity glass with what I yeah, you're fine. That this one, as big as it is, and as as lovely it is, is much more delicate than the one I'm pouring now, which is why I went with the more alcoholic version. And you put it in a grosh bottle. Is there a reason why you put it in a bottle with a cap on it? Yeah, because I poured it off tap at home. I literally was just like, oh, just dumped it into a sanitized bottle. So, what should I expect from this? Uh you said cinnamon, cinnamon, you know, nutmeg, baking spice. All of that is coming from nothing but the wood. Went right into my nose. Yeah, from the wood. It's Mountain Ransom cherries, honey, and embryona wood. That is it. There is not a spice added to this.

SPEAKER_05:

So now do you have just like staves?

SPEAKER_06:

Wow, yeah, so just staves in with what you're doing, basically. Cadillac straits homebrew club shop. Yeah, they have they carry like spiral, so it's like a stake. That's where I get my stuff. They just like they just to maximize uh surface area, they create a spiral so it has hot sub surface area. Do you prefer the staves to the chips? I do, yeah, because they're easier to remove and caught in the streets. Yeah, it has a lot of cheese clotting, all the other stuff. Yeah, and so it's just it's they and they add it's like crazy amount of surface area, so it infuses very quickly. This was this was in there for like nine days. As a winemaking guy, I always went with the the dust and the chips. The dust is garbage, and it's it's just it just makes a mess, really. I don't know that it has any more flavor. I'll maybe I'll go start going staves now. I haven't I'm overdue for a batch. So yeah, this is Montmorency cherries from um Kiloma, Michigan, which is like southwest Michigan, um, and then uh they're um half were pitted, half were not, and then uh it was in primary and secondary, and then uh aged in secondary with uh Embriana Wood. Let me ask you this question. If I wanted to seek this out for an event, for a wedding, for a birthday party, could I come to you and say I really would love to have that bottle or he legally cannot sell it? I legally cannot sell it. Let's put that out there. Okay, so that's why I'm asking the question. If someone wanted to seek you out, how how does that work? But if you are if you want to have a member of the club, yeah, you're a member of the club? Anything if you've got to come you come to me and like, hey, I want to make these things, I make way more alcohol than I can ever consume in my lifetime. I don't know if that's true because I like to brew a lot, buddy. I like to brew more than I can drink. Okay that you just you you have introduced us to. My my mind is blown. I'm glad you liked it. I am very, very pleased with what you have put in front of us. Oh my god. So so Bill, who has joined us at the table here? This is uh Steve Smellensberg. Did I say that right?

SPEAKER_03:

Steve Smollenberg, yeah. Steve, welcome to the Man Cape Happy R. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06:

Is this Mat Fox? Jamie Flynn again. Of August, we've crossed paths many times over the years. Yeah, and Steve Steve makes some absolutely phenomenal beer. So, how long have you been been first of all start with how long have you been in the hobby in the home brewing?

SPEAKER_03:

So, I brewed my first extract batch in uh December of 2000. So 25 years, 25 years of brewery, yeah. Uh started out my uh my mom got my brother-in-law and I the you know bucket kit, the very, very basic thing. And did this, yeah, yeah. I love that. It was a Christmas gift. She was like, I and I I was fortunate. I had a friend who had been brewing for about five years at that point, and had one at the state fair, and he was and I'm like, I gotta try this.

SPEAKER_06:

Some kids get erector sets, some kids get homebrew kits. Yeah, I've got Legos or Blue. I was already 30. Some kids get erector sets. Right, right. I never got on erector set, neither did I.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but uh, but I had a friend who had had brewed uh Michael Ireland. He'd um he used to do a Scotch podcast, by the way, a Scotch tasting podcast. So uh shout out to Mike. He was um he was instrumental in me learning all the basics of the hobby. And the first thing he imported to me when he's like, take copious notes, write everything down, keep track of what you're doing, and I can really credit that for my success and in how I've developed in the hobby. And then the the next big leap was joining a club, getting involved with a group of people who could taste and evaluate the beer that I've made and really give me constructive feedback. Love that. So I got two things here for you guys. What'd you make? So uh I think there's enough for everybody to try this yet. This is this should put you much. Uh, if you've had Duvall, this should put you very much in uh mind of that style. It's a Belgian golden strong. Okay, so it's uh Belgian golden strong, about nine and a half, ten percent. Um, very dry finish. It's kind of uh it exemplifies the style for me. Um and the uh one of the things they say about Belgian beers is digestibility.

SPEAKER_06:

It's now Bill's job to get someone in that seat. Okay, thanks, Bill.

SPEAKER_03:

Sorry, Steve, sorry, sorry to interrupt. So they talk about the digestibility of Belgian beers.

SPEAKER_06:

So stomach. Digestible.

SPEAKER_03:

So, what they're really talking about is it should complement a food, it shouldn't supersede what you're eating, it shouldn't make you full. Um, so a lot of the time you're gonna get a dry character, a dry finish to it. Um, and one of the things I hope you'll notice when you taste this is you don't taste the alcohol, it's a nine and a half percent beer, it does not taste so like I'm a catchy cafe guy.

SPEAKER_06:

Uh, I'm there so the Belgian beers are my favorites. I love my all my Belgian styles, like all the way to the fruited ones and the Flemish ales. But man, Belgian yeast makes me fart. Yeah, for sure. You'll have that. It's like I mean, that's one of the things.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Duval, in particular, the you don't find this beer anywhere in the world in a K. It's it's bottle right exclusively. Only seen it in bottle. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, is because it's almost uh and it looks like you guys got the dregs a little bit. So you got a little thing I'm gonna fart more. Yeah, so you got so you got some of the so one of the things about this is to get when When Duval does this, they uh ferment to uh almost four volumes of CO2, which is kind of unheard of. Like you have to use a special glass in order to keep it from bursting the bottles, right? The pressure. Is that why it's a taller bottle? Or well, that was part of why I used the taller bottle. Yeah, this is a heavy-duty glass. Um, and that is part of why you have that much sediment at the bottom of it, too. Unfortunately, by the time I got over here, we were to the last I knew what I was getting into when we were when we're gonna do it when we're at this club.

SPEAKER_06:

Um, I've had plenty, but there's also some flavor in that that I think is a little different. Uh, were you attempting to clone Duval with this? Absolutely. Okay, yeah, or just put your own spin on that style. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so this uh this particular version of that of this recipe, this is about the fourth time I've read this. Uh on my second attempt, I got uh first place in the national qualifier with it. Nice. I've been uh trying to, you know, I I gotta get back there, get it back to nationals again. Tweaking it every time you so it's your fourth time. Are you tweaking a little bit? Just very slightly. Uh I feel like the recipe is about spot on. What I'm really trying to do now is dial in the right amount of bottling sugar so I get that champagne-like fermentation. It's that really, really high volume of uh of um foam that's just signature to this uh this beer.

SPEAKER_06:

Side of the glass, the foam is sitting on the side of the glass really, really nicely. I I think you said foam, right? OAM, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

It's a very dry finish. Yeah, it's very nice.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's one of the big things about this style. It's you're trying to get it to a point to where it just leaves you, it it complements food, it doesn't overtake something that you're having with it, but it's got a lot of flavor to itself.

SPEAKER_06:

We do drink a lot of whiskey and bourbon on the show, and we talk about legs on a bourbon, right? Yeah, this has got some legs on it, yeah. You heard some of these crap, these homebrewers talk about their viscosity, yeah. And they've used that word, which we also use when we're drinking bourbons in the show. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

This is beautiful. Well, it's a it's a nice transition into uh the other beer I've got here. All right, I made room. I made room. This is an American barley wine. Oh an American barley wine. All right, so if you want to have something that has legs, uh you you should see that viscosity in this beer. This is uh I do like legs. I call this beer Finding El Dorado. Finding El Dorado, I like that, and that's because that's the name of the main hop that was used in it. Is it's called El Dorado. Uh, and um this is about uh 12% ABV beer.

SPEAKER_06:

Charlie Wine is my favorite, personal favorite style of beer. I I really like um I prefer American beers. I mean, I love my I love my Belgian. So I'll go with like a chame blue for Thanksgiving all year. Yeah, that's my jam. But this reminds me of Alaskan ale, Alaskan amber, I should say. Yeah, the color.

SPEAKER_03:

The color is gonna remind you that you're probably gonna find a little more alcohol there and a little bit thicker. Um, oh yeah. But uh this was a State Fair gold medal winner this year. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_06:

These gentlemen here have tried their first ever uh rice IPA, they tried their first ever Old Ale, their first ever Icebach, and I'm gonna venture this is probably your first ever barley wine. Barley wine? Yeah, this is a barley wine style, probably the first you've ever had. Yeah, whereas I'm fortunate enough to you know travel the country with Brett and Eric going to all these festivals and trying this stuff, these are and crashing their Monday nights for the last couple years with berries.

SPEAKER_03:

Fair. Yeah, that's uh um it's interesting because it's an English style originally, and then the American take on it is just a hoppier version of, but it's got all that deep malt character, but you're bringing some of that uh the special um notes of sometimes tropical fruits and other things that you get from the from the hops uh into that mix.

SPEAKER_06:

This is a great home version of I drink uh Comras, which is a Polish barley wine that I get at I live in Ham Shramics. Like let's walk up to Schroedex, they're like seven bucks a bottle for these, yeah, 16 ounce, and it's delicious. I love cracking that high octane sucker open while I'm watching a ball game. That's my barley wine of choice right now. So this was a 12, yeah. So 12? It's about 12. Yeah, man. Deceptive. My my my uncle down in Florida, he he would sit down and he would taste everything. He's got a receipt from what is that restaurant? It's like a beer, like a brewery that's in Florida, and they just got beers from around the world, and his receipt what's up? Uh oh, but you say he would love this stuff, he would love what you guys do here. Absolutely love it because I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_03:

So, yeah, we're we're very fortunate, um, and a little spoiled. I mean, there's the quality of the brewers in this club, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_06:

Um, oh, it's it's dangerously good, it's dangerously good.

SPEAKER_03:

It's dangerously good.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, you guys make a you do a great job. Yeah, thank you. That's why I crash all your Monday nights.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, uh, I appreciate the uh opportunity to share my beers and uh talk with you guys. And yeah, so see, so who has sat down next to you?

SPEAKER_06:

Uh so Doug Boltis. Doug, um Doug? So Doug, welcome to the Man Cape Happy Hour. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

So now Steve, you know, pronounced your last name right.

SPEAKER_06:

Uh Bolt ice. Now you know your job is to get us one more place. All right, I will find somebody for you guys. It's Doug. Thank you very, very much. Great having you, man. Honestly, delicious. All right, your job is to find someone to fill that chair. Yeah, all right. So tell us how you started. How'd you get into this uh home brewing stuff? I got in I got in a sideways uh I guess you were drunk that day? No. Um I worked in the beer business for a lot of years, and um in the um early to mid-90s, I was working in a crap beer bar, one of the first ones in Chicago in the Chicago area. And Goose Island, one of those? Uh then I moved on to Goose Island. I was actually the GM at Goose Island at one time. No kidding, uh, probably around mid-90s, it would have been the the true release of bourbon county. So that's like like Goose Island is credited with being the original barrel aged beers, like bourbon county. They were the first to do it, right? Pretty much. I mean, on a commercial scale, yeah. I remember we were doing a podcast. I brought a bottle of Goose Island on one of our bourbon casts just to talk about it, and we I think we literally called Brett on the air and said, Hey, who was the first one to do this? Was it Goose Island? Yes, and he goes, right? He goes, as far as I know, Goose Island was the first ones to ever barrel aged and fast produce and put it out there for sale. Correct. And here's an interesting story. Here's an interesting story. So two years ago, they came out with the 30th anniversary of bourbon county. Well, the real release didn't happen until 1995, and it and it and it uh collated with the 200th anniversary of Jim Beam, which were the original barrels. Never heard of it. So the the true the true 30-year anniversary is actually this year, and so I did take a bottle of 30 year and I've still got it in my fridge. I haven't cracked it yet. Is it gonna be a good enough day or a bad enough day to open that sucker, right? There's there's gonna be no good day or no bad day to do it. You're just gonna do it, and and you're just gonna do it. I'm just gonna do it. Yeah, all right. The good, yeah. I I've had one before, but I did I did put one away for the true 30 year, which would be this year. So what uh so how long ago did you start making your own beer? Like you started like I started a little bit in the um midnight, mid to late nineties. Um, I did a few batches. I lived in an apartment in uh inner city Chicago. Uh not room for boiling, yeah. Not ideal. I mean, it had a huge kitchen, but it was just not ideal for doing this kind of stuff. And um I had uh done a little work with some guys that ran a home brew shop uh back in the day. And I have some friends that um were very early on, the pioneers of um of home uh homebrewing in in the Chicago area, and these guys have really gone on to do great things. Um but so I got a little bit of a start that way, but I realized that's that's not it, you know. Um uh fast forward to about maybe 10 years ago when I started to get into it. Into it uh and then come back to it and leaning into it, and I wasn't gonna lean into it in a kind of um a pedestrian way. I was I'm coming in fully loaded here, you know. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it the right way. What did you bring tonight to show off to your uh fellow craftsman? So I've got an Oktoberfest here, since the season. Yep, so I know that's still on anybody's computer or gear. So I'll I'll try to be as careful as I can. So this is the there's lots of stories out there about how Oktoberfest existed. Like there's I always heard it was all the beer that was left over from the whole year, they mixed it together and they all drank it, and uh and they drank it to clear the tanks so they could make the beer for next year. That was kind of a crazy dumb story. Yeah, that's a crazy dumb story, and it's sort of mixed in with um uh the other myth of Bach beer, where they're that's when they clean out the tanks. They clean out the tanks, yeah. No, it's no it's a style, it's a state multi-style. It's American. It's uh that is the true style of the Oktoberfest. So but the Oktoberfest beers you see all the women in the commercials carrying look a lot lighter in color than this. So for your lane. No, this is actually uh, and I never do these, right? So this is a kit, and this is another thing that I never do. I never screw up a batch of beer, but well, you never can screw up a batch of beer, right? Never say never, right? Well, you don't screw it up, you just start over. Well, that's my idea. I I took a I took a beer and the mash turned into mashed potatoes, and before I got too far into it and got too frustrated, I just dumped it in the compost bin. And I had won this kit at the um Michigan Homebrew Festival. Okay. Um, looked decent enough, so here we go. You know, I I switched out the yeast. Typically, the yeast in these kits is old, or it's or it's dry yeast. It's not it's it's not what you're gonna do good things with. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

So but that's all brewing those kits, though, is an easy way for somebody to get into the hobby, though.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, that's uh first of all, name rack and serial number. He just jumped in here uh unannounced. Uninvited, I was invited.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh Duke Turner, uh president of the uh Cooney Guild of Brewers here. Thanks for having us here tonight, too.

SPEAKER_06:

Hang out with you guys, man. Thanks for having us here. By the way, I didn't say this, but I'm uh vice president. So we're gonna get the guilders. How was that speech?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, all the generals and admirals here. That's how Octoberfest tastes.

SPEAKER_06:

I must tell you, the October fast that they're doing here at Codens is one of the best Octoberfasts I've ever had. I mean, it is like you gotta be either better or worse than that. That's like the it should be the standard. I've never had a commercially bought one that's as good as this. This is nice.

SPEAKER_00:

This is nice.

SPEAKER_06:

It's lighter, it's homebrew carbonated, which people gotta get gotta understand that it doesn't quite have the bubbles that your can of can and and the and it's in a and it's in a holler and it's been talking about and it's been being served for the last hour and a half. So there's gonna be a little bit of dissipation in the bubbles. It was probably carved when I took it my basement. Doug, we're we're we're lucky to get to taste it, and we're lucky to have you uh come tell your story, and that stuff about the the the foundation of where you came from and how you got it. It's so cool. And that's that's what we're looking for tonight, is how these hobbyists got their passion, where it came from, and like how many hours a month do you spend thinking about beer? Too much. It's a lot, it's a lot, yeah. And I mean, I've done um so I worked for other breweries, I worked for Staddish and Newcastle, uh Newcastle Brown Ale. Yeah, sure. Um, I've also had a long-running podcast for a lot of years called Beer Nuts. I've heard it. So Newcastle was sort of a founding father, along with like Steamboat of like the first craft, the non-Miller lights, butt lights I saw in the 90s at a college bar. It was like Newcastle. Like that's not the same color as the other beers, and that you know, you would see maybe uh you would see maybe a tennis can here or there. It it had a hip following for a lot of years. It did, and now I first had a bartending 25 years ago. It it could do no wrong. I mean, castle and anchor steamboat were the only two beers that weren't like one light that were at the college bars that I remember seeing. An interesting fact about uh anchor is uh the first craft beer I ever had was an anchor porter. Uh, and that was in the um I'm gonna age myself here, but you know, well you're on camera, so you just age yourself in the 80s. I I yeah, I look really young for my age, you know. But uh in the 80s, and I found an anchor steam beer and uh no anchor porter, anchor porter, and it was mind-blowing. I mean, the amount of flavor that came out of that beer, and you know, the first sip of it was like, Oh my god, this is crazy! But then I kept coming back to it, and I I think at that point I was hooked, you know. Yeah, there we go. Doug, thanks so much for uh hanging out and sharing your story of your hobby nice and your passion. Thank you very much. Very cool. So now we're gonna shift over to the president. You can hang out, you can you can stick around. Duke, how are you doing tonight? Living the dream. Thank you for letting us crash your party. Yeah, well I mean, I always crash it, but I don't bring my friends and microphones all the time. So fair enough. This is gonna be a monthly thing, it's gonna happen every month. Every month, all right, gotta bring some new stories. How did you go from a guy who made his first batch of beer to the president of a KGB? I just uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_05:

I just kind of uh wanted to be the job, and uh I went and uh went and applied, and uh they voted me in. So your first batch of beer, you when you first got the buck, how did that happen? It was my wife's fault.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, that's the first time I've heard that tonight. Wait, wait, wait. And I it was your wife's fault?

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, it's all my wife's fault. She bought me a Mr. Beer kit. Was that a Christmas gift? She knew I loved craft beer, okay, and uh been a been a craft beer snob for a long time. So she bought me a Mr. Beer kit, and that started the whole thing downhill. So, what does she think about that now? She loves it, love it. Yeah, because I uh I brew a lot of beer that she likes. So happy, happy life, happy life.

SPEAKER_06:

So, do you use her as a as a like a test subject to say what do you think of this?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, all the time. All the time. I give her, I give her, I bring stuff upstairs, uh out of the carboys, and you know, and just be like, Here, try this, here, try this, here, try this.

SPEAKER_06:

You know, see my partner's a red wine drinker, so it takes like nine to ten months for me to give her a taste of anything I'm making. I think I make that too, so I do everything. Yeah, mine's mine's all about the IPA. So if it is an IPA, it's not getting drank. Wow, that's that's very unusual.

SPEAKER_05:

My wife started out only liking stouts, and now she loves an IPA and she hated IPAs when I first started brewing beer.

SPEAKER_06:

Gravitating her towards okay converter. Try this hop. She can try this hop. I love that. When I when I do taste things like, yeah, we we all know Brad Teagan. I don't want to be mean to people who are making a good product, so I just leave them off. You know, this is not my thing, but I get it, and I also get the subtleties and the differences of what everyone, how they're all you know, a little bit different here, a little bit different there, all the different styles. So, do what did you bring tonight to show off to your uh to your legion, your legion of followers? Your constituents, yes.

SPEAKER_05:

It's a all over the board craft beer night for me. I've got uh an American lager, which if you guys want to try what's left of that, is uh unfortunately everybody else has been enjoying it. But I basically brewed that uh second time doing an American lager. Uh this one added some uh bloody butchered corn to it instead of uh just a regular flaked corn adjunct.

SPEAKER_06:

All right, and uh and this is so usually the the craft beer guys they're making everything but an American lag, right?

SPEAKER_05:

They're going as I'll tell you, it's it's hard to beat what the what the commercial guys do because consistency is the name of the game, right?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and that's the the beauty that I I give them credit for that all the time.

SPEAKER_05:

As much as I you know, as much as people knock the macro brews, consistency is is in is impeccable.

SPEAKER_06:

Of course, light tastes the same in Florida, Texas, right, Portland, Detroit.

SPEAKER_05:

And that is another guy. And the the fourth time and the seventh time.

SPEAKER_06:

Those master brewers. I mean, talking to Brad and Eric and these guys, they've always given them a ton of credit, the the macro brewers, for how they keep that product consistent.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, people knock them all the time, but lawnmower beers have a have a purpose in our life. They serve a role. They do great on the golf course. They do run on the golf course. Slam a few in your bag and go out going.

SPEAKER_06:

Who were you trying to what was your your goal with this? You were trying to clone anything or mimic any clone?

SPEAKER_05:

I was just trying to make a nice, easy drinking, uh standard American lager with uh I I my my goal with this was to make one without flaked maize. I wanted to make it with uh with bloody butcher ground corn as my corn base for it. And I think the corn is the corn is jumps out at you, it's very sweet, very corny.

SPEAKER_06:

Um it's got a beer nut feel to it. I'm gonna I'm not gonna lie to you, it's got a beer nut feel to it.

SPEAKER_00:

I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_06:

So, yeah, who would be commercial equivalent? Who's doing that? Anyone?

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, maybe that's the beauty of the craft breweries, but that's about it. I don't, it's not something that you're gonna find one of the things.

SPEAKER_06:

So that's very cool. Oh, yeah. What do you guys think? Clean tasting beer. You like it? I dig it, it's very clean. I this is like a craft brew lawnmower with a little bit of flavor. Correct. And it's very clean. I almost want to say it. It it's so clean that I'm like, is it really beer? Because I don't feel I'm drinking beer, I feel I'm drinking something clean that's got a flavor to it. That's I remember this is mostly a bourbon and cocktail podcast. We don't do a lot of beer unless I bring the beer in. I'm the beer nerd.

SPEAKER_05:

I gotta I got two other beers that I brought with me. Uh, one is uh what I do every year, it's a uh it's a basil wit, so it's a wit beer, a Belgian wit that I actually add basil from our garden to. Oh okay, and it is uh fantastic, it's got coriander grains of paradise, a little chamomile, and some cardamom in the uh in the actual grain.

SPEAKER_06:

And these are spices you added to it, not that the flavor. Okay, because Bill always talks about it.

SPEAKER_05:

And once again, this is not something that I'm chasing from another brewery, right? This is something that I just love to do every single year. So that's good. My wife, uh, my wife loves this beer, and uh you gotta keep the wife happy.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, the basil is just the basil right up top in the right in the snot locker. You say snot locker? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05:

That one's probably about five and a half. Okay, this is soup, super herbal.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, too herbal for you for me. But I mean, this is the kind of beer I could drink a full one of these and be like, let's share it, and I'll drink it. I if I went to like a pint of this, I don't know, but I'd get through it. Yeah, but the nose is insane. Yeah, if you had a bowl of hot chili, okay. But I tell you what, the whole table now smells you can you can smell the the nose on this, the garden, which is quite impressive. I mean, so with the with the amount of but that's only a half ounce of basil that I actually added to the beer. With the amount of cannabis attached there, yeah, and the and the water that's infused with you know, this is kind of reminiscent of that, but it's alcoholic. What's that with the amount of cannabis that's out there and the and the water that's infused with your cannabis, if you will. This is very reminiscent of that, but it's not that that's when I get the herbal from it. I I feel like I'm this would be like more of a cannabis water. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah, I'm just I'm impressed at just how much a half ounce of basil and how much yeah, a five-gallon batch and a five-gallon batch. Yep. Wow, that sticks again. We're a bourbon, we we like our bourbon, our whiskey. We don't do beer very often, but that's what I kind of get out of that. And that's the kind of stuff you can do with these home brewers. This is a love that the recipes and the experiments that they guys have fun with.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, that'd be that's that's the best part about brewing itself is it's like cooking and science. You know, like you know, like the amount of chemistry degrees out here, and it's like you know, you're trying to stick to like the science, but at the same time, it's like you're cooking and you're like, let me add a little bit of this and see what it does, and let me add a little bit of that and see what it does.

SPEAKER_06:

A little bit of what do I have on hand? What's grown in my garden? What can I use? You know, correct. I I I've used then the last thing I have is a barley wine. Oh, I just I'm just telling you how much I love barley wines and my favorite American style of beer. I know because you love hobby beers. Well, I don't like I don't like IPAs, but I love barley wines. Ah, okay. Barley wines and sours. I like my Belgians. I thought you were uh pulling my leg on that one. Yeah, I love my Belgians and I love my barley wines. So, like I said, you guys had your first barley wines tonight. Yes. All right, there's a little bit for me, sir. Thank you. Oh, that that's a smell I dig.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

This is the barley wine or barley, yeah. Who had the barley wine?

SPEAKER_05:

It's about nine nine point two percent.

SPEAKER_06:

I I don't know if you were you weren't sitting down when I was talking about how I I found Schrodak's meat market in Hampton. I got them down the block from it. Okay, has a Polish barley wine by a company called Comress, K-O-M-O-R-I-S. There's seven dollars a bottle for a pint, and that's now my baseball watching sit down and crack the Polish barley wine. It's become my favorite style. Okay, uh, I really enjoy this. Is this a hoppier barley wine that I'm used to? Right, it's first it's a fresh barley wine, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So in in about a year, it'll probably really mellow out and it won't be as as happy. It's it's still new.

SPEAKER_06:

They're always barrel-aged when I get them here, right?

SPEAKER_05:

Correct. Is there a like a website? What does it take to join the guild of brewers? Uh, is there like is it just through Coonin's or is it kgob.org? KGOB.org. Yep, that's our that's our website. It's our Facebook group, is how I crash their meetings. All right, so and and people join if they're interested, or no experience, some experience. What do you need to join? That's uh what 25 a year, I think.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, 25 a year. 25 a year to join.

SPEAKER_05:

And it's a great way to uh to to I'll I'll tell you. So I think I'm brewing like my second batch of a five-gallon fruit beer in my in my driveway. Uh back in I started in 2014. So I'm like, I'm on my second batch of beer, and this guy pulls up at the end of my driveway, and he's like, Hey, what are you brewing? And I'm like, Holy sh, can I can I cut regularly? This guy knows I'm brewing beer. I was just like, So I'm I'm over there shooting shit with him at the end of the driveway, and he's like, Are you in a club? I was like, I'm like, what the hell is a club? He goes, a whole brew club. And I'm just like, I'm like, no, well, I'm I'm like, okay. He goes, uh, well, I'm uh I'm with the uh Kunin Guild of Brewers. We uh we meet over at Koonin's on the first of every month. He goes, What are you doing uh next Monday? Because that's that was the uh the next meeting, and I and I knew it was off from work, and I was just like I'm like, nothing, man, I'll be up there. So I came up for one meeting, and I was just like, take my damn money, man. I'm uh I'm in. I was just like, Holy shit! And that I will tell you for anybody that wants to get into brewing, get into a club because it is the best thing that you can do for your brewing because you can bring your things in and have people try them and give you honest feedback if you're willing to take honest feedback, whether it's good or bad, right? And uh just have you know, I mean, nobody's gonna have great beer all the time, and you just need to sit and take the feedback that that comes to you. And uh, and that was the best thing that I ever did was was to join this club tell you.

SPEAKER_06:

Not everyone's gonna have great beer all the time, but no one brings their bad beer to this club meeting. Yeah, we do. Do you? Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_05:

If I'm looking for the feedback of what I did wrong, I will bring up, I will bring it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_06:

That's even that's even better. That that's that's cool. That's very cool.

SPEAKER_05:

Because you know, him and I we we enter a lot of competitions because we're we we like to win things, you know. Uh so and I and I like the feedback that we get from uh from other from from things. We're gonna wrap it up.

SPEAKER_06:

It's we're gonna have another uh called contestant. We're gonna take my son over here, yeah. We're gonna take the youngster. All right. Are you uh driving me home, August? I am driving you home. No, I'm not sure. Anyways, um, I'm gonna give you my son. Yeah, appreciate your. Thanks guys for sitting down with us. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05:

I got something for you. You call me fat.

SPEAKER_06:

All right, name ranking, name, rank, and serial number.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh I don't have a rank.

SPEAKER_06:

One, two, three, four, five. That's my password. Calm down. Uh welcome to the Man Cave Happy Hour. Hello. Matt Fox, Jimmy Flanagan. Welcome, welcome. I'm August. I've been crashing your parties for a while.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm also wearing a Blake Seder hat. I love it. So I got engaged there.

SPEAKER_06:

So nice, very cool.

SPEAKER_05:

So, how did how did that all that happen?

SPEAKER_06:

You got down on one knee, or was she expecting it?

SPEAKER_05:

No, not expecting it. I fooled her about a record player for her the night before. So she did not expect it. It also was raining. It had just rained. It's a little muddy. We were in the tree, uh, apple trees. So I had a connection.

SPEAKER_06:

It's per minute or 45.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh, I uh definitely would have been uh the 45, not the 33. No weird, no weird uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

So you got engaged at Blake's. Yep. All right. So what got you into this realm of brewing and what do you have here? What what oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Tell me about your childhood. Yeah, there you go. My childhood.

SPEAKER_00:

Pretty good childhood. Or your brewing childhood.

SPEAKER_05:

What's uh what was your what was your first foyer into the uh so it's really funny. Uh so when I went to college, you know, everybody most people underage drink at college.

SPEAKER_06:

It's not uh it's not a uh drink, I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, but anyway, so I'm moving in. You guys just saw him, Duke. Uh Duke is your action is your dad. Okay, it wasn't no biological dad. My father, cool.

SPEAKER_06:

Go on, yeah, yeah. So we know your origin story now. Yeah, like more than we expected. Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_05:

It was it was the glasses, it really was. But uh gave me uh gave me one. Um he gave me we we kind of had a heart to heart in the car before I uh uh finished moving all the way into my first door. And so he's like, you're gonna drink. He's like, I know that. He's like, just drink good beer. No, just drink good beer. Oh, what he told me. Yeah, just wear a condom while you're drinking. Exactly the advice we gave at the same time.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, and solid. Don't drink beer and wear a condom at the same time. At the same time, all right.

SPEAKER_05:

So, did you start making beer the same time your dad did? No, I I was uh a few years removed because uh he started while I was at at college. I went to Western, so I was uh on the other side of the state too. Okay, so uh he's kind of started getting into into it from that side of things. Uh but he was already already into craft beer. He'd already our fridges downstairs were pretty packed with some good beer, and I had already had some samples across the the board of some good things. Sure. So have you taken your brewing journey into a professional level, or are you still just uh doing it at home? Uh well sort sort of. I know it's the the brewing side is still at home, but I do work at Griff Claw. Oh, yeah, because I'm I'm noticing the one of the tap room managers at Griffith. So you know Pat over there. I do know Pat. I know. So what do you as a tap room manager? What is it that you do? I just help I uh oh I move the kegs, dumbass. That's one of the things I do. That's not far off. No, I uh basically just I'm I'm I'm a restaurant manager, okay. All right, all right, I say, but I kind of focus on the more uh on the barn manager role stuff. I I guess uh if I was to define my role for a little bit. But still having fun at home, making stuff. So what do we got? What is happening today? What are you gonna do to us here? Oh, I I've got my fresh hot pale ale. Uh pale ale. Yeah, so I grow a couple some couple of uh plants of cashmere hops, uh a cascade hop, and then Southern Cross.

SPEAKER_06:

So that is all like foreign language to most of our listeners who are bourbon and booze guys. Okay, yeah. So that's why we we gotta we always want to talk about blakes here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Hops are a plant growth about my backyard. Well, that okay, that part we can set up.

SPEAKER_05:

Cashmere hops sweaters. Okay, cashmere hops are kind of uh it's my favorite hop uh personally. It's uh it's a little bit of lemon lime, some a light, uh, some light resin. Uh so is there like GHB?

SPEAKER_06:

Like you said, resin. There's like uh no, not that kind of resin.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, I got resin. I did I I did mess around with uh some uh cannabinoids for a minute though, and infusing some liquor though. That was I did infuse some uh some gin with some uh uh some cannabinoids, not the uh not the psychoactive side, just all the other uh flavor and other terpenes sides kind of okay. So is this uh is this like uh what's what's the profile? What how would you describe the profile? Is it uh to go with food? Is it to go with summer? Is it to go with what? Uh it's a clean, easy drinking. To go with drinking. Um to go with drinking. Yeah, it's uh I mean food-wise, if I was pairing it, probably it's uh pretty subtle profile with a little bit of citrusness, so uh chicken, fish, yeah. I was gonna say lighter puff. Who cares? They're all detoxing. So let's crack that bad boy open. What do you got?

SPEAKER_04:

I'm just I'm just excited.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm just uh he's got an empty glass and he's thirsty. That's at the end of the day. That works what it is. That's good. Whoa. Sorry, I'm a happy I'm a Martin boy.

SPEAKER_06:

That's okay. We like happy hands. Happy hands better than mad hands. I've heard it for 18 years. I get it. Listen, they're not shaking, but I shoot with this hand. Exactly. You know, you know, this crowd's having a good time when there's about a third less people, but it's a third louder than it was when we're all here. That's fair. That's very fair.

SPEAKER_05:

This is uh we get into the diehards now.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, that's clean. Yeah, how much of you make this a you do the five-gallon batches like the standard? Okay, so do you and your dad have brew offs?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh no, we actually it's it's funny. Him and I have a tendency to brew different things. We we don't normally brew the same thing to compete against it.

SPEAKER_06:

Who's better than the which one tastes better than the other? Yeah, no, we haven't.

SPEAKER_05:

We don't like battle around Christmas and got who's you put out that beer, put out that beer. That might not be a who does, yeah. I mean, for one of these, I mean we got enough people around. That might not be a couple months.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we got a couple months.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, sounds like uh sounds like we could get this going. Uh he's hosting uh Cowboys Lions watch party. So we could get something going by then. So this is really, really good. And yeah, yeah, what were you what were you shooting for?

SPEAKER_06:

What were your what was your goal?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh, just not really any real profile, just uh standard pale ale with using just my fresh top with your own stuff, yeah. Cashmere, right? I picked and then the next day I picked it the two uh two or on uh yeah, on a Tuesday night, and then on a Wednesday I brewed it. So you do like a five-gallon batch when you brew. How many five-gallon batches throughout the year would you say you make?

SPEAKER_06:

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_05:

That's uh I mean I I heard there would be a you're like skinny. I don't know. Oh, I'm much beer is he drinking if he's being that skinny? I uh I have at least uh I have at least a couple beers every day of my life, literally every day of my life.

SPEAKER_06:

So your metabolism must be fucking crazy, right?

SPEAKER_05:

You met my dad.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, you met my dad, yeah. So it's genetically.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so my mom's five foot and weighs uh a nothing. So every every month you're uh doing a couple every month? I would say yeah, I I have in rotation some of them empty out, and some of them are just kind of stay. I have like I have like 10 10 five gallon kegs or 10 kegs in in rotation every so often. What's uh what's your workspace at home look like? I have about a it's probably about a it's like a 10 by 25 room that's in my basement where all of my where my cards might be. Are y'all like breaking bad in the suit with the breather and everything? No, it's not quite that intense. It's not quite that intense in the output making. This is what I'm seeing. That's where I've got Walter Jr. You have to slow your roll, Walter. I have a propane set up in my garage. How quickly can we turn this into a meth lab? It's just the electric system could go nuts real quick.

SPEAKER_06:

I mean, we're good fittings and uh cooking is cooking the driveway where everyone can see. Can the beer's now blue? I mean, I do the I do the distilling the basics.

SPEAKER_05:

No, you don't. No, I don't. No, you don't. And make hand sanitizer.

SPEAKER_04:

That's it.

SPEAKER_05:

I have two children. They're messy and boys and nanny. So there's a lot of gross germs in my house.

SPEAKER_06:

So we are wrapping up here. Is there anything else? Well, you brought over three bottles. What else do we want to taste here? That those little ones. Is this a mead? Yes, it's a mead. So you make meads too, and you guys the club goes all kinds of crazy with this. Oh, these are the other two bottles.

SPEAKER_00:

I got uh mead, wine, cider.

SPEAKER_05:

So I uh do a little bit uh do a little bit of it all. Tell me this mead. What what kind of uh honey did you start with? What'd you do? So this is uh a boche macadamia blossom, so caramelized macadamia blossom. Macadamia? Yeah, macadamia blossom. As of the nut, the nut. The blossoms from the trees, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

And then some just wildflower on the back end, and it's an amazing how much it'll taste like that just from the honey. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can smell it right away.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh some some hazelnut in there.

SPEAKER_06:

See, hazelnut's one of my favorites. So I knew there was a difference.

SPEAKER_05:

There was a nose on it, but then Wow! Yeah, I didn't know what the nose was, so you said hazelnut. That is pretty cool. It's like the nut up dipped in the honey. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Can I put that in my coffee and just have a really good day? You probably could, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You'd have a great day, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_06:

You can put that nut honey in your coffee.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, you could probably just uh you don't know me, you forgot the coffee altogether, and you have an even better day. That was my nickname in college.

SPEAKER_06:

Nut honey? Yeah, just like a shrimp.

SPEAKER_00:

So wow, that's gorgeous.

SPEAKER_06:

All right, I think we've uh we've tried enough, gentlemen. We gotta get home tonight. I know eventually with us that we are trained professionals, yeah. Mondays are usually in studio drinking, so it's a different in Southfield. So yeah, bringing we brought it out specifically because we knew you guys were here tonight, okay, and we wanted to get some stories of the hobby. And we always drinking all this professional stuff and having these these uh liquor reps will come in and tell us about all their products, folks. You guys are doing it for the love of the love of the passion, yeah. And we thought it'd be cool to connect with you guys and hopefully maybe get some other people involved in the in the hobby. Just get the word out, you know. We want this club to be like the entire crew, right? We would love to see everybody here. It can be at Christmas, it is. Oh, yeah. That's fair. Yes, I go to the Christmas parties. All right, so oh, yeah, that's a good time, gentlemen. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06:

Uh uh, that is Matt Fox. That's uh Jamie Flanagan right there, and that's August Gitchlag right over there.

SPEAKER_05:

All right, like, subscribe, leave a comment, and we're gonna do it all again very, very soon. Cheers! Cheers, cheers, everybody.

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