Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. - Brothers, Barrels, And The Birth Of A Michigan Microbrew Legacy

A brewery story that starts with nuts and bolts and ends with medals and cult beers is worth a pint and a half. We set up at Kuhnhenn Brewing and talk with brothers Eric and Bret about how a family hardware store in Warren became a fiercely independent microbrewery known for high-gravity ales that still drink refreshingly clean. The path wasn’t smooth—paperwork delays, a sparse early Detroit beer map, and a lot of trial batches—but the lesson from Belgium changed everything: strength means nothing without quaffability.

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

Hear how DRIPA, their double rice IPA, flipped expectations by using rice not as a shortcut but as a precision tool to dry out the body and let hops sing. The result is a 9.5% IPA that sips like something far lighter, showcasing Mosaic, Simcoe, and classic hop notes without a sticky finish. We also dive into 4th Dementia, their award-winning old ale, where stressed yeast and careful fermentation build layers of fig, toffee, and spice that unfold as the beer warms. For barrel-aged variants, they blend across Heaven Hill and other cooperages, explaining why beer often thrives in barrels that aren’t overly old and how blending achieves consistent, nuanced character.

It’s not just malt and oak. The team shares how their cider program won top marks with clean, unsulfury ferments and balanced acidity, plus why they tinker with sake and eye icebock for future releases. Along the way we talk independence, scale, and the practical reality that DRIPA keeps the lights on while limited bottles build legend. If you love craft beer, bourbon barrels, and the art of making big flavors drinkable, this conversation pours out hard-won wisdom from two brewers who never stopped learning.

If this story made you thirsty, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves strong yet smooth beers, and drop a review so others can find us. Cheers.

Chapters

• 0:00 On The Road At Kuhnhenn
• 2:40 From Hardware Store To Homebrew
• 7:50 Licensing Hurdles And Early Detroit Beer
• 11:12 Discovering High Gravity And Belgium
• 16:50 Rice, Adjuncts, And The DRIPA
• 22:30 Hops, Mosaic Trials, And Drinkability
• 27:10 Barrel Aging, Blending, And 4D
• 33:15 Bourbon Talk And Barrel Sourcing
• 38:40 Production Scale And Independence

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:01

I said hey hey welcome to the man cave happy hour I said hey hey welcome to the man cave happy hour we're gonna drink a fine whiskey and smoke a really fine cigar it is time for happy hour it is the man cave happy hour whiskey cigar spirits the stories that go along with it I'm Jamie Flanagan that over there is August Gitchlag we have Matt Fox here oh my god just to my left across from me sort of yeah I got a little bit of you know I got I got a nice silhouette of you over here so isn't it quite the silhouette okay and we've taken the party on the road we are uh Coonin's brewery we're the it's we're at a beer house we're ties time to drink and it said winery on the wine I want some wine before we're done I want to I want to I want a little wine before all said and done um put an umbrella in it I'm a girl drink drunk get me going so uh yeah but uh so I we we've talked about it talked about it talked about it you've been up north on uh extraordinarily many many occasions and uh the beer selections is uh 20 20 foot tall we're gonna find out we can ask the question can't we full of uh full of full of 20-foot tall board full of uh expressions to to dive into yes we have many many a flavor on the wall here and we have uh we have the three Kunan boys here now we've got uh the brothers and the so pop's just wandered in there uh we have uh Brett and Eric Kunin here the founders of the brewery welcome to the man came gentlemen we're a couple bill tonight because we also have uh later on the Kunan Guild of Brewers KGB who make their home brewers all meet here tonight so we'll talk to some of those guys about the hobby but right now the guys that turn the hobby into their livelihood right that's basically how this all got started so Jamie always asks the question but since I'm holding the microphone I'll do it tell us about your childhood as dad as dad just walked in yeah it was not filled with beer I think it was no my dad did not you know he did not even embrace beer at all no um no we had a oh I mean we probably drank more stro's signature out of his fridge than he did that was signature that was his his beer in the fridge but it sat there long enough case at the house and lasted two three months and I'm like oh Papa this beer's gonna go banned I think your children should drink it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:43

Oh but this this location that we're sitting in was your family hardware store right yeah this was the Lutz hardware my dad bought in uh 72 okay and he converted over from an old fashioned hardware that hardware goes back to uh being a wagon wheel repair shop and blacksmith shop that's how old it was wow wow so it stood on this spot right here and then they ended up buying the general store across the street which is the middle of Mound Road now and they moved it and built it brand new as a a hardware store over here uh back in 1930 1934 okay so pre-year childhood yes it's not that old none of us are that old so he bought it and he he revamped the whole thing into a uh a general general hardware store because the hardware store that it started with had all your just uh crazy different stuff it had your uh uh you know your washers and dryers the fishing licenses all the all the things from a small town but it wasn't really it was like the it was the village of Warren at the time so so he he he made it progress and made it into more main street stuff he made it boring he had he put a whole section of a big amount of paint he put in your nuts and bolts he put in all the stuff that you needed to fix up your house I remember as a kid they had all those old potbelly stoves like seriously like you put your wood in it and you would cook off of this thing you know I remember seeing that as a kid and that like blew my mind like people cook off wood.

SPEAKER_04: 4:24

We had a little neighborhood store on the east side but it was uh Viteri hardware on seven mile uh in like Kelly area and it was known as it was hardware and hockey so they had hardware so you get you know some bolts and latches and locks and hockey things but I also remember distinctly there being beer supplies and brewing supplies in the hardware store and trying to get my dad I go yeah you drink a lot of beer you should make some it's like I whatever I make it I just buy it from the store.

SPEAKER_02: 4:51

Yeah so that was what kind of blew my mind is when I started uh homebrewing and it really came from my my brother when he when he uh he was a fraternity brother or he's a Delta Sigmafy I was in eastern Michigan and uh go Eagles yeah right and um I went to a party and I tried some beer it was a fraternity party was it with Heroes back then yeah oh wow um and essentially I wasn't dating they were happening to be up in Traverse City and they found a place that was selling homebrew kits and they they brewed some beers back at the fraternity house from from this uh you know this place and I'm like wow and uh I went to the party and I tried this beer and I couldn't believe how good it was I remember drinking this uh Irish stout I was like this is so much better than anything I've ever tried it was just amazing this was at EMU at Eastern yep yeah he was at the fraternity house and we were we they'd he'd hang out come up for a fraternity house and hang out for some some beers before he was I want to be educated he did he tried the stuff and he fell in with love with this beer this beers that we were back then we had the yellow pages right and it's easy open up this yellow book and like home brew supplies and guess what most of them were hardware stores it's like okay all right we had a hardware store why didn't we start selling this yeah so it's like okay let's let's bring it in you know and Brett Brett brought it in I was I was actually I freaked out on him a little bit because I came back from Eastern and he all of a sudden turned like a huge section of the hardware store said I only invested ten thousand dollars he said what did you do he said only well this is what's this is what's profitable he showed yeah there's margin on the product compared to a lot of other things could all at that point in time all your hardware stores your big boxes were coming in okay you had candy home quarters builder square square was when I repeated builder square deal yeah so they were all undercutting and they're 10 times larger than anything we had all of them had hey our our their electrical department their electrical department was larger than our whole hardware store you know yeah so what was the precipice from a a shift from the hardware business into uh the brewing where did that where did that uh rock paper scissors that challenge come out conversations with my father it was convincing him that he said what the because he owned the building wow he gotta be shitting me what do you own the building so he was he had that kind of thing and he actually had to convince him a little bit and show him what's going on and we took him to some of the few places we had in Michigan but the Detroit brew factory was one of them we started with brew on premise which Detroit brew factory was a place it was a similar thing we did but we wanted you guys remember what brew on premise is I don't brew on premises like where you come in and as a group you guys come in and brew and make six or eight cases of beer as a little of like a brew kettle yeah but those like those like yeah those those that system line up over there we walk you through the whole process from from brewing to your drinking which was a lot part of it to like making label so I'd like hey you gotta send me a file you know or give me a picture or something and I'll make you a custom label.

SPEAKER_03: 8:21

So you were educating folks then the whole time yeah and it's like it was all about these parties yeah parties a group of like eight to twenty people would come in and brew one batch of beer make six cases and they'd split it up so it was a like a two step process you come in brew you know spend two three hours like drink with your buddies talking about beer making a batch of beer hopefully you don't boil over all the place and you know it explodes yeah you know and like they well they've got they grouped they ground the grain it was it was great selected the hops smelt everything tasted everything all the raw ingredients that really got them into you know this is like we really made this beer it's pretty cool. So what year was it that you started to have those conversations with Dan oh god and he said what the actual HDR you think 2002 uh 2003 that's you know we did a lot of Jupiter how long how many years you just said this is like uh well the business has been open like 2002 we we sold our first beer but we started in 98 honestly okay um it took a long time to get licensing you know we had you know September 11th screwed up all our licensing we were we had honestly we were we had the beer on the bar on this side of the bar for a whole year and we just gave samples away for free I remember those early days when this bar was right there our licensing was like wouldn't come through and I'm like why is it not coming through oh I'm so sorry I lost your licenses I'm like sorry your paperwork I got can you send me it um it's in triplicate blue ink only um and they don't know how easy they got these it was so easy if you do it all digital and it's like done it's like back then it was like yeah like you said triplicate blue if you did something I sent stuff and black they said ones that were making beer it was like Traffic Jam and Snug was making beer Michigan Brewing I think was making beer was motor city just opened okay right here yes Franklin Street as well I think downtown oh yeah you remember that I remember Franklin Street Brewing Company yeah um yeah there was um not a lot you know Atwater was just open they were just getting started yeah they were you know a great help we learned a lot from those guys when they first opened and Tom Morosi yeah he was a great awesome from Germany they're brewing there was a good friend of ours a lot of tight fruit and break but you guys stayed with it and you continue to put your own spin on your brews and everything nobody was making high gravity anything that was the thing it's the the strong beers no and that's that's what we that's what I really for Drake is high gravity.

SPEAKER_00: 11:05

Okay I got no idea what the heck is high gravity.

SPEAKER_02: 11:12

So it's high anxiety like I just think no anxiety inspiration is when we first started like two years in and we were already trying to to go after fun specialty big beers it just didn't exist i mean one of the first ones is like having uh expedition stout from from that was one of the few things you could get in Michigan at all that opened the door to what high gravity was it really but but but Belgian beers were the other big inspiration bringing Corsandon Brown was like one of them yeah couldn't you brought a Russian imperial stout to Punchky Day one year and people were falling over because they didn't know how to drink it. We didn't have eight ounce cups for that stuff that was yeah that was a long time ago hey we'll get to you later we'll get to you later pal yeah so yeah Russian Imperial stout to punch day in the morning yeah who would have thought that right that was my introduction to a high gravity well that was was that the creme brulee Java style probably was Russian imperial style okay so yeah we're exactly saying don't sell it in cups more than 10 ounces we gotta start deciding to go on an epic trip a couple years into being open we said can we really do this and get it because we wanted to have our Oktoberfest party right when we were trying to leave for a trip to Europe with my parents and Brett and his ex-wife and it was like boom we all went over there and it was amazing we ended up going to Belgium for uh this grand uh beer uh beer tour breweries and when we did that we we learned all about high alcohol brewing Belgian styles and the biggest thing we learned is like everything even the respect is that even at a super high alcohol beer it has to have quaffability so it's got to be drinkable even if it's that 14 15 that's high gravity yeah like chame blue label aged for four or five years in a pub nothing nothing like sellers that we drink now which is not so much drinkability but we drink those to share and enjoy you know I'm saying but but what we learned in Belgium is like oh you should be able to drink a whole pint of this strong beer well that's the the optional word for yeah should well that's where they where they get the the term uh devilishly strong over the doval with like duval yeah because it it'll bite you in the ass if you don't watch what you're doing because it's it's sure it's strong but it drinks very smooth but you don't notice it until you stand up true right totally we we kind of tried following we do love we love very strong beers I mean you know the fourth dementia old ale or 4D as we call it now it's not just because it's high alcohol it's because if after you start brewing these things and seeing what happens is you make the the yeast work harder you end up getting more complexities and it drinks like even more complex than red wines we found after a while because you get this multi-dimensional characteristic as it warms up that you get different characteristics coming off of it and it's just an amazing amazing thing to to make so so distillery distilleries breweries i we mentioned a bunch that kicked off kind of around when you did uh not everybody's had the longevity you've had so what do you owe to your longevity to what do you what's what's keeping you what's keep what what is keeping your door open august is yeah well I mean you guys have some signature high end beer like your triple your double rice IPA is a eight and a half no nine and a half percent double IPA which drinks like a six percent IPA get a couple samples of very quaff years ahead trip no how about the new mosaic we made a limited edition mosaic only which is fine okay really tasty um maybe more fruity than um the regular and so let me go uh secure a couple samples of that i i happen to know someone here so the use of rice okay so maybe uh we could talk about the use of rice that's something that we really learned in Belgium so you use the use of rice and we would not rice so much but adjuncts adjuncts so when we we like we went to we read about all the books and everything about going to Belgium they use Belgian candy sugar to make all the great Belgian beers Belgian double triple you know we went there no no well this is what we really do learned some stuff from the Belgians you know and then like man I was like how do you make this beer so crisp and delicious and it wasn't candy sugar it was the use of rice oh okay it's interesting and that was it was very very interesting and like okay Anneheiser Busch is the only people that use rice and rice I was gonna mention Budweiser but I'm like I'm not gonna go that we don't want to talk about it but I was like okay so why do you guys use it? And I'm like oh really they told us outright oh makes the beer much drier you can drink more of it and it's it's like uh yeah it's crisp it's crisp crisp all right but you're like crisp but Brett's first experiments were doing a a light domestic beer like the classic American yeah and I started brewing it all the time and we said you know back in the day when we were making our IPAs it's like what was winning all the awards uh in the categories for IPA and everything judges become based upon what they know so a lot of the judges that were out there back then for GABF and World Beer Cup were guys that were uh used to having West Coast IPAs that's when west coast IPA first came around and it was a dry crisp I call it like a naked style beer that actually had crisp and dry and said let all the hops through show through unlike having your two hearted which you know I love a lot where you chew on it when you you chew on it a little bit more but it has some caramel malt has some backbone and body to it these are a little bit different. So that's what was actually winning the awards and we said well you know and we were with our buddy Dan Rogers and we were scratching our head what the hell's going on we went around tasting all the winners a couple years prior and then we figured it out oh I can see what the judges are looking for we said I get it I see what they want I see what's so nice about it's letting the hop shine through so we decided well what can we do different to put our own twist and signature on it and from making that classic American ale with the dryness we know how easy it was to give it a Christmas and high alcohol to it as well and like what Brett was saying about Belgium and that as well but it was a lot of things went together.

SPEAKER_03: 17:57

So just use just use the adjunct yeah you you increase the alcohol content um and we throw a lot of hops at it and that's what how the drip it came to be it was essentially like hey we can make we can make this beer crisp just like the judges want sure at the JAVF they you know they want it very light and how do you how do you make uh a nine percent beer look light and golden right right you know and that's that's and it's like the rice doesn't contribute a lot of flavor just the crispness right okay and that makes the hops shine through so that's how the drip of it came to be um it was essentially a variation on the classic American filter let's like let's not cut it with any water all right you know let's add it's all the hops that we love and we've gone through so many different varieties of hops and like which ones taste you know for bitterness the the the the beta to alpha acid ratios you know what what do we like you like the citrusiness um yeah there's a bigger back then a lot of these hops are just coming into play what we started doing is like simco hops was a was a brand new hop back then and it had this huge mango papaya characteristic to it and this is the mosaic so this is a mosaic okay i i i have a really good memory when i smell something and this really is reminiscent of and if it's okay if i say what it is you are with that well it's made with mosaic hops so okay tell me what you think of it it smells like an M43 okay so does m43 have mosaics see i can't remember but i just just on the we don't do a lot of beer shows we don't we don't do a lot of beer right they've you know a lot of places have gone a lot of the new hybrid hops have a lot of these high fruit note characteristics too even though they're different hops a lot of citrus a lot of now like a great juicy citrus character grapefruit to them depending on and we had some of the first ones we dealt with was amarillo simco even old school columbus even had some good characteristics columbus hops good i mean co silly was my beer here was always kind of staple too and everybody knows centennial you know man that's the most popular IPA but you drink this and say this is nine and a half percent this is nine and a half percent this is nine and a half percent and it drinks like a you know a six percent beer yeah and it's a school night and it's a school night for you yeah you know the that's so quaffable yeah I love I love the word very drinkable yeah that is uh that really sits well that's really good it's almost got because of its viscosity because it it is it's it is that strong you know but it's still um it coats the tongue it has a little creaminess but it finishes really dry it's so it's sitting so nicely you know it's you know it's a funny story is that back in the day they were trying to the Brewers Association was trying to come up with what makes a craft define what makes a craft brewery a craft brewery and one of the things they said is they they're they're throwing around the different ideas and one of the things they want to do is put out there that adjuncts at the time would be something oh well all the they're using corn syrup and they're using rice and they're using corn and and then you say wait a second if you take away that from us it's like that there again you're you're actually well that was the year the year that you're holding us into something it's not true.

SPEAKER_04: 21:45

And they want and yeah and they had to back off on that they had to change the definition of craft beer because oh if you used an adjunct you know rice or corn in it oh you're disqualified well they had to redefine it only if you use it to enhance the beverage okay so yeah we use a lot of rice in this you know 30 rice in a drip up okay you know wow double rice yeah double rice single rice would be like 15 right you buy out of a can this is doesn't taste like too hard it doesn't taste like hop slam it's not that that IPA there but hop slam is a double IPA as well right but it doesn't have the sharp drinks to so sweet like a hop slam this drinks like a regular IPA that's what defines us as so different really you said something earlier you said you made you make the uh the yeast work harder define that how do how do you guys make the yeast work harder with Belgian beers and a better example for us would be like our fourth dimensional old ale when we actually make it work under a a under higher viscosity environment okay stress conditions the stress stress conditions stress it brings out more esters you stress the yeast sometimes it like flavors come out more okay in the stress condition is it a heat a temperature not necessarily sometimes so you get a new stress you bring all the yeast ex girlfriends around so they get stressed out green apple we don't want green apple so you bring all the yeast ex girlfriends around and then if they get all stress girl you threaten her they just like hey they get all stressed out of the wind yeah it's like what is we have to add a lot a lot more uh yeast I'll count to it to actually make it happen so that it can attenuate which is you know make it dry enough for the drinkability of the whole thing but what if you want the fruitiness to happen how do you you you stress it a little bit stress it out a little bit it's easy to do under a high you want the plum characters the figure under a high gravity density like dehydrated how do you stress it do you like put Fox News on in the brew house control and oxygen levels and we we we don't want to disclose exactly how we do that secrets okay you guys like bourbon I take it oh yeah so you know you you a lot of happy there's a little ex oxygenation going on you know not a lot through that bourbon barrel but do you have an old ale on tap right now or do you only have it in the bottles at the moment um yeah that's I don't think I would no no we don't have it at this time but that's a model you've got we got a bottle of bottles we have a bottle the the old ale's come out uh pretty solstice you haven't had old ale no way unless they hand up a break so we're like the definition of the style for old ale okay okay we won the award like a bunch of times so they put us as like hey you want to try an old ale you got to get a coonin there's this fun book out there that show I think we have it in the back corner still but the uh they they make this definition map where they have all the circles and they show the uh definitive the styles and then they show which breweries produce it and then the beer and fourth dimension old ale is is one of them for the old ale category so love that it's great that beer that's like one of my favey faves right yeah that's one of our variants right there of it that's the gingerbread for old ale gingerbread man okay so that's a a variant of the fourth dementia so that's kind of popular in in craft beer is once you've got a nice signature beer that you've been doing for a number of years is come up with a neat variant yeah of it because you've got such a following for it and they want to say oh my gosh I can't wait to see what that tastes like with you know the gingerbread man in it so who doesn't like gingerbread so this is aged for a year what is it aged in what type of is it age in a barrel those are mainly heaven hill barrels maybe some old Fitzgerald um that's what we mainly buy all right um we have some blatons um aging um more heaven hills we've got uh will it um so when you go to source your barrels you know do you go on your own wants to send us barrels heaven hills have actually played us really well we've got the best results from heaven hill honestly okay um what we found is like that the longer that the bourbon's been aged in it yeah the less you're gonna get in your beer oh okay so it's not it's like if it's a if it's above like eight years in the barrel right then you've already took all the goodness and it went into the bourbon like there's nothing more sexy saying that you have a Pappy Van Winkle barrel right but honestly Pappy Van Winkle's been so mellowed out and so perfectly caramelized yeah you're gonna get some but you're gonna get the bourbon exactly the big bull nuances you're gonna get what only has so many wood sugar they've already extracted so much out of it yeah wow okay yeah that does that does sound not necessarily a good thing like really old barrels the stave ain't doing what it's supposed to be doing for the beer no because it's spent yeah well that's got a that's got a decided nose on it you got that ginger one yeah so this is the the gingerbread barrel aged older gingerbread man gingerbread had this oh wow i'm pretty sure you've had it yeah i'm pretty sure i have too i've had most everything they usually release these at their solstice party which happens to always be on like my birthday December 21st oh yeah so when they're serving it in glasses like this they hand it to me in pints that's my birthday so I've done a chimper kit some of the stuff I drank it's his birthday and he's got his driver I always have a driver usually my brother's taking care of me always a fun time that is a tasty treat gentleman now this is something that you you do get you can judge this like you do a bourbon yeah with all the different flavors you get it's a tasty treat fellas thank you yes you guys are bourbon guys do you I can feel it I don't want to ask you do you have a favorite bourbon or so we we we all do we all do we have our daily drinking likes what they like right so you know mine Brad I always drink I always drink it at cadu it's my favorite bourbon no wild turkey that's just wrong yeah it's wild turkey rye right yeah yeah yeah the one I so you know we're talking about rye you know are ryes really much more spicy and hotter than regular bourbon not hotter but there's uh but rye is not bourbon anyways rye whiskey is rye whiskey there's more of a spice there's a spice to it on a rye not temperature wise it's just a a spice of warmth that that a rye will catch you with so right when we use rye you know in beer it's very very similar to wheat you know it really is it adds extra creaminess to it um I I really like the rye but it comes out so different in the spirit yeah really it's its own animal it really is its own animal yes I mean you look at when you when you grind it out it's so tiny it's like it's it's different altogether and it does it produces a different flavor altogether I I'm upset with you for talking shit about my wild turkey you know you've been through this with me wild turkey's product wild turkey now for a penalty like we did something early on early on that was a penalty shot now I mean their rare breed line they're 101 eight year aged they they just had their 75th anniversary bottle this is good stuff compared to what you're paying for everything else right now so I'm gonna say I'm gonna stop defending wild turkey all right well it's a great if you ever get get the tour the tour is awesome I got a I found my old turkey call I got from there should have brought it out for the show tell us about your wild turkey experience that was just an amazing uh this is a this is a kid show just an amazing tour that's all huge I mean the place is mammoth everything about it you know the tanks were just

SPEAKER_02: 30:00

Wide as this room, that's it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03: 30:02

Did they make more than just wild turkey?

SPEAKER_02: 30:05

There, do you remember? That's all we were doing.

SPEAKER_03: 30:07

We just had uh like two of those huge when we went to Buffalo Trace like a couple months ago, and there were so many brands that were all consolidated. It's like really, it's like I was like, How many brands do you guys really make out of here? Just four and free mash recipes, and it's like only you know what comes out of the top of the Rick House, one of the bottom of the house.

SPEAKER_04: 30:32

Cazerac owns all of it, all of it, right? I'll grab a bottle of Cesarec rye. I love Cesarek, all right. That's good.

SPEAKER_03: 30:40

Eagle Rare. I mean, black eagle rare is good. I don't think it's bang for the buck. It's all about what who who decides on what tastes it's on allocation. Let's like let's blend this barrel with that barrel. Oh, I don't like that one as much. Let's move it to a lower brand.

SPEAKER_04: 30:58

Thank you for bringing that up because do you guys blend some beers together to come up with a beer that you like? We always blend.

SPEAKER_03: 31:03

We always blend all our bourbon stuff together, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:06

All our bourbon stuff. That's the only way you get the right characteristics you're looking for for the stuff, just like with with burbons. I totally understand it with the beers as well. Because though, look what you're doing, you're using barrels that were left over from the bourbon. So the characteristics from that are the same thing that are going on with that as well.

SPEAKER_03: 31:24

Don't buy a bourbon barrel that's like aged over nine years, it's just worthless. Like there's no flavor left in it.

SPEAKER_04: 31:32

I hate to interrupt that. Is this the uh cocaine in the poker podcast? No, it is not. No, that's that's in the next room.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

Oh boy. So, how much of your week is spent uh brewing? How much how much time are you gonna spend it every week?

SPEAKER_02: 31:54

Usually three to four days out of the week. Yeah, the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_00: 31:59

Every day is cleaning, every day is clean.

SPEAKER_03: 32:01

Every day is uh three three or four days a week.

SPEAKER_02: 32:05

And depending on what we're doing. Sometimes we're like when we run drip because we make so much drippa, we're doing uh two to three batches a day. All right, and that's the double rice IPA. So we can run more batches cycle, yeah, is what we can do.

SPEAKER_03: 32:23

As much as we love the bourbon barrel aged everything, and like what really brings in the bill, the bills.

SPEAKER_00: 32:29

The drip. You need yeah, that's what you want. How much, how many, how much are you making uh every six months?

SPEAKER_03: 32:35

2200 gallons is not or 2200 barrels. A barrel is 31 gallons, so that's not that much. We don't make much, we're very small, still small.

SPEAKER_02: 32:45

So we're still looking for a Clinton Township to to do a big expansion with it. Uh, we've been working on it for almost a decade over there, but uh, you're not quite a micro brewery, you're a little bit you're a craft brewer.

SPEAKER_03: 32:56

Would you uh definition that's a great question? I think that that definition's changed a bunch of times. Yeah, I think it has too.

SPEAKER_01: 33:04

Yeah, where would you put yourself on that scale?

SPEAKER_04: 33:07

We're definitely a micro, yeah, because they're not owned by another guy doing their craft stuff. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 33:13

We've never sold out like almost everyone else in the state.

SPEAKER_02: 33:17

But you know, it's everybody's their prerogative, they want to go and make money, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 33:23

All the bigger ones have all sold out.

SPEAKER_02: 33:25

You haven't taken the we are the last independent, you know, one that distributes, but maybe along maybe um the only who else is yeah, a lot of them are taking checks, even even the guys that aren't directly taking checks for it, you know. I think who's the closest one, who's the largest one we have right now is uh well it there's the in dev guys, and there's the bunch of who owns Modella?

SPEAKER_03: 33:49

Then they just buy a bunch of places too, Australia's and all those guys. I don't know, I can't keep up with it. It really is hard to keep up.

SPEAKER_02: 33:57

So well, the marijuana industry just purchased a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_03: 34:01

That's right. Yeah, so uh is owned by India, right? No, no, they're the ones that the Canadians that that grow weed. So okay, it's changed.

SPEAKER_02: 34:14

You never know who's you know gonna buy brewing is owned by um I was thinking of yeah, by Monster, really yeah, so monster beverage they made a ton of money during the uh during COVID. Yeah, I think they just didn't know what to do with all the money they had, so they started investing in fun things.

SPEAKER_03: 34:31

So what's going on with bourbon right now, guys? I mean, is it uh you know, there's a you got when I was down there a couple weeks ago, I heard like one of the Cooper Riches, um, like the whole shift was canceled on making bourbon barrels.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

What's going on with the bourbon? There's like big peaks and valleys, right? Because bourbon is super popular and it stays popular for a while, but then it starts to kind of peter off a little bit for a few years, and then it'll slowly start to come back because things are continuing to age.

SPEAKER_03: 35:01

Um, and then when they come out with something new, it's good. A lot of people bought a ton of bourbon from like COVID until now, and like their cellar and their house is full. Yeah, and they just uh they're like, I need to start drinking my bourbon. Their wives don't want to give money on something they're not drinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 35:20

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 35:21

So I I crack, I crack a like I well. I bought I bought so much. I'm trying to get to them, but I'm not I'm not I'm like saving it. People collect, I don't collect.

SPEAKER_03: 35:32

How much how much bourbon do you have at your house?

SPEAKER_00: 35:35

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_03: 35:36

Be honestly, do you do you know how much? No, I do not do you have an idea like how many cases you have.

SPEAKER_00: 35:41

No, it's not well, because there's six in a case, right?

SPEAKER_03: 35:45

I probably have is there six or twelve in a case?

SPEAKER_00: 35:48

See, well, it depends on the case. A lot of bourbon barrels have six. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:58

Okay, I didn't know that. But I probably should have known that.

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

But I might have 50 bottles around the house.

SPEAKER_03: 36:04

Well, that's not that bad. No, no, no, I'm not crazy, crazy, crazy. How about you? What do you what do you what do you think you got?

SPEAKER_01: 36:10

Five five hundred five bottles. That's it, so you can drink it all. I I drink, I I don't buy to save, I buy to consume and share. Yeah, because bourbon really doesn't age on the shelf at all.

SPEAKER_03: 36:25

Once it's out of the barrel, it really doesn't age anymore, right?

SPEAKER_01: 36:28

It only oxidizes right. I I have a bottle of Colonel H. Taylor, uh EJ Taylor that I just got last weekend. Oh, that's lovely. And I'm savoring that. I'm gonna hang on to that, I'm gonna savor it. What do you think for the tailor? Uh it was like a buck.

SPEAKER_04: 36:42

That's that square bottle.

SPEAKER_01: 36:44

Yes, that's that actually comes in this comes in the cylinder tube. Yeah, um, so I got a bottle of that, and then I have a bottle of um oh, what is it? Four roses, small batch. It's you know, that's been cracked, and then I got uh uh four rangers that's down in the basement that's just kind of waiting to be consumed that my father gave me a while back. So, and then there's about this much left to whistle pick. So I just kind of savor and just hang on to it.

SPEAKER_00: 37:06

You know, well, there's a lot of people that have a lot of bottles out there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and I get stuff for the show, and we'll do something, and I'll be like, Oh, cool. And then I'll take it home and I'll have it. It'll be like, okay, cool. That's why you have 50 bottles. It's kind of on the shelf. And when I have friends come over, it's like they're like, You got this? I'm like, I haven't. That's good. I don't care, you know. It's it's fair, it's fair game, it's everything's fair game. So yeah, I'm not collecting them, you know. It's just I there's so much stuff I haven't gotten around to drink.

SPEAKER_04: 37:34

And the ones that I have at home are barrel picks from my friends. I have a barrel pick from uh the Charlotte Boy, a barrel pick uh buffalo trace, which is great. I have the barrel pick Old Forester from Butter Rum, which is like 130, something crazy, some super high barrel. So that one's gonna be there for a minute. I have a bottle of 1792 small bash that I just finished, which was delicious. A nice little sip of watching sports. And those are and I got like a bottle of Crown Royal, like some standard stuff. Sure. And uh, you know, I do have access to some uh regular Buffalo trays from now and then. Uh comes from uh you know, I grab a couple airline bottles here and there from the store if you don't store. You said from the store, from the store store, but yeah, and then but our my the bourbon that I drink regularly is usually at our studio, yeah. It's at your studio, and then we have good stuff in there, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 38:23

You know, we we'll go into daddy's closet in the studio and we'll have something that that you'll you know, ego rare or not eagle rare, but wild turkey is in there. We got a makers in there as well, you know, and old forester will pop in there every once in a while.

SPEAKER_04: 38:36

The only time we ever did a beer was when I brought some uh goose island beer league while we were doing one of our bourbon tasting. That's right. So it's a nice heavy end.

SPEAKER_01: 38:45

Yeah, yeah. We like to we we like to try anything. We we want to put our for lack of a better term, fellas. Sorry, we want to put our lips on something that's going to entice us to want to consume it more, and that's what we're looking for. Like what this gingerbread band, I want to consume more. It's a big beer.

SPEAKER_00: 39:04

So you guys have a process. What's your favorite part of the process of brewing? Is it the drinking?

SPEAKER_01: 39:10

Drinking or the drinking part of it.

SPEAKER_03: 39:14

It is we love the brewing part of it a lot. Um, yeah. Is it the experiment?

SPEAKER_01: 39:22

Is it experimentation? Is I was gonna say we do love experimentation.

SPEAKER_02: 39:25

We have, I mean, I think it shows we've done thousands through the years of different beers.

SPEAKER_00: 39:30

It's like how many different expressions are are on the board here and coming out of the taps at any one time.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

A lot of 20, what do we have? 25? 25? It might be more than that. We actually added some small taps on the side, but we've done some other fun stuff too. Other than that, like we we got into making uh cider, yeah, in the last few years. Cheers on that. That that was this right here. And the side, we've actually won some really good awards for it. So we've we've done really good. What cider was it? The Great Lakes Cider, Great Lakes Cider competition. We've we've won uh best in class uh for the the parry last year.

SPEAKER_03: 40:08

Yeah, so we source our juice like you know, it's like but it goes and shows that we have a hundred years.

SPEAKER_02: 40:14

The juice is one thing. Whoever can, if you know how to ferment stuff properly and use a particular yeast and and manage it, that's that's what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 40:24

You can't say which, can you? What's that? What yeast? You can't say which yeast can you? No, I won't tell you the yeast on it.

SPEAKER_04: 40:29

No, I won't, because that yeast is very fresh.

SPEAKER_03: 40:32

So you may notice the uh I'll tell you it's not sulfury, okay, super, super clean. It is clean, very sharp.

SPEAKER_04: 40:39

Love it, very sharp.

SPEAKER_03: 40:40

Yeah, and it's not too sweet either.

SPEAKER_02: 40:42

The judges say it has a candied fruit aroma to it.

SPEAKER_00: 40:44

They all that's one thing that's kind of crazy. My wife, she loves the ciders, but not the sweets. It's like yeah, you know, she's it's like the wood chuck and the woodpecker, they're all just way too sweet. You know, she's got to have the strong bow, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 40:58

It's the I think the drinkability is like, oh, you have to have a certain amount of dryness, and the acidity is not too high either. Right. So if you have it too too high in acid, it just hurts your gut. Yeah, you know, it's like, how much or shoes can you drink? It's like cider is like the same thing.

SPEAKER_04: 41:16

So the listener may notice the ambient noise is kicked up here in the uh uh in the chat room where uh the KGB Brute Club is about to kick off their uh their little meeting, and after their meeting, we're gonna sit down with some of those guys and talk about the hobby. So uh, right now, you two, we're gonna try something else in the downtime. What do you recommend we open up and try while these guys are talking about their uh their hobby over here?

SPEAKER_02: 41:39

Talking about icebach, maybe or a great idea.

SPEAKER_00: 41:43

What is icebach? What is icebach? And what it's beer-flavored beer. Didn't he invent the bomb?

SPEAKER_03: 41:48

No, no, different.

SPEAKER_00: 41:51

That's different.

SPEAKER_03: 41:53

A different kind of bomb.

SPEAKER_02: 41:55

Another fun thing too is our sake. But um bomb. I don't know if we have any sake left on draft or not right now. You guys ever had sake before? Sparkling sake. That's sparkling sake. That's like this this stuff is high octane, too. So it is beer.

SPEAKER_01: 42:10

All right, you know, every day. It is a it is a school night. Presently it's a school night.

SPEAKER_04: 42:17

We're taxing. So uh Eric, thank you. Brett, thank you guys for being here. Appreciate you hosting us. And uh, we're gonna stick around. We're gonna try some of these homebrews these guys are making and get a whole nother level of education from some of those folks. Uh these guys, I guess this is where I do the like and subscribe in uh all the podcast places. Uh, dear leader, would you like to bring us out? That was it.

SPEAKER_00: 42:40

It's uh all the podcast, all the podcast places.

SPEAKER_01: 42:43

Gentlemen, thank you for having us into your home here. This is gorgeous. Appreciate you. Cheers. Thanks so much. Matt over there is August Kitchlag. Uh, that's Matt Fox. Jamie Flanagan. You're so handsome. You're so handsome.

SPEAKER_00: 42:56

Thank you. I needed that. All right, we'll see y'all next time.