I'll Be Hammered for the Holidays

Welcome in everybody to the Craft Beer Republic. Thanks for drinking, thanks for joining. I am Greg, I'm being joined by the Milwaukee-est guy there is from a fine city. That's Flex over there. Hey from Milwaukee, the good land. Yeah. What do you know, I can read, I can read your shirt. Yeah, I was thinking I would be like the join-iest fella joining the show today, I don't know. Because it's just us and there's no one else joining. Yeah, well now you ruined it. Oh, sorry. Spoiler alert. Thanks.

Greg got busy. Greg got... that's a figurative... well, no, I guess all literally, not even figuratively and literally. All literally. Yeah, she's been like enjoying us straight from Eagle Park Brewing. The guy who hooks Flex up on Halloween. Ayo. And has sent me a ton of weed beer. Just kidding, but feel free to. Oh man. All right,

so much to get to today. We've got some Pozole Palooza. Flex was there, he doesn't know it, but he was there. You did text me that, yeah. Yeah. Mini Flex came with us. Some booze news, some beers to talk about. It's finally winter time. Hey, Thanksgiving happened. You guys can officially put your Christmas and holiday shit up. If you say so. Thanksgiving is over. Now it's okay. Now I won't throw up when I'm... And I'm over here like November started. Yeah, you're like, put it up.

Three weeks ago, bud. So anyways, all right, so much to get to. Like I said, I'm gonna stop wasting time over here. I'm gonna hit some other musics and talk about what I'm drinking over here. Words are escaping me right now. Classic. (laughs) I love my game I love my game I just realized how hard that fucking beat goes. Yeah, man, you fucking drop that beat. That's hard. Yeah, we go hard over here. I am drinking second chance beer companies.

Frosty the Haze Man, by the way, dope can. I did peak the can a little bit pre show and you were pouring. That's hot. I like it. Dope. It's a 1% 22 IBUs as a 381 on on tap. They say orange, peach and nectarine aromatics immediately hit the nose on this hazy IPA with initial. Wow. With an initial sip, this juice bomb taste of citrus and stone fruit when paired with the medium, sweet, soft texture and full body. So prototypical of its style.

It is reminiscent of your favorite fruit nectar beverage. But this beer still finishes with a subtle bitterness for balance, leaving the palate with want for more. All right. On the old schnauzer. I get a ton of citrus and I'm picking up pineapple, which was not a part of their description, but I'm really picking up some pineapple over here. If I may stick in the job or warm it up, get it in there. Backfire. I like it. The flavor really follows the schnauzer.

I get a lot of that citrus and oranginess. OK. And once again, while not in the description, I'm picking up pineapple and I'm enjoying it. This has been out of the fridge for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes maybe. And it rose up. Yeah. Rose just like warm, but it rose just a little bit. And I think that's what's bringing out some of the pineapple enos that I'm getting. And I'm not mad about it. Well, I'm not mad for you that I think that sounds great. Such a happy people over here. Fantastic.

And if you guys are ever in San Diego area, go check out second chance brewing. We found them by accident years ago. They just opened. Would you call it you found them by second chance? Probably not though. Probably not. We found them by chance a few years ago. The wife was down in San Diego for a work thing and we were in the middle of nowhere. I was like, "Any breweries around here?" And it was like, "Oh, what's Second Chance? Let's go try it." Tried it, loved it.

They put out a lot of great beer. Now they've got a few locations and they're distributing and good, good shit. So you see them, grab them, putting out some good beers. All right. Oh, shout out to Charleston,

South Carolina. Our top-10- I like South Carolina. Okay. Better than West Virginia? I mean, it's not even a question. Better than Alabama? I'm just listing off all the states you talk shit about. Yeah. The two shitty talk states. Yeah. Roll Tide. Roll Tide. Roll Tide, Hill People. Exactly. Thanks, Charleston, for listening. I don't know enough about Charleston to make fun of it. So thanks for listening. I know Wendy's from South Carolina, so that's...

Yeah. Somewhere in the hood, hopefully nearby. Maybe it's her listening to us. Hopefully. Maybe she's telling all her family about us. Maybe. She should be. I mean, I tell a lot of people. Or maybe we just have other fans in South Carolina. Can't blame them. Some Finnish people moved from Finland to South Carolina, and they're just spreading the word. That must be what... You know what's weird? The last two weeks or so, we've been not only hitting the Finnish charts, what's up, Finland?

Love you guys. We've also been on the Ecuadorian food charts for Apple,

whatever they call it these days. Leisure or lifestyle or something. Well, it's Apple Podcast. I think it's the food category because beer. I do know. So what up to Ecuador as well? Yeah. Ecuadorians. Yeah. One of these days, we'll get people within the states to listen to us. Until then, we've got Finland and Ecuador, so stuck in America. Oh, shit. We don't need you. We don't need them. All right. Thanksgiving. Oh, Thanksgiving was a few days ago as we record this.

I have some Thanksgiving fun facts,

but first I was going to ask Flexi how his Thanksgiving was. Did you get hammered with the family or... It was super low key. That's always nice. So it was like the first Thanksgiving I had off of work in like 10 years. Oh, that's right. Thanks, new job. Yeah. The new meat beating gig. We should get you a jersey. Every single holiday, the shop is closed. And I'm not used to that. I'm used to my only guaranteed day off of the year being Christmas day.

So it was weird waking up and sleeping in, not having to rush breakfast or a workout or something. So my wife... You go to Trader Joe's every now and then, right? All the time. I was there every day. So they have this maple swirl bread that they come out with. I don't know if it's a seasonal thing, but it's almost like there's a glaze around the crust of the bread. So she bought a loaf like two weeks ago just to try it. Please tell me you made French toast.

No, because it already fucking tastes like French toast, All you have to do is put it in the toaster. It's unreal. Butter it up. It's crispy on the outside and sugary crispy. And then super soft, almost like that eggy Texas toast, French toast texture. I'm getting hard. It's unreal. So we have that for breakfast. We're actually going to get another loaf for Christmas to just make fucking Christmas morning breakfast easy.

Don't got to do some big casserole or some big breakfast, just fucking maple swirl Trader Joe's bread. So good. Get some sausage to go with it or something. Get the salt and the sweet. We're thinking a little bacon. Yeah. Bacon works too. It's like I feel like maple and bacon just really works well together. Yeah. Can't go wrong. So then, you know, so that was breakfast, you know, watch a little bit of the Macy's parade with the kids.

They have a tradition now where they build a gingerbread house every Thanksgiving. Nice. So I got to get a part of that and got a nice lift in classic flex. Right. The Packers won, surprisingly. Huge surprise. Not a sports podcast, but the Packers did win. So that was neat. And then, you know, we went to the in-laws. That's the thing too. And I had three spotted cow. I had a poor Weller's and Weller's bourbon. Oh, okay.

And then I had a little bit of bourbon cream liqueur after dinner, two turkey legs. Oof. Flex was full. Flex. Love me that dark meat. But yeah, so Thanksgiving was just really, really nice and relaxing and low key. Like everything I was expecting it to be. Nice. Are you a cook? Do you ever do any cooking for Thanksgiving? That's not me. Oh, not your jam? No. I love it. I love cooking. And one thing I pride myself is being able to like do lots of things at once.

I'm always like cooking, you know, a bunch of Thanksgiving dinner. This year was actually pretty relaxing. I only had to do the tri tip. You love your tri tip, don't you? Love me some tri tip. And a couple of years ago, we were having a discussion. We're like, why are we still doing turkey? It's not that great. And I love a smoked turkey, the slow smoked, juicy, smoky, delicious. I don't have a smoker. I don't have room for a smoker.

Okay. So beyond that, we're all talking about how nobody loves turkey. So why are we still making it? I don't think there's a single person on the earth that actually loves turkey. I like a good turkey burger, whatever. Turkey lunch meat. I feel like people eat it just because it's like, hey, it's tradition. Yeah, exactly. But like turkey is not fantastic. No, it's really not. Especially when you have to cook the whole thing, takes up your entire fucking oven. It's an all day affair too.

All day affair. You got to stick stuff up its butt. You got to paste it. Turns into a sexual thing. Which may or may not be good for you at home. Depends who's watching. So anyways, a couple of years ago, we started doing tri tips. And I convinced the fan to do that again this year. Did four tri tips. I like to sous vide them, stick them in the sous vide for four and a half-ish hours. And that's the bag thing, right? Yeah. In the water, the heated water that circulates.

Yeah. So did that, did four of them. And then I always finish it on the barbecue. I get the grill just smoking hot so I can get some grill marks. Sear it up a little bit. Yeah. I love the crosshatch grill marks. Makes me feel fancy. Does it make you hard? Always, dude. Whenever I get the perfect cross on it, I'm like, "Oh, Jesus would be proud." Yeah. Started beating my meat like flex over there. Now I know why you like getting paid for it. Yeah. So did that.

Wife made a couple of sides and then I helped with a couple of things. But it was one of the most low key Thanksgivings because while it's sous vide and you don't do anything, I just drink mimosas all day. And then dinner came around. I was like, "All right, I'm switching to red wine." And just drank a bunch of wine for the rest of the day. Heck yeah, man. Wasn't too bad. So did you guys host people or what? No, I went to my mom's house. She's got the big house. So family comes over there.

Hey, Greg's mom. I mean, Flex probably knows all this already. I hear big house. You've seen it, right? I don't think so. Oh, she's come over to your house? Yeah. Oh, okay. That makes sense. She likes to stay low key. Yeah. She likes to travel. But yeah, so we did that. So it was good. Good times. Got a nice little buzz going because if you're going to see family, you got to be buzzed up. Absolutely. It's the law. Especially when other people drinking, I'm assuming, or no? Oh, for sure.

Yeah. So I mean, that just makes it that much easier to do it. Right. Yeah. You don't look like the one drunk in the corner. Yeah. It's like, oh, you look around and you're like, "You don't drink early on holidays?" What? The good thing about drinking red wine is you open a couple of bottles and if you just sneak into the kitchen and pour yourself some more, people don't really know because the same color is the other one. And great.

If I had a lager and then a hazy and then a stout, people would know I've had three beers at that point. That's actually a pretty genius idea. Right? Nobody has any fucking clue how much wine I had,

except for this guy. You know how much I had? How much? Enough. How was your morning? It was fine. I woke up early. Really? Oh, wow. Okay. So you literally had... Enough. Just the right amount. Love it. Yeah. So good times. Well, I'm glad you got to experience what everybody else has been experiencing forever. Yeah. I always used to think it was a little overrated, just because I always fucking worked it.

And now that I've had the experience for the first time in over a decade, can't wait till next Thanksgiving. I'm going to drop this fucking pipe bomb on everybody, but I'm going to say it.

Thanksgiving better than Christmas. I'm out. I don't care for Thanksgiving too much. All right. Well, get a couple under your belt. We'll talk again. It's there. Christmas. I do like Christmas, but I got kids. So the kids' excitement for Christmas really helps boost my excitement. I get it. Makes sense. I, on the other hand, I just like the food. Plus, I always feel like early drinking on Christmas just hits different than any other day. In a good way or a bad way? In a good way. Oh, okay.

It's almost like Santa wants you to do it. Yeah. If not, you're a ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas. You deserve to start early. Yeah. I like that. You know what? Maybe I'll have a different outlook on Christmas this year. And so I found this out a couple of weeks ago, and I was hiding my excitement because I'm going to save it for our holiday show. Okay. But Lakefront Brewery here in Milwaukee re-released their holiday spiced ale. And it's the first time in like 10 years.

Oh. So they stopped producing it, I think, right around when we got married. When you and I got married? Haven't seen it since. So it's this big 12.4 bomb, and it used to be a traditional Christmas morning. My family comes over to open gifts in the morning, and you crack a Lakefront overspiced lager. That sounds nice. Oh, it's great. Or ale. I'm sorry. Overspiced ale. Yeah. I'm a little sad. Both my Christmas traditions, beer wise, are gone. Well, two of the three.

One is still around, which is Celebration Ale. I had a week or two ago on the show. Yeah, last week or whatever. You know, it's always approaching Christmas season when Celebration drops. So back in the day, my two Christmas beers, Stone Choco Vesa, delicious. Now they've sold out. And they kind of don't make it anymore. I don't think they're releasing anymore either on top of selling out. And the other one being the Merry Christmas, Happy New Year from Anchor Brewing, who is no more. How sad.

Yeah. There goes my Christmas beer tradition. I'm in search of new beer traditions,

everybody. Please tweet me, but don't tweet me because I don't use Twitter that much. Isn't it weird that they say tweet on X? What else are you going to say? I just X'd you? I actually thought about that one today, and I thought, I was like, "Eh, it's kind of porny." Yeah. I just twatted you. Hey, there we go. That'll work. It's a little different. All right. Well, speaking of Thanksgiving, we got some Thanksgiving fun facts when it comes to booze.

Alcohol consumption across the US on Thanksgiving, the top five states with the highest alcohol consumption on Thanksgiving day. And I was surprised to learn that Wisconsin was not on this list.

That is shocking. That is shocking. So coming in at number five, Ohio at 38%. Number four, Tejas, 41%. Number three, Missouri, 44%. Tied for number two, New York and California, what, what, 46%. Number one state with the highest alcohol consumption rate on Thanksgiving. Any guesses? Not Alabama. Not Alabama. It's a little bit cooler than Alabama. Ooh, I don't know. Fucking Florida? I don't know. It is your neighbor, Illinois. Illinois. What up?

So the big thing with Wisconsin, I thought it was like a nationwide thing, right? Like the biggest drinking night of the year is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving? Yeah. So I think everybody just goes for broke on Wednesday here and Thursday. Too hungover on Thursday. Yes. Thursday is just like, got to get yourself back together before you see the family kind of thing. Not like a welcome back buzz before you see the family? Correct. Oh, that's too bad. I need that buzz before I see the family.

And then breakdown of alcohol consumption by age group on Thanksgiving. Number five, accounting for 9% of alcohol consumption is the 18 to 24 year olds.

That makes sense. I don't know why they're tracking anything below 21. Number four at 11%, right? 11% of the consumption. That's a great point. Yeah. Is the 65 and older crowd, the geriatrics over here. Number three, is tied for 18% of the consumption, 35 to 44 and also 45 to 54. They could just said 35 to 54 and put it all in one group. Anyways, 18% of the consumption. There, that's me. Number two and you. Yeah. It's all the good people. Number two, the 55 to 64 year olds, 19%.

The number one group of alcohol consumers on Thanksgiving, 24% of all the consumption, basically a quarter, 25 to 34 year olds. You whippersnappers. I just missed it. By that much. Me too. Almost made it. I feel like that makes sense. That was my prime drinking was 24, 25. I shouldn't say prime drinking. I should say prime going out to drink. Prime getting drunk. Correct. Yeah. That's when hangovers didn't exist. Oh, they existed, but you just didn't give a shit about them.

Yeah. Mine, I had them here and there ever so sparingly,

but mine didn't really kick in till my early thirties, 32, 33, a switch flipped and all of a sudden I was like, "Hey, bud, you like hangovers? Because you're going to fucking have them." Oh, geez. They're just so bad. I've suffered from them pretty much my entire life. Yeah. Hard pass on those. Those are not fun to... Well, I don't want them. It just... Yeah. You don't? No. It just happens. Yeah. It's unfortunate. Usually lots of mass amounts of vomit. That's neither here nor there.

Yeah. Though I will say when you throw up from being hammered, like if it's still the night of, feel infinitely better the next day. Sure. I've never been hungover after throwing up.

Really? Yeah. I feel like you have not drank enough. That's what it sounds like to me. Here's the thing. If I get hammered and puke the night of while I'm still drinking, next morning is usually a breeze. If I get hammered, wake up the next morning and puke, I'm puking all day. My body is like, "We have expelled the poisons." One of the worst drinking nights of my life.

I think I was 22. And my best friend was in town from college and his grandparents lived three streets down from me. He's like, "Hey, after all the family Christmas shit, come over. My grandpa has this whole spread in the garage." And he did. He had two six-foot tables in the garage just lined with bottles, not to mention the beer fridge that was stocked with, you guessed it, beer. What? Beer it is? I went over there. Literally, it was just us two in the garage.

People would come in every now and then and make drinks. But we found every bottle that was, say, maybe a quarter left in it. And we're talking anything from wine to vodka to mint liqueur to limoncello. I'm telling you, we fucking raided everything. And we ended up finishing something stupid, like 13 bottles. And it was not good. Let me just tell you. Doesn't sound like it. It was not good. My college friend was well-prepped, so he took it like a champ. Yeah, as they do. Yeah, the stay-home kid?

No way. Not so much. No. Let's just say the side of grandpa's garage got painted a little bit. Oh, man. I was about to ask you to volunteer some hours. I was outside. Let's see poor thing. Yeah, let's go to John's Pringles. It rains there. It's fine. It's not like here. And I think he had to drive me home in my own car, I believe, too, which was a pretty frequent happening when I was younger. We'd keep it classy. Yeah. Now I think I finally know my limit. Not that much?

Yeah. It only took like 17 years. Yeah, whatever. It's part of the educational process. Exactly. Learn from your mistakes. Yeah, that's why we call it research. Tell you what, though. I had a butt ton of fun, and that's what really matters. Exactly. Get it while you can. All right, before we find out what you're drinking, I was going to say this for later, and I thought, let's do it now.

Chew, surprise, surprise, left us a voicemail, but it's a little recap of Pozole Palooza. So before I give you my take, here it is straight from the Chew's mouth. Hello, no one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone. What in the crap, every public should you be here with a quick little recap of Pozole Palooza 2023? It's Monday evening. My legs are not under me yet. They still feel like jello. I'm like 95% back to normal. Thank you, Shannon.

Thank you, Greg, Nick and Coley for pulling up. Amazing event evening. Lots of beer was consumed along with Pozole. Thank you for everybody that came. A Winnie Brewery, the Crappy Republic crew, one of the Boozleague slash Beer Life people, friends and family. Some just crazy event to the people that didn't make it and called me and apologized. Hey, guys, it's OK. It's cool. I'm kind of glad. Not glad. Let's just say we just had too much damn beer, homies. A lot of beer was consumed.

If you saw my Instagram, my beer graveyard went on forever. That wasn't even all of it. I didn't get to record the other tables, but thank you to everybody that brought beers. Thank you, everybody who took Pozole like that. I still have a lot of Pozole left, so I'll be giving it to the neighbors. So last year, Pozole Palooza was in December. This year was in November. So now we're thinking of pushing it to like late September, homie.

So like that, you got Pozole Palooza, Oktoberfest, Halloween, Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving. You got Friendsmas Festivus for the best of us and Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's, homie. What a way to start those major, major, major holidays with the start of Pozole Palooza. So put that in your calendar, late September, and we'll make this shit happen. And I think from now on, it might have to be RSVP. I had to sell tickets to help me pay for the fucking Pozole. It's taxing on my wallet, homie.

But thank you to everybody. Greg, thank you for being a great friend and pulling out, homie. I think you and I probably were the most soberest, drunkest people there. I think you and I can actually hide how drunk we are. I knew you were drunk, homie. Your lip was a little crooked and my legs were fucking swollen. But you know, everybody else, we knew they were fucking drunk because they were fucking slurring. It looked like it was just me and Greg and a bunch of fucking lurches everywhere.

Anyways, thank you. Thanks, everyone, for being at Pozole Palooza. Let's make this shit happen. Greg, if you got some stuff to add to this voicemail, go ahead, homie. Like I said, you're a true, true friend. Thank you for pulling up twice. Hopefully you are the one that will be there consecutive, homie. All right. This is Chew Your Beer, Pozole Palooza, 2020, through your recap. And if you're not at Pozole Palooza, you're a loser. I'm out, peace out, eh. Oh, a bunch of fucking lurches.

Coming from the king loser here. If it's your highness. If it's such a harsh on his wallet, don't just give it to the neighbors. Make those fuckers pay for that Palooza. Yeah, five bucks, man. Jeez. You're right. Come on. You're wrong there. Yeah. Get your money. Yeah, honestly, Chew, if you want to sell, I wouldn't mind pitching in a few bucks. I don't mean to make you go broke on the Pozoles. And also, huge shout out to Chew's mom, who does all the fucking Pozole work. She's the Pozole queen.

So thank you,

mama Chew, for all the Pozoles. But yeah, he's not wrong about the whole everyone being hammered. I appreciate that he thought I was hiding it pretty well, but I wasn't driving that. Coley was driving us, so I strapped one on. I think my favorite part of the night was we got a group photo. And if you look, Nick's yawning. He's mid-yawn in the photo. I was like, well, that- Surprise, he wasn't just sleeping. Right. Standing up, sleeping.

I was like, that sums up Nick in a fucking photo if nothing else does. So that was great. Yeah. Such a good night. The Pozole was fucking fire as always. Did you bring the Tupperware back? No, I haven't. Well, last year, we brought our own Tupperware. Oh, that's what it was. You brought your own. Okay. Yeah. So I didn't owe him any from last year, but this year, we didn't bring any, and his wife, Gloria, hooked us up with some Tupperware. We were about to walk in the door. She goes,

"Here you go." And she just hands us a giant fucking bowl with the lid on over it. A vat of Tupperware. A vat of Pozole. Yeah. It was so good. I had that for breakfast for a couple of mornings, which I know he's going to throw up at. I love Pozole for breakfast. But yeah, got to hang out with Derek and Brian for me. Went to a brewing, some friends. Marv was there, Viv, and a bunch of other friends over there. Mike from the Taproom podcast was supposed to be there.

He ended up not making it, which was too bad. So Chu wants to push it to September. Here's my one thing,

Chu. It's not Pozole weather in September. It's still hot here. I love when it cools down, we can have that chilly night in our hot Pozole. It's my only thing. Take it as you will. As the host and creator of Pozole Palooza, you do you, but good times either way. Sounds great. Yeah. Miniflex made his appearance. As I do now. Yeah, apt to do. So Miniflex needs to be reprinted. Starting to get a little wet and ink smeared. A little wear and tear.

Yeah. It really started at JABF and it's starting to continue a little bit. Well, not now because it's ruined. It's like breaking a streak, right? It's true. Now it's a little messed up. So yeah, we'll just mess it up a little more. It's fine. It's like one of those jerseys, like, "I'm not going to wash this jersey. It's good luck." It's like, "I'm not going to reprint Miniflex. It's good luck." I don't want to...

Little does everybody know, you just have a file cabinet full of reprinted Miniflexes ready to go. Have you seen it? Great my wife's going to the filing cabinets like hey stay on the top cabinet. She's the one with why he for the lock [Both laughing] why do you keep going into the top drawer there on the filing cabinet? Multiple times a day. I don't understand. Aw, that makes me so happy. Mini flex. Mini flex, shit.

All right, let's, speaking of mini flex, let's find out what big flex is drinking over there. In a world where craft beer is key.

At least it's a fast one. In a world where muscles are bigger than growlers. Like she said. Only one tongue can guide us. One man. One tongue. One Tongue Jobber. In this world, we must find out what is flex drinking. So today, I'm drinking, there's a little Black Friday release at Eagle Park. And it was my wife's idea to go. She was out shopping all morning. And she knew I was at home with the kids taking care of some stuff.

And she was like, "Hey, do you want to go out for lunch?" I said, "Yeah, I can go out for lunch." She goes, "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know." Goes, "Well, I don't know." "I know." "What if we just, what if we go to like, like Eagle Park?" And the kids, the kids were like, "Yeah!" Yeah, those kids love hazy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they really do. And I, you know, I try and not make everything about myself. So I was just, you know, I was like, yeah, I mean, the kids want to go.

I'll go like totally played it off. Right. Yeah. So smooth. Meanwhile, I'm like, yeah, this is, you know, like a lover to death. So meanwhile, you're fucking mid boner. All I'm thinking about is what am, what am I going to order basically? So I actually got the, it's a milkshake IPA. It's from their demo track series, which it's all like small batch experimental brews that they put out to get almost feedback on.

And then if something, you sent me one of those a while back, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right. And if they really hit with the audience and they'll turn it into like a annual or even a flagship and it's really cool. So this one is milkshake IPA. That's all it's called. Um, it is with cashmere and mosaic hops and then aged on, I'm going to butcher this Papa new Guinea. Is it Papua or is it Papa? I mean, if it's like the country, it's Papa new Guinea.

Yeah. Okay. So Papa new Guinea vanilla beans. Okay. I thought it was Papa. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but there's no, no lactose in this, which a lot of milkshake IPAs you will find lactose, dude, this is maybe the smoothest milkshake IPA I've ever had. Oh. And I don't know if it's because of like the cashmere hops too, cause it's such a sexy, silky flavorful hop. But these vanilla beans are top notch and this thing is 8.4% ABV and it drinks like, like a 5% or like filled with lactose. It's brilliant.

So I want to know what makes it a milkshake if there's no lactose in it. I think being conditioned or aged on the vanilla beans. Oh, otherwise, I don't know. But yeah, the ingredient labels has does not have lactose on there. Okay. So I'm going to continue to say that it is not containing lactose. And I think I was the first and only person to rank this on or rate this on untapped because I went on to, Hey, look out. Yeah. I went on to do it to see, you know, read up on it and whatnot.

And yeah, I'm, I'm, now there's five people. Oh, well you're the trendsetter here. Yeah. That's what I like to hear. But I gave it a four to five. I think it's a really great, really well done. It's not, you know, too sweet. Sometimes you get those where like the vanilla really stands out and it's very lactosey and I mean, I went through two four packs of this pretty quickly. So nice. Mind you that I got, I got hooked up again, so I can't, I just can't even with this place.

They're way too fucking good to me. So good. So good. A little, little peek behind the curtain over here. Whenever you're telling me like what you're drinking, I'll Google it so I can grab the picture of it and use it for our, our podcast art every week, you know? Yeah. So I Googled it and I didn't find the exact one you're drinking. So I shortened my Google search to Eagle Park demo track and four rows down on Google images is a shot of you shirtless

in the snow with their demo track triple West coast IPA. Oh my God, that's hilarious. You're Google famous. Oh shoot. Oh my gosh. Can I get your autograph? Yeah. I mean here's the can and they switched to black cans like two years ago. Oh, okay. So they redid the artwork on it. Um, the cassette tape is just classic for anybody that actually still knows what a cassette tape was. Oh yeah, exactly. I got Aerosmith pump for Christmas when I was like nine. Nice. On cassette. Nice. Never forget.

Anybody knows what that is? You are as old as we are basically. Yeah. Hey, I love Aerosmith. I've seen him multiple times in concert. Good show. Boom boxes and shit. JVC. Well, nice. All right. Let's get a little news in before we wrap things up. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago,

AB and the Teamsters were fighting it out over a health plan and it looked like maybe beer was not going to be delivered. Good news, all you shit beer drinkers. They've reached an agreement. It looks like they'll be delivering Budweiser throughout the years. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Sapporo has started the sale process of Anchor Brewing,

which I thought it was weird that it took them this long. Yeah. I'm confused. Yeah. Anchor parent company Sapporo has retained Hilco Corporate Finance for the sale of the brewery and its assets. Hilco sent an email to potential buyers detailing the acquisition opportunity and requesting a non-binding indication of interest. It all needed to be submitted by November 17th.

They're considering offers for all of Anchor's assets, including intellectual property, real estate, and brewing equipment, allowing for a status quo relaunch of operations, as well as the sale of any individual asset or group of assets. So in theory, the union that's trying to buy Anchor back could just buy it and then here they go. They're back to business. Or somebody could come in and be like, "Hey, we want to buy the rights to whatever." Right.

"We want to wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, but nothing else." Or they could piecemeal it, whatever they want to do. So they have more than a dozen active trademarks, including other logos and labels, two San Francisco properties. Property in San Francisco is not cheap. Nope. Production equipment capable of producing up to 1.9 million cases of beer annually, including their unique German source copper brewing equipment, so much more.

So we'll see what happens with the union trying to buy it up. Weren't they asking way more than the union could afford anyway? Well, I mean, I think $2 million is way more than the union could afford there. The union did take to the internet to try and raise some money. They've raised over $100,000, but I don't think... Here's the thing, I don't think Sapporo has released a total, "You want to buy everything, it'll cost you this many millions of dollars," number yet. So this is the first step.

We'll see what happens. Some of them does hope that the union gets it, because it'd be cool to keep- They're underdogs. You got to respect the little guy. Right. And we get that Merry Christmas, Happy New Year beer back again, and they'd be craft again. We'll see what happens. We'll see. If anybody's going to buy it, that'd be kind of a nice thing to end up happening. So we'll see. We should have interim Brian on for this one.

Treehouse Brewing has a shareholder who's suing the co-owners for misuse of company funds,

lack of shareholder transparency, and more. All you Hayes bros out there, get ready to cry a little. A shareholder of the Massachusetts-based Treehouse Brewing has filed a lawsuit against its co-owners, Nate Lanier and Damien... Oh God. Goodrew. Sure. Sure. Claiming they have misused company funds, neglected to offer shareholder dividends, and withheld tax documentation.

I could go on and keep reading this, but basically they set up some corporations and LLCs under other names and funneled some money is what they're being accused of. So basically they're keeping funds from some shareholders is what this guy is accusing them of. Interesting. Yeah. I didn't know they were that big of a company to be able to pull that kind of shit. I mean, think about how much money they make every fucking day with just people traveling there to buy beer.

All the fucking beer Sherpas that show up just to get pallet full to sell on the black market. Just for the hauls. I mean, they had enough money to fucking build their own golf course for God's sake. There you go. Remember a couple of weeks ago we were talking about Tsingtao and the guy peeing in the tank?

Yeah. So apparently since then, imports to Korea alone have dropped more than 40% from China because of this video. The plummeting beer imports of Korea from China are expected to hit the brand the worst since it's directly related to the video, but it's imports in general, not just Tsingtao. Apparently they're just not importing Chinese things now. Maybe because they think they're peeing in everything. Yeah. Made in China. Nah, it's pissed on. Yeah. Pissed on in China. Got it.

Has anybody had any Tsingtao since this came out? I'd love to know. Please let us know. I think the last time I had a Tsingtao was a year ago. Man, I can't remember. I'm sure it was at a sushi bar, but I couldn't tell you how long ago it was. It'd be the only time I would drink it. Sapporo at sushi restaurants. I had a Tsingtao at a, there's like this China Lights Festival. They do it every year over by us. It's like this big fun thing. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Tsingtao. Sounds like a... Cheers!

Tsingtao! Is that what it means? I have no idea. Wow. That'd be cool if we knew. Yeah. Anybody out there? It would almost make us be like smart. God, what if that... I kind of want to look it up. Wisconsin has an alcohol law reform that it's headed to the governor's office for a signature.

The Wisconsin Senate signed off on legislation overhauling the Badger State's alcoholic beverage laws among the alcohol reforms, including the legislation, where the creation of the division of alcohol beverages, a new division of the Department of Revenue, to oversee enforcement of state laws regarding breweries, wineries, distilleries, retailers, and wholesalers. The legislation also allows brewers to operate retail outlets to sell beer without tap rooms and expanded hours for wineries.

So breweries can more easily have like a second location. Yeah. I think I heard something about that, like, God, maybe it was two weeks ago. Yeah. But I heard... Yeah, I definitely heard something about this. Yeah. I guess on the downside, the amendment would also require wedding... They call them wedding barns. I've never heard this term before. Wedding barns... That's a Wisconsin thing at least. Okay. I know. Yes. All right.

So wedding barns and venues that sell or offer alcoholic beverages would have to obtain a permit or alcohol license to operate. Wedding barns became big because of... What's that dumb fucking social media page? Pinterest. Pinterest. I hate Pinterest. Yeah. So then everybody wanted to have these rustic weddings and what's more rustic, Greg, than getting married inside of a completely refurbished barn. Where there's nothing rustic about it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

You could get married in a pig pen and start rolling around some shit. I'm down. I've seen John Candy mud wrestle in stripes and I've kind of been wanting to do it since.

You and me, buddy. Let's do it. Let's mud wrestle. Or my McIntyre kilt. Okay. I'm just going to be shirtless. Oh, I'm in. You know I'll be there then. This tangent did pretty hard. All right. We'll end it with this. Hopefully it'll make you mad. The best 20 beers in 2023.

Top five are Treehouse. Probably. This is according to the editors of Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine. There's no number. I don't know if it starts at the top or the bottom of the list, but top 20 beers of 2023 according to these yahoos. Arizona Wilderness Jitterbug Perfume. Never heard of it. Same. Finback does good stuff. Yeah. I've heard of maybe had them through Tabor. I don't know. Tabor. Templin Family Granary Keller Beer. Got to sell. They don't do beer there. No. Well, they do.

It's just NA. It's got to be like under a half percent or you can't sell it in a store. Right, Steph? Okay. New Image 9505. That's out of Colorado. Weathered Souls Good Mon and Mon. Oh, I got it. Good Mon and Mon. That was good. All right. I'm a little slow today. Took a little bit. Yep. BKS Pivo Project Bohemian Style Pilsner. Keeping Together Thoughts Without a Thinker. Wow. That's a lot one. Fathead's Headhunter. I've had some fathead.

I've not had Headhunter. Cross Strains Fairy Nectar Double Dry Hop out of Nebraska. 12 West's Radial Spines out of Arizona. Finally, a brewery I've heard of. Southern Grist Gin Barrel Age Perpetual Composition. That can't be great. I hate gin. I love gin, but I couldn't imagine drinking something that was aged in gin barrels. Hard pass. KCBC's Welcome to the Underworld. False Idol's Ralphie Runs Wild. Bartlett Hall's Powell Street Porter. Wise Man's Living a Double Life.

KC Beer Light out of Kansas City. Come on. Two Roads Non-Alcoholic Juicy IPA. Come on. Come on. Now I'm angry. Ghost Town Nose Goblin. Incendiary Schwartz Beer. I can't believe there's still more on this list. That's making me upset. Yeah, let me tell you. I'm tired of reading. I think this is the last one. Benchtop's Old Wooden Ship out of Virginia. Oh, thank fuck. That's the last one. There's no way those are the 20 best beers. Other than two breweries in there, I've heard of none of them.

This feels like one of those dick measuring contests where it's like, let's find a bunch of breweries no one's ever heard of and make it sound like we know what we're talking about. I think you're onto something. Yeah. Fuck off craftbeer.com. For all we know, they could all be really good beers. Yeah. Well, fucking hard pass on the NA beer. Oh, how does that make the list? Yeah. Non-alcoholic, juicy IPA. You know what that is? Not a beer.

I could think of probably 30 IPAs that have alcohol in it that are better than that. Only 30? Well, I was just being kind off the top of my head. How about every IPA that has alcohol in it? Every IPA that has... You're right. You're right. Shame on me. I made a really, really bad home brewed IPA once, but you know what? Had alcohol in it. Better than any NA I've heard of. Yeah, exactly. So that shit should make the list. Fuck off with your NA beers on a beer list. That's terrible.

Sounds like they were a pay date included or something. Probably like, "Hey, give us 50 bucks and we'll say your beer is one of the top 20 best." Goddamn, if it's only 50 bucks, be like, "Hey, here's 50 bucks. Hey, this is the best beer podcast around." It might be. I think it is. 50 bucks would tell me it is. I'll give you $50. Okay. And now we awkwardly transition to the end of the show. All right. I'm gonna hit some music. I'm gonna say hi to Vanessa.

Hi, Vanessa. And I'm gonna say make sure you follow us on the socials @flexmebeer_ in between.

Those of course, Craft Beer Republic. Send us an email, mail at craftbeerpublic.com or voicemail 805-538-beer2337. I do believe that is everything. I hope everyone is staying very well hydrated. And on that note, goodnight everybody!