Everybody Gets a Pliny

Welcome in, everybody! It's the Craft Beer Republic! Thanks for drinking! Most importantly, thanks for joining. I am Greg, and I am being joined by the crispiest fella on the freshest coast, and that is Flex. What's happening, big fella? Nothing much. Excited to drink today. Oh, dude, you're telling me. Very excited. I haven't had a beer in a hot minute, and, you know, I've been doing some classy wine tasting, that kind of shit.

You're so fucking classy. I needed some hops in my life, and you gave me the perfect excuse. We'll talk about that in just a second. But before we get into that, follow us on the socials, @CraftBeerRepublic and @FlexMeABeer, underscores in between.

It's just the two of us today, we're making things sexy. Very intimate. Very, very intimate. Got some candles lit over here. Yeah. Some Kenny G blasting. How about some sexy sax? What was that, Careless Whisper? Yeah, best song ever. Best song. Shout out to our top listening city of last week, and hopefully they like some sexy sax. And that's Medford, New Jersey. Back, I think they were around like two weeks ago. Yeah, let's get it. Yeah, get it, New Jersey.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for not being shitty like your beer laws. How about that? I did see a funny post on Instagram the other day, and it said the top five most complaining states. And it was the four states all around New Jersey, because they're right next to New Jersey. And then the last one, I don't know if it was supposed to be funny, but it said Mississippi. I don't know, maybe I lost what the whole post was about, but the New Jersey thing was funny as hell. I do like that.

That's pretty good. All right, let's not waste any time. We are drinking the same beer, and I'm very excited for this. Let's take a trip to California with our beverage of choice today. Oh, here we go.

Flex told me... I'm really excited for this one. He hasn't been taking a sip yet. No, I haven't. I just wanted to wait for the show to happen. I love it. Flex told me the other day that he got this beer by way of his pilot friend and said, "Can you get one?" And I said, "Can I get one?" And so I rushed out to the store, and I did get one. In fact, I found a whole pile of them, and I sent a picture of how easy it is to get in California to Flex just to be a dick. I did think that was hilarious.

But because of all this, we are drinking Russian River Brewing's Pliny the

Elder. Thanks, Pilot Tom. Pilot Tom to ground control. Nailed it. There we go. That's fucking good. We need a song for that. Anyways, this is your first time dipping into a wine, right? It is. So first off, it's like a classic double IPA, right? So pouring this, the color astounded me the most. That it wasn't like that West Coast, copper, you know? We'll talk about my glass in a second. Yeah, I can't. I just can't with that. But you know, it's like a nice golden yellow color.

You know, very clean, very see-through, like you'd expect from a classic kind of West Coast. But the color really shocked me. Yeah, that real light straw color. Very clear. It doesn't, you know, doubles tend to be a little darker and carmelier, in my opinion, visually. And this one is not that. It's very crisp looking. I'm gonna get a picture of the beer and the glass together for everybody because this is fantastic. But quick stats on the beer. Here, I should get Flex in the background of this.

Fantastic. Quick stats on the beer. Pliny the Elder, if you haven't had it, Russian River, 8%, 100 old school IBUs, has a 4.49 ununtapped out of over 294,000 ratings. That's something to brag about. Yeah. On the bottle, it says Pliny the Elder was a Roman naturalist, scholar, historian, and author. In his writings, he refers to lupus selectarius, meaning wolf among scrubs, likely an early reference to hop vines growing wild among willows.

Pliny the Elder died in 79 AD while saving people during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He was immortalized by his nephew and adopted son, Pliny the Younger. Pliny the Elder, the beer, is a full-bodied, hot-forward double IPA. Keep refrigerated and consume fresh to best enjoy this beer's intense hop character. And I think they all have bottled on dates. Mine was January 3rd of this year. See, so I was shocked at this one.

So I got this, it was almost a week and a half ago now, and I saved it for the show. I really, I didn't want to crack it open before then. And I did get two bottles, so I could have, but I wanted to pop the cherry here What a champ. Mine was 1219. So you're looking at a week and a half ago today, and pretty damn fresh. Yeah, still what, at three weeks at that point, I think? Yeah, so it's pretty impressive. It's just over a day, over a month old right now. Yeah, as we drink.

And it's been kept as refrigerated as possible. That's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I've talked about this. Pliny is a great solid beer. The one thing I always say is I like Blind Pig just a little bit better. It's their single IPA, where this is the double. Okay. But for being a double, I mean, Pliny is so crisp. It's, once again, for a double, very light, especially in the mouth feel. It doesn't stick. It's not super caramelly. It's not a malt bomb like some of those stone IPA type of beverages.

It is just really crushable for an 8%er. Well, I'm excited. I mean, the aroma here, it's super dank. And you really get that orange, like orange peel smell to it. Yeah. You know, it's not like orange juice or like, you know, juicy orange. It's like the actual skin of the fruit. So very, very nice smell on the old schnoz. And without further ado. We've wasted enough people's time. Warm it up. And here we go. Should make this a video podcast. That's pretty darn good. Yeah, this is fresh.

That aroma follows 100% to the palate. Everything you smell is what you get on the tongue. That is, this is a super solid beer for a sip. We'll dive right in quick. Take another one because it's a big bottle. It is a big bottle. What is the ounces on this bad boy? 17 and a quarter, I believe. Okay. That seems right. It's 501 milliliters. Yeah, it's kind of a weird total. Yeah. You can definitely taste the 100 IBUs.

Yes. But like you said, it is not that lingering, that sticky, that teeth shattering It just, it works really well. Yeah. It's pretty balanced. I would say extremely balanced. Yeah. For being that 100 IBU. You know, I always make fun of Brian, intern Brian, lovingly, because this is one of his favorites. And he'd be like, "Hey, I got a Pliny today." And I'm like, "Yeah, everybody gets a Pliny nowadays, man. Like, no big deal. We know where to get them." That's awesome.

And I'll be like, "Hey, you know, blind pig is so much." And one thing I will definitely stand by is Russian River's Sour program is so fucking fantastic. Yeah. I know you talk a lot about that. I almost grabbed one for the show because underneath the stack of Pliny's was a couple, there was like a sanctification and a supplication, something else. I was like, "Maybe I should grab a Sour." I was like, "Eh, I'll stick with the Pliny. We'll keep it a hot forward show."

But one of these days, I'll do another one. But yeah, this is a classic for a reason. It's a great beer. But if you haven't, do yourself a favor and have some of their other offerings as well. Yeah. I just want to give another quick shout out to Pilot Tom. He sent me a text. From Ground Control. Said he was going to be out in Fresno or something like that. I can't remember where he said. As we call it out here, Fresno. Yeah. Who knows? I don't know. I can't remember where it was. San Jose?

Shit. Maybe it was San Jose. Better than Fresno. And he said, "Yeah, I'll look for some Pliny for you." You know? And I said, "Hey, no big deal. Like that's totally fine." And shoots me a text like a couple hours later. Said him and his buddy walked to a shop like a mile away from their hotel. And the guy had cases of it in his cooler. So they bought an entire case of it and split the case. Nice. And he did hook me up with a couple of the STS pills. Oh, that's a great one.

So I was able to have, I did treat myself to that one already. And very enjoyable. Super solid offering. Super solid. Super crisp. A little hoppy on that. Yeah. On the back end, it's a little bit hoppy. A little lingering bitterness. Which I didn't expect, but it was very enjoyable. Yeah, I really liked the STS pills. And if you ever get your hands on the Happy Hops, that's a great one too. You sent me that one once. Did I? Okay, good. Yes. Good, good. That's a great one. That one was good.

I enjoyed that thoroughly. There was a brief moment in time where, they must've been pushing Happy Hops really hard. It was the easiest beer from Russian River to find. Like it was everywhere. No Pliny, no Blind Pig, but just piles of Happy Hops were showing up at stores. And it's such a good beer. I think it's so underrated. People always go for the Pliny, but Happy Hops is a great beer. Well, I forgot I actually had that one. So thank you for reminding me. You are more than welcome.

Now next up, I guess I'm going to have to find the Blind Pig. Yeah, find some Blind Pig. The one thing I won't find you, because I can't even find it, is the Younger. Yeah, I hear that's the hardest one to get. Yeah, I've had a couple of versions. Most recently was... Is that the triple? Yeah. Okay. Honestly, I don't love it, not because it's not well made. Here we go. Here comes the hate mail. I don't love Pliny the Younger. It's great for what it is. It's a great triple IPA.

It's just as balanced as this is, but a triple. I just don't like the bigger, heavier beers as much. It's just not my jam, that's all. Oh, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, but the last time I had it was actually Deb's birthday. And I think this was 2020, right before COVID started. We were brunching at one of our favorite brunch spots. And Brian got a text or something from our friend, was like, "Hey, Younger is over at this other spot." We legit got up mid-brunch. No way. And left.

Yeah, we just left and we went to this other spot and started pounding Younger 's. Wow. Yeah. I think like 12% or some shit like that, so. That sounds about right. Yeah, it's good times. That was good. That was the last time I had it, so. Those were the good old days. The good old days. Back when COVID was sort of a thing, but we didn't care yet. Oh, yeah. I guess depending on the month. Yes, it was like, her birthday's in February. So it was February 2020. And that was right before, yeah.

Yeah, it was right before. That was the last time I like was really out, out too. Yeah. Was February. Yeah, that same month. Boy, did I tie one on good. Yeah, we did. You know, it's funny. That same month, we went to a Kings game, LA Kings. And, you know, got kind of ham skied down in downtown LA with Nick and Nicole.

And that is, I'm pretty sure where we all picked up COVID because Nick got sick first. We were walking through the Kobe Bryant Memorial. And there's just literally tens of thousands of people were walking through. And Staples Center was ground zero for COVID in the US. And so I'm pretty sure. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah. I read this thing afterwards.

That's where in the middle of COVID that said one of the first known cases was from one of the people working at the like food vendor or whatever inside Staples Center. Oh, yeah. Damn you LA. Right. So I'm sure we picked because then we got COVID at a Super Bowl party at their house a couple of days later. So pretty sure we all got it from being down there in that whole mess, either at the game or at the Kobe Memorial or who knows. But good times. The best. Not a COVID show.

Yeah, well, it's maybe a little bit. Yeah. And you speaking of LA, man, it's been quite the fucking couple of weeks. Yeah. You're OK out there. We're good for you. Yeah. We lost power for a few days, which meant we lost some fridge items.

And it was a pain in the ass to work. You were legit out of power for days. Multiple days. Yeah. Wow. And we are not nearly as bad as both Deb and Brian and Nick and Nicole. They lost theirs when we did. But Deb and Brian took multiple days longer to get it back. And then the following week, the wind pack picked up again. And for some reason, they did not shut off ours, but they shut off theirs. It's been a shit show. Whenever a mouse farts, they shut off Deb and Brian's power immediately.

And then whenever a mouse farts twice, they shut off ours. We're right behind them. But they're always first to go and last to come back on. It's it's so silly. They were nowhere near the fires. We were more in the line of fire than they were in the sense that one of the ones that popped up was I think it's called the Franklin fire. If it had kept going, it would have followed the same path as the Woolsey fire from 2018 that we were evacuated from and all that stuff.

So. Wow, that's so fucking scary. Yeah, they snuffed it out pretty quickly. But by that night, they had once the winds calmed down, right? That was a big problem. Well, that was a big problem. The winds were still going at that point, but they just they kind of got to the point where like we've already lost the Palisades. We can't lose anything else. So if anything pops up, we got to fucking pounce and just hammer it down. And even that means we're taking resources from other spots. Got it.

Yeah, it's it's been insane. So I don't know anybody personally that have lost houses or lives. I have friends of friends who have. And it's fucking insane out here. Seen all the all the devastation and the pictures and all that shit. And people are doing like drone footage. By the way, don't fly your drone in the middle of a fucking fire. You asshats.

Did you see that one of the planes got damaged by a drone? No, I didn't. You know, Canada sent down a couple of water dropping planes and one of them, a drone ran into and damaged it. So they had to ground it. It's like you fucking idiot. So stupid. But anyway, they've seen some drone footage of like PCH, you know, the highway along the coast. And for my entire life, it's like, look at all these houses on PCH. And they're just showing it's just rubble along the beach. It's insane. So horrible.

Yeah. So it's been it's been a crazy couple of weeks and having to work wherever I can work when I don't have power, which obviously it's the least of worries. Yeah. How does that work for you? And, you know, like I spent a few days in my mom's house, brought my computer down and all that stuff and, you know, worked from here with her crappy Internet. Yeah. We don't have an office like my wife. At least they have an office.

So she went into the office and and worked there and we slept at home and we had lanterns like the eighteen hundreds. Yeah. Just walk around my house. There's gold. Gus chickens. Oh, so good. So but I do want to mention the fact that Common Space Brewery has launched a we love L.A. fire relief beer, just like Tierra Nevada did a few years ago with the Wol

ves or not with the Wolves. That was the I think the Paradise Fire where they raised money by everyone brewing the same essential recipe, basically the same recipe, different hops, whatever they 're donating. Common Space has started a similar thing. There's over 100 breweries that have signed on at this point. Obviously, a lot out here. Naughty Pine being one of the locals that have signed on already to do it. So it's fantastic that it's all about it.

If you go to their their grams, Common Space's gram, they've got lists and lists. There's even a couple of international breweries that are jumping on. So super, super cool to see that support and all that good stuff. Heck yeah, man. Yeah. And if anybody needs help promoting or wants to collab on a beer that goes to that sort of charity, hit us up. Happy to promote those beers and collab on those beers or anything like that.

So anything we can do to help out, because it's it's really, really shitty. And at this point, they're pretty much out of needing like, you know, items donated and they just need money donated to these charities so they can get things distributed to where they need to be. So right. That's the sad part of the show. Let's let's go back to beer shit. Yeah. How do you how do you bring that up from there? I have no fucking clue.

So awkward transition got hit up by a listener on the gram the other day. Okay. Listener Jay said, Hey, CBR, you've referenced a local spot with an interesting beer selection at least twice now without giving us the name location. Where is it?

He goes on to say, also, if you're ever passing through Moorpark, which is on our hood, that's where Integra is, check out the beer cave at the Handy Mart on Princeton and Campus Park. Haven't been there. I'll have to check it out. I did not know which establishment he was asking me about. So I was like, are we talking bottle shop, a brewery? What are we talking here?

And he gave me a couple of clues and eventually said it's where Brian got that keg for free or 100 bucks, depending on if it was good or not. Yeah. So once he said that, I was like, Oh, I know exactly what we're talking about. That's that stagecoach liquors are in Newbury Park, and it's where I always used to get Pliny and Russian River beers back before they were quite so easy to find. So if you're okay, if you need some rare beers, they got some rare beers.

You can walk into the fridge, like the stuff they have facing the outside. It's, you know, your basic ship. You walk into the walk in. That's a secret, man. A lot of places you walk, if they have a cooler like that, you walk into the cooler and that's where they keep all the good stuff. Yeah, exactly. Even this one today, the Pliny, I went to Total Wine to get it. Like the thought of it's so funny. I'm such an old school beer drinker.

The thought of walking into Total Wine and getting a Pliny is like, wait, what?

They never had that kind of shit. But I haven't been in a Total Wine in probably over a year. I usually avoid them. There is one cheap champagne that we really like if we're making mimosas, and we can only find it at Total Wine. So we'll usually go get that champagne. But for beer, I never go into Total Wine, but I was in the same parking lot and was like, I need this Pliny. Let's see if they got it. And sure enough, they had that whole pile of it. That's gnarly fresh for you too.

Yeah, the Pliny that was there, which I don't know how Total Wine is by you guys. But by me, it's like a fucking church rummage sale. Yeah, it's like a Tavor basement. Right. It's like sometimes you'll find beers that are like two years old, you know? And how do you not have this on the shitty, not even sale clearance rack that's not even a real sale? It's like $2 off this four pack because it's a year and a half old. Nobody's going to buy that. Enjoy our new stone, Notorious P.O.G. Yeah, yeah.

It's been around for years. I remember I had a gift card that was burning a hole in my wallet. It was like, I don't know, like 25, 30 bucks. I'm like, all right, let's try and get some bang for my buck. And I walked out with three, four packs. Two of them weren't even good. But I think I got them all within like three months of the can on date. And I was pretty psyched about that. Yeah, that's pretty good for a total. That's what I was aiming for. But they were all local stuff.

None of them were, you know, out of state. Sure, sure. Distribution. I will say, you know, I went in for the plenty. I didn't need anything else. But I did start just walking down the beer aisle just to see what they had. And I wonder if they're making an effort now because they had some good. First of all, they had a bunch of freshies from Malibu brewing. I was super stoked to see Malibu on the shelves. And that is awesome for them.

Yeah. The fact they were fresh, they had some pretty new looking releases. I just checked a couple of random candidates and, you know, they're within a month. And I was like, well, that's that's pretty good. So maybe that is pretty good. Yeah. Maybe they're trying to turn things around. Yeah. But I will not buy anything there that doesn't have a date on the can. Yeah, that's smart. Yeah. That's like my one rule at Total Wine. Don't you legally have to put the date on?

You know, some like just like some soda companies usually do it.

A couple of other food brand companies, they just they put like these weird codes on it. It's not actually like a best by date or like a born on date. You have to like look up the code to know what it meant. Right. And then even some can like some four packs, they just don't have shit on the bottom of the cans at all. So I don't understand what laws. Because there's also some beers, I forgot which ones they are. Some of them are local. I know a lot of Spotted Cow stuff or New Glarus.

They don't have the ABVs listed on their bottles. Oh. Which I thought that was a law as well. Yeah. But I've definitely seen that with like some local places where they don't pop that on. I wonder if certain laws or I mean, excuse me, certain states don't have that laws. They get away with it. Well, I'm wondering if Wisconsin is one of them. Right. Because Eagle Park, this was a few weeks back. They dropped a slush beer that they hadn't come out with in three years. So I was like, you know what?

Last time they dropped it, it was fucking delicious. So I went and picked up a four pack. But, you know, the whole thing with 450 and the ABV gate and, you know, they're saying Right. So I know Eagle Park stopped putting the ABVs on their slush beers because they couldn't have like an accurate calculation of how much alcohol was inside can. So they don't pop the ABV on those anymore. That seems like it's got to be.

Who knows? It must vary by state. But you'd think like, you know, if, say, California requires you to have it on there, even if it was from a different state that doesn't in order to import it into the state, you'd have to sell it in the state. It would have to have it on there. Who knows? Somebody that knows more about this shit. Like the drinking lawyer. Somebody let us know like how this how this works. We need some help over here. That would be wonderful.

Yeah. One other thing I'll say about Total Wine before we completely get off the subject is I was pleasantly surprised. I'm walking through the beer aisle just looking to see what's there. And I was like, oh, there was a surprisingly attractive female by herself just cruising the beer cans, looking at some really tasty, not basic shit, checking dates. I was like, hmm. And you said, Shannon, what are you doing here? That's exactly what I said.

Certainly didn't question life choices from earlier in life. We call those life ruiners. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised.

So keep checking those dates, ladies and guys. Let's not be racist here. All right, let's let's move on before I get myself in more and more trouble. You know, before we get OK, one last story. Before I went to Total Wine, I was at the car wash and had it was just me and

the dog waiting for the car to get clean. And some lady walks up. This is so not beer related, but I had to tell somebody. He walks in like, oh, can I can I say hi? And I was like, yeah, sure. You know, no one's more friendly than Marty, but also no one gives less shits about people with the Marty. Okay. Yeah. You want to pet me? That's fine. But also like I don't care. He mainly only cares about like his people. Okay, it's like us and she loves Nicole to no end.

But outside of that, he's like, yeah, whatever I don't know you, but you can touch me and she walks up. She's so she kind of like half pet some does like the whole smell my hand thing Then she starts talking as him to me. Whoa yeah, at first it was little like, oh, do you smell my doggies on me? Yeah, I've got doggies and then it goes into like as him. Oh yeah, I smell your dog and I think she thought he was a girl or something is super high pitch. Oh yeah, I smell your doggies.

You must have a big dog because I smell a big dog on you and I wish you had do ggies with you so I could play with them. I was like, what? Oh my gosh. And then she just keeps looking up at me like waiting for me to say something. I was like, I got nothing to say other than you're fucking crazy. So you don't want me to say anything. It was so weird. I would say that's weird. You're sitting in your car waiting to get the car wash. No, no, no. We were out of the car. The car was going through.

We're waiting for our cars. But yeah, this went on for like a solid two minutes of just her talking as my dog. Who's I guess a girl now all of a sudden. And how do you like stop that without being so awkward? I don't know. I mean, we're already in Awkwardsville. There's no getting out of that. But like she kept looking up at me waiting for me to respond. And I was just like, yeah, uh-huh. Wait, we want me to join in your fucking weirdness over here. Like it was the weirdest.

It's like the Sloppy Joe lady. Hey, lady, you're scaring us. Oh, yeah. Please get away from me and my dog. Yeah, so fucking weird. And at one point, Marty even had enough and like walked away from her and just sat next to me. Well, that's like when we like when we had young like our kids were babies. And you just take them to the grocery store. It's astounding how many old people think it's OK to just touch your children. Yeah, you know, and newsflash that that's not OK.

It's kind of fucking weird. It's super fucking weird. I don't even have kids. Yeah, so I could only imagine you in the situation. I mean, with a dog. And the voice thing was it was too much like we can't talk. We can't. I don't want to have a beer with you. No, never. I'll go sober. It's funny. That's how I judge people, by the way.

It's like, oh, after we have a beer with them from like 30 seconds to two minutes and you could decide whether or not you would have a beer with this person. Yeah, you're hot or you're cool or you have fun stories to tell or the list goes on. Or, you know, or, you know, the complete opposite, like negative ways where it 's like, OK, like you introduce yourself, do she or like you come off as, you know, self-absorbed or just anything like that.

It's like, you know, or you talk as my dog in a weird voice or you talk as somebody's dog in a weird voice. Yes, no beer for you. Yeah, no. Oh, God, I don't want to see her drunk. I can only get worse. Well, maybe actually, you know what? You got a point. You got a point. Reminds me of we were hiking once and I had Marty on a leash and some dog comes running up off leash and it seemed OK. I remember the story. Yeah, but I was like, I'm not taking the chance.

So I got in between the dogs immediately. And then from way down the trail here. Oh, he's friendly. And then I yell back, I'm not Jesus.

My dog's friendly. His owner's not. Well, you know, you're protective. It's your dog. It's your boy. Put your fucking dog in a leash. Hey, you know what? Or if you're going to have him off a leash, you train him good enough that they stay by your side. Right. I have Marty off leash outside all the time, like when he's peeing and stuff in on the front. But the moment he starts to take a step in the wrong direction, I just go, hey, comes back. Yeah, that's my dad was the best with that.

Like he was like a dog whisperer. And any dog we've ever had was an off leash dog. Mm hmm. And they would have the goal, right? Right, right. So they would always be big on chasing squirrels and, you know, any kind of animal. And we lived in like a Creekway Creekway, you know, wooded area. And, you know, he's take the dog down the path.

And any time a dog came by or anything happened, he'd just give out that fucking whistle like that loud, no finger in the mouth, like whistle. And that dog in a split second would just trot right back to my dad and stay by his side and not fuck with anybody. Nice. So if you can train your dog like that. Yeah. No leashes allowed. Yeah. The hardest part is training to not give a fuck. Right. That is absolutely true. Yeah. One time Marty got out, we were at Nick and Nicole's house. He got out.

We didn't know it. And he is so not one of those runaway from home dogs. He knows who feeds them. He loves food way too much to run away. He's just a good boy, but he got out and he just, he followed his nose and we found him just at the neighbor's house, just sniffing flowers and checking the things out That's adorable. It was, you wanted to be mad because it's like, hey, get the fuck back here. But also it was kind of, kind of cute. We had one dog. He didn't go far. Didn't cross the street.

We had one dog that slipped out of between the fence in our backyard when I was a kid. And we went around for like an hour and a half looking for our fucking dog. We get home. She is sitting on the step at the front door waiting to get back in the house. That was Shannon's old dog. Same thing. All the time. He'd get out all the time and just go sit on the front porch. Yeah. Like she fucking knew. Like she knew where the food comes from. Hey, you got a good here, homie. Hell yeah.

You don't need to run. But alas, not a dog. Not a dog show. No, not, not yet. At least get me drunk enough. And I'll just talk about Marty nonstop. All right. Let's do a little news before we get up out of here. New Belgium is making a party sports drink, a beer.

It's like Gatorade with booze in it. They say whether it's music festivals, outdoor adventures, or a night out, light strike makes partying a sport, which I'm surprised they were allowed to put on that bottle. Light strike senior brand manager, Andrew Emberton. Oh, I saw this at Meijer today. Did you? Yeah. Do you guys, I don't, do you even know what a Meijer is? I don't know. No, I know. I just figured it's a store of some sort. It's like a Walmart. Um, oh, okay.

Yeah. I, and they were in like fucking, you know, how like Gatorade and not even G atorade, it's Powerades or fucking what's that other stupid Logan Paul one. The, uh, prime. Yeah. How they'll come in like plastic wrapped eight packs. That's how this shit comes. Yes. Yeah. It looks like one of those. And I didn't even bother to look at it cause I thought it was just some off brand sports drink. So I'm like, no, I'm not even going to look into this shit.

I haven't seen it yet, but, but now, yeah, now you're going to have to look into it because, uh, apparently it's coming in hot. They say it's the, uh, it's 5% ABV non-carbonated beverage that will be packaged in resealable 16.9 ounce sports drink bottles available in single flavor, four packs, lemon, lime, and orange mango. Which do you know why it's 16.9 ounces? Cause it's the same as a bottle of water. Yeah. Well, yeah. But do you know the significance of that? I do not. It's half a liter.

Oh, okay. Just a little fun fact. Yeah. No, I didn't know that. Like I always think people look at water bottles and they're like 16.9 ounces. That's kind of fucking weird. I just thought it was their way of getting 69 on a bottle. Yeah. No, you just never think about it. Cause a liter is 33.8 ounces and not a lot of people know that either. Bingo, bingo numbers. Can I get a liter of cola? I don't know what that is. Liter of cola. Do we have liter of cola? Brilliant. Fuck it.

I'll take a large Farva. Um, what else? Oh, up in your hood. Leinenkugel's the Leinenkugel's as in the family, not the brewery. I read about this. Yeah. Trying to buy back their brewery. Yeah. I saw this.

And so far there has been no response, I believe. Yeah. They said they submitted a formal proposal to Molson Corp is asking the company to engage in a non-disclosure agreement to kick off discussions about acquiring the brewery with the goal of maintaining its operations under Leinenkugel family leadership. Oh, it goes on to say the family sold the brewery in 1988 to Miller Brewing Company. I didn't realize it was that long ago.

1988. Yeah. That request was declined on January 6th from somebody who stated the company reigns fully committed to the Leinenkugel's brand. A follow-up request on January 8th was left unanswered as of January 15th. The Leinenkugel's wrote that they remain optimistic that Molson Corp's leadership will reconsider our proposal and engage in meaningful discussions about safeguarding this important part of our heritage.

They also put a huge post on LinkedIn, which I don't think anybody wants to hear me read out loud, but they are asking for Molson Corp's to sell them their shit back because they don't want people to lose their jobs because they shuttered the brewery as of a couple of days ago, I believe. Right. Something also I didn't know. I didn't realize Summer Shandy was as recent as 2007. Oh, really? Yeah. That kind of blew my mind as I was reading that article.

But you probably became of drinking age in what, like '09-ish? Correct. All right. So to you, your entire drinking career, it's existed. Yeah. But it's like when you start drinking beer, you just assume that the beer you 're drinking has been around for... It's true. You know, for whenever. Yeah. Yeah, you're not wrong. Thought that was kind of a fun fact. Yeah. I mean, I even, I was like, if you told me Summer Shandy, like, I don't know, '90s? Right. Who fucking knows? Who knows?

Yeah. Now you know. Now you know. I pulled this story because I just thought it was funny. Jim Cock of Boston Beer Company.

Sam Adams guy, yeah. Yeah, Sam Adams guy. Says that Hard Mountain Dew will be the most successful crossover brand from non-alcoholic beverages. I don't think so because they got lightning strike. And all they've been doing is losing money ever since they started this in '22.

Boston Beer Company founder and chairman Jim Cock said of the flavored malt beverage brand, looking into his 2030 crystal ball Monday during day two of Beer Business Daily 's Beer, Wine, and Spirit Summit in Palm Beach, Florida, emphasized that it takes time to build these things so he doesn't worry himself over year over year quarterly comps, something he acknowledged that he has the luxury to mostly ignore as he owns all voting shares of the company.

He says, "What I'm worried about is how I make the company more valuable in five years. That I worry about a lot." The Boston Beer Co. and PepsiCo launched Hard Mountain Dew in early '22 with PepsiCo initially handling distribution, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, I love that. It's going to be the best or the most successful crossover brand. I don't want regular Mountain Dew. What makes you think I want Hard Mountain Dew? Right. I'll tell you what. I did have...

So I couldn't tell you the last time I had a regular Mountain Dew. Same. So about two weeks ago, I said, "You know what? It's been a while." Damn it. It really hit. Did it? But it was like a one and done thing. Oh, you were left needing more. Because then I had one a couple of days later because I was like, "Man, that was really good the other day." I had the second one a couple of days later and I said, "Yeah, this is all right."

So I think the key to Mountain Dew is just not drinking it for a long time and then just having one.

Once a decade? Yes. But they're going to be so rich with your once a decade Mountain Dew drinking. Yeah. Maybe I'll try it. I probably won't. Maybe I will. I guess I'd try to fucking eggnog buzz ball. I guess I could try Hard Mountain Dew. Yeah, that's true. I have had the... There was like a Code Red seltzer that a company put out. Had it at a share. It wasn't great. It wasn't great. So I don't know how a Mountain Dew alcoholic beverage would be. Probably not great. Probably not.

Sounds very sugary as well. I will say the first time I ever got drunk was not even Mountain Dew. It was knockoff Mountain Dew, like the Albertsons brand. Oh, I was hoping you were going to say MDX. Oh, how do you know what that is? Do you remember those? No, no. It was like the Mountain Dew energy drink. Oh, no. This was Mountain Dew, but knockoff brand. So every store has like their own fake name. So it was like Mountain Breeze and Mountain Mist.

Mountain Dripper. Mountain Drizzle. Mountain Facial. Send us your best fake Mountain Dew names.

Mountain Butt Stuff. But yeah, I would. That sounds like some West Virginia shit right there. It really does. Mountain Cousin Butt Stuff. West Virginia. Anyways, we would drink half the can and then fill it back up with vodka. And that was the first time I ever got drunk. Oh, that sounds awful. The next day was worse than you think. No, I know how it was. It was so bad. Because we used to. So fucking bad. So we used to visit. I had a buddy who went to Butler University.

And we used to visit him a couple of times each semester. Because, you know, he went rushing into this frat. And he got in this frat. So it was always fun to go down there and hang out with all the guys. Well, they would do this trip every year to Cabo. And they discovered these drinks called Adios Motherfuckers. Oh, AMFs. Yeah. Yeah. And they brought them back to Butler. But they would use MDX as the base. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. And then it was like, you know, what, like tequila and rum.

And it was almost like a long. It took everything. Yeah. And they're basically the same. They would finish it off with green apple Smirnoff. Oh, God damn it. Why? Oh, because that's really what makes you throw up. Right. You didn't feel bad enough already. No. Here's some sugary alcohol. I remember being hung over for something like 18 hours. Oof. Went out to lunch. I ate like three French fries, went to the bathroom, threw up the three French fries. I bet. Took the rest of my food to go.

And that was my weekend. That was before you discovered doughnuts. It was. I mean, doughnuts as a hangover cure, not doughnuts in general. I really wasn't even eating doughnuts at that point. Now you've learned. Yeah. Stupid young flex. Idiot. We'll end it with this one. Scott, send me an article. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But apparently in Philly, did you know most restaurants are BYOB? No, I didn't even think that would be legal. I wouldn't think so either.

But apparently most restaurants in Philly are BYOB. Some have corkage feeds, some don't. But instead of having to deal with their shitty alcohol selection, you can

bring your own. I wonder how legit this is. It comes from explore.com. The article is the unexpected alcohol rule tourists need to know before dining out in Philadelphia. So you could pack some wabs. Yeah. And it might be OK to just crack them open at a restaurant. Yeah. I mean, at the end, they give the usual like, hey, check with your restaurant first to make sure it's OK. Bullshit. But yeah, it makes you wonder if that law is elsewhere. Yes, that is true. You know what I'm saying?

Hey, Shred, can you confirm this for us? Yeah, he's a little bit out of Philly. No, but he's been to Philly more times than either of us have. That's true. Well, that's what I mean. He's like a little bit out of Philly. Like, oh, yeah, like an exact like a he's a little bit like, no, he's like a couple hours out of Philly. Right. Exactly. So I wonder if he has this answer for us, because I was like, wait, what? I would love to be BYOB everywhere I go, fucking walk into a Taco Bell.

But it's just Philadelphia? That the article was Philadelphia. Oh, my damn. I want more information. I also want a list of other cities I can do this in. Right. Feed me more. All right, Ryback. Not a wrestling show. Not a wrestling show. Definitely not a Ryback show. That guy. What a fucking joke. In a bitch. All right. Well, let's let's pack things up over here. I got some some more beers to drink and some things to get to. But most importantly, hi, Vanessa. Hello, Vanessa. That was very.

I'm out to snow. Oh, I thought it was Mrs. Bowship. They quickly become the same. Yeah. Anyway, I love that movie, by the way, forgetting Sir Marshall. Both movies and Mrs. Doubtfire. So great. Anyways, give us the old follow on the socials at Craft Beer Republic. @FlexBeerBeer_ is in between. Mail@CraftBeerRepublic.com. 805-538-Beer. I think that's just about everything. Yeah. Take my eyes, but not the shirt.

So damn it. Bowship, Bowship, Bowship. I hope everyone out there is staying very well hydrated. And on that note, good night, everybody.