Keep Your Free Beer to Yourself

Craig and Flex. Idiots. They are. Such truth. You speak.

Welcome in, everybody. It's the Craft Beer Republic. Thanks for drinking. Thanks for joining. I am Greg, and I am being joined, by the way, the light and the force, and that is Flex. What's up, big fella? It's me. It's me.

Flex. Would have been really nice if you turned that into a ddp. It's me. It's me. It's ddp. Too bad it's not a wrestling show. It is not. So we'll. We'll move on from that. Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Like I said, follow us on the socials at Craft Beer Republic and at Flex. Me a beer underscore in between. Exactly. That was my in between sound. Oh, that. Oh, okay. Nice sound effects. Thanks. Kind of turns me on. Lots to get to today. I am drinking a beer from a friend.

I'll talk about that. Hey, me too. Oh, what do you know? Super weird. Oh, same friend. Probably not. Definitely not. Definitely not. Did some brunching adventures, some booze news, all that. Let's. Let's get right into it. I am thirsty as f I get my beer going over here. I do indeed. Me too. Thanks to Not Murderer John. What a great guy. What a great guy. And look at me. Still. Still alive. I am drinking. Treehouse Brewing.

Little Machine. Wowza. Yeah, he didn't around with this one. He's gonna level up from Not Murderer John to Good Friend John. Exactly. He's working his way up there. Five and a half. It's a pale ale. Five and a half percent. Six IBUs has a 413 on untapped with over 6,300 ratings. That's not surprising. Yeah. They say warm summer days on the brew deck had us thinking about the type of beer we'd like to enjoy after a long day in the brewery.

And to that end, we are most pleased to offer Little Machine a sessional rendition of Juice Machine. It pours a beautiful dark yellow color in the glass and carries notes of pineapple flesh, ripe citrus, candied tropical fruits, and grapefruit balanced by soft and thirst quenching bitterness. Throw this little guy into your cooler, find your happy place and enjoy. Why do they put citrus and grapefruit in the same. It's kind of the same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

It has citrus, grapefruit, and orange. Tell me, does it? Wow. Wow. All right. The schnoz is exactly as advertised. Candied fruits, citrus and grapefruit. Nailed it. I'm definitely getting the pineapple. Pineapple's coming in strong. Let Me stick in the old jobber up tongue. Please do. Oh, this is like fruit fucking salad. Man, the look on your face. Oh, so good. I wasn't. You know, sometimes pale ales can fall a little short.

Even though I love pale ales, if not done right, they can be a little flat on the flavor. This is delicious. And can you see. I took one sip. Can you see the lacing? First of all, I can't even believe that's a pale ale the way it looks. Yeah, it's hazy AF a little bit. Of head left down there. That lacing already. Holy smokes. I'm watching. I'm just. Yeah, I'm watching it as we speak. I wish people could see what's happening to this class. This lacing is fucking gorgeous.

Borderline pornographic. I say so myself. Sweet can art, little robot guy. Yeah, I mean, they do great stuff every. All around the can art. The taste of the beer is phenomenal. I've had a few of those. My, not the little machine. I've had a few treehouse beers myself. Not as many as I'd hoped, but also. Same. Yeah, it's amazing. And also the prices for those beers are, from what I've heard, like, have stayed pretty stagnant since they opened. And they only sell single, like by the can.

They don't do like four packs or anything. Oh, okay. So when you buy beer to go, it's like this huge border thing and you could just build your own case with however many beers of whatever they have. Yeah. John was saying it was a mix pack. It was just like, here's a giant case of beers for you to buy. Right. This happened to be in, like. He didn't pick it out, per se. It was. Oh, he didn't. Okay, Okay. I don't know if that was an option. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

But this is the one he walked away with. And he goes, I know you like pails, so I brought you the pails. Like, dude, what a fucking great not murdering guy you are. Hell yeah, dude. Brings you a pail and doesn't murder you. Yeah, let's start paying them at some point. That's a great guy in my book. True friendship right there. So tell you what, even if somebody brought me a pail and tried to. Kill me, you'd understand, still might be my friend. Like. Right.

You know, as long as they didn't succeed. Jury's out on this one, right? Yeah. We can talk. We'll talk about it. If it was good, maybe you got. Some shit going On. But you brought me a pail. We tight? Yeah, we good. We need some garbage ass pail like made west. Maybe you'll try to murder him. Who knows, Right? Exactly. So anyway, so thanks to John. In fact, we met up the other day. He goes, hey, I want to be in your area. Can we meet up, drop you off this beer?

I said, oh, do you want to meet up and give me beer? Okay. Right. Dumb question, right? Yeah. Pope shit in the woods. We met up at Anagrin.

Never a bad time. Had myself a Nighthawk and Jared beer. Talked about his trip a little bit. You drink a Nighthawk? That's crazy. Who would have thought that was coming? So, talked about his trip out to the east coast where he picked up said tree house and he was out there for some hockey stuff. One of his kids is a, you know, place traveling, hockey and all that stuff. So maybe one day we'll find him on the ads. You never know. Hey, I'd go watch him. I would too. I don't even know who he is.

I don't even watch hockey. Apparently Dan would go watch him too. But if random trips not murderer. John's not murderer. Son was a hockey player in my hometown. Yeah, I'd not murder or watch him. Exactly. Just assuming he's also, you know, not falling far from the tree and not a murderer. That's what. That's my assumption. Right? Is like if his dad's non murderer John, maybe he's got to be not murderer son. Right? Junior, whatever his name is. Yeah, right. Exactly. So shout out to John.

Thanks for. For. Thanks for the hookup and the beer. He bought me a beer. And Inegrin, such a nice guy and still didn't kill me. That's a top notch hookup by the way too. Yeah. Tree house. Good lord. I feel like I owe him a blowjob for this or something. Well, your nickname is not. Not blowjob, Greg. So, going to live up. Yeah, There's a price to pay. Hey, Million Dollar man said it best. Everyone's got a price. Yeah, except it's not a wrestling show. Not a wrestling show.

Shout out. By the way, Sacramento, our top listening city of last week. Who knew? Sacramento, California. You know they have sports teams.

Do you know there? I was going to talk a lot of shit. I can't stand Sacramento. I find it so boring. I mean, look, Erica's up in that area. Not in Sacramento proper, but she's in the hood and it's always a great time hanging out with Erica and McDreamy and Shredbeer. Is up there. And there's. There's some good aspects of Sacramento, but, boy, as a city, is it not my favorite place to be. It just seems like, like, if you. Anybody I've ever known has gone to California, I've never heard of.

Me. Like, man, I can't wait to go to Sacramento. Right? You know, like, you kind of always forget it's even a thing. Yeah, it's like you never even remember it's there until you're like, oh, my basketball team is playing the. Where are the Kings from? Sacramento. What? And here's the funny thing. They're one of the few teams in California that actually play in the city in which they're named after. Good for them. Yeah, like, the Niners don't play anywhere near San Francisco anymore.

So. Yeah, it's. Was it the Angels? I don't know what city the Angels claim to be from nowadays, but it's not Anaheim, which is exactly where they're from. Are they still Los Angeles Angels? I think so. I think they're just like the Angels. I think they're trying to drop all of it all together. I don't even know. We play from heaven. We play for Jesus. They made a movie about us, right? And they're flapping their wings and everything. So anyways, High Sacramento. Sorry for talking shit.

As soon as we. Oh, I forgot we were. They were the listening. Yeah, sorry. They were not like, we don't ever do that to anybody else. Oh, shucks. We dumb. You know how sometimes we hang out with Deb and Brian and we. Bro. Yeah, yeah. I know how you guys do that sometimes. Sometimes take second place in trivia and you brag about it. Yeah. Oh, in fact, the girls. I was working. I was at a town and Brian was busy with some work stuff. The girls went out and played trivia.

It was just Deb, Shannon, and Nicole. They fucking beat everybody. They won. I love it. Yeah. The guys aren't around, they fucking kill it.

This is my favorite story of the year. Good night, everybody. We did some brunching with Dab and Brian and Nicole as well. Coley came over here.

I was like, hey, let's save the money. Let's eat here. Come on over. We got tons of champs. Went to Costco. The big ass Magnum bottles. We bought four of those. Magnum what? Bottles of champs. Oh, okay, okay. I don't. Wrap it up. I don't know. Raw dog, baby. So we go hard on a few bottles of champs. And then, as usually happens, Brian's like, hey, you Got any good beers in the fridge? And like, duh. So we start cracking some brewskis and sharing them and trying them and all that stuff.

By I think they left around like 4 or 5 o'clock by then. Greggy no remember, like, I don't remember them leaving. No, I do remember Coley leaving, which is only about 20 minutes before they left, but I don't remember them. Like, it just fucking switched, man. You know, it's been ages since that has happened to me. Yeah, me too. Well, then it gets even more amateur hour. They leave and the wife asked me something like, hey, do you want something to eat? I forget what she is.

Or do you want to watch some. That's what it is. She goes, hey, do you want to watch something? Like in one of our shows? Or whatever? And I was like, hold on. Immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. No, just heaved it all came back. Slept on the couch for like two and a half hours and then woke up fresh as a fucking daisy. Felt fantastic. And then, like, went to bed that night, Woke up the next morning feeling great. No need for Dr. Pepper. No need for Dr. Pepper. Felt like a champ.

On the other hand, I heard from Brian that he was not doing well. He felt like shit the entire day. I was like, see, sometimes puking is good. Puking is good. Yeah, when you're drunk, right? Expel the toxins and ooh, man, we hit it hard. Like, it hit me all. It's the champs. Sometimes that doesn't even sound like brunching to me. That just sounds like binging. Straight up day binging. But then you add bacon. Ah. That's the key. That's the key to make it brunch. Here's my question.

You brunch up, what's your, like, your go to brunch meal? Well, most of brunch spots, like if we're going out to brunch, like around here, will go to the places that have the all you can drink mimosas. And they always have like a brunch buffet. Oh, okay. Now, most of them will always have, like an omelet bar. Love me a good omelet, you know. And then after that, it's like, here's your buffet of, you know, bacon and sausage and all these other breakfast items.

Okay. If we're going to a restaurant, restaurant, like the wife, no matter where we are, always orders eggs Benny I do love. So that's what I like. I feel like eggs Benedict are. It's like a perfect brunch meal. Yeah, right. Cause it's the perfect crossover between breakfast and lunch. And here's the other thing. I think it's the Helles lager of restaurants. You know, when we try a new brewery, we always get the helles to see if they know what they're doing. When it comes to brewing.

To me, Eggs Benedict is really that line in the sand of, can you cook or not? Because I find making Hollandaise so fucking easy. And people talk about, oh, it's so hard. It is not hard. It's easy. You just need to know what you're doing. And if your Hollandaise is garbage, I'm not coming back. I guess I've never. I don't know how to tell a bad Hollandaise sauce there. It tastes good or it doesn't. I've never. Sometimes it's too. I've never had a bad Benedict. So I. Good, good. I have.

It's like, what is. Or the worst. Oh, the biggest foul is when they do something different. Like they have their own take on an eggs Benedict. It's like, oh, we've put cheese sauce. It's like, that's not Eggs Benedict, motherfucker. That's like Nacho Egg McMuffin. Like, nobody wants this. I will argue this. I had, like, a braised beef short rib Benedict once, okay. And it was phenomenal. Here's the thing. If on the menu, it was a. Fall seasonal item, and it was phenomenal, by the way.

Braised short rib is like, my fucking thing right now. If it says on the menu, I. Just cut up a bunch today, I just want to let you know that I cut me. I wish you could ship me some, like, delicious meats to cook. Can only do. Yeah, we can only do, like, the smoke stuff. Too bad. I need. I need some short rib. Anyways. I. If you. If you're upfront with it, like, hey, this is not a Hollandaise. Like, say it on the menu. This is a fucking cheese sauce. Like, this is not a hazy ipa, right?

It's juicy. It is a juicy ipa. Yeah. This is a juicy Benedict then. Okay. But if you just say eggs Benny or classic Eggs Benedict, you know, and. You come out with this cheesy Benedict. Pure juice, sir. I'm going to be angry if it's a juicy Benedict. Just saying. Maybe she'll. Yeah. So anyways, why did I get. Oh, brunch. So, yeah, brunch happened, and then I puked and passed out. It was fantastic. Monday was. I'm proud of you for hitting it so hard still. Me too. You Know, it's funny.

The night before that, we went. Oh, here we go. Greg's classy. We went to another wine pickup party the night before.

God dang it. We invited Coley and Big Dick. Nick and BDN hit it real fucking hard because they were not cutting us off at all at the wine tasting. And we all got back to our house, and he went to the bathroom and puked it up in our bathroom. And then the next morning, there. There I was letting brunch go, man. It's like a. Like a domino effect. Yeah, that bathroom saw a lot of action last week. You, Brian, Just everybody fallen one by one. So I actually. I thought of you. Oh. Naked. Think of.

Think. Think of you. Either way past town. So, do you know the franchise restaurant Cooper's Hawk? I do not. Oh, well, it's like winery restaurant around here.

Pretty sure it's a franchise. I don't know. You could Google it. Well, it's around my parts, and they're building a Cooper's Hawk restaurant winery about a mile and a half down the road from me. Oh, okay. And I thought to myself, maybe I'll get a wine membership so I can be as classy as Greg. Or not as classy, because I can never outclass Greg. Sure. Maybe I can get to, like, step one. Classy. Yeah, you can work your way there. Yeah. Like, still an amateur. Just like, you know, snob in training.

Your pinky's only half up. I think my pinky is just, like, grown. I don't even think it's up yet. Like, it's like I just grew a pinky. It's like a half chub pinky. Man, that's gross. So apparently, west of Wisconsin, there are some in Arizona. And that's it. Okay. I just assume anything's like, a chain. Yeah. Oh, and there's some in Missouri, which. Is technically everywhere, which is still technically considered Midwest, which, Yeah, I guess. Not in California, though. Never heard of it before.

Okay. I don't know. It's wine. You know, it's wine and. Okay. Food. Yeah. Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant. Told you. Yeah, I wasn't even lying. No free plug. Hope you guys enjoy that. Well, no, no, not a. Well, maybe. Maybe people here know what it is. Yeah. Is it, like, a nice place to go, like, if you're going out for dinner? It's a nicer place for sure. A little more upscale. Yeah. Better than Chili's. I would say it's like three times a Chili's. You know, once. Twice.

Three times a Chili's Serenations by. There's. There's no southwest of the border menu at Cooper's Hawk. And no dollar margaritas and free chips and salsa. No sizzling fajitas. You hear your meal coming? Everything you order does not come with corn on the cob, dude. We recently had to go see some of the wife's family and her mom took us out to dinner and we went to this place where. I shit you, not every item on the menu, even the fish, the side was some form of mashed

potato. Welcome to Wisconsin. I was like, can I get a fucking vegetable, please? I was hoping you were going to say you went to a restaurant called Coolies and it was just a knockoff of Chili's. I'd actually enjoy that. But this place was insane. I shit you, not every meal. I don't want mashed potatoes with my fish. That seems kind of weird. I want mashed potatoes with my mashed potato potatoes. One time we went to Mexico and we stayed at an all inclusive resort. And I was so afraid of the food.

All I did was dip my French fries in mashed potatoes. I love potatoes and just water. You have to be potatoes in every form. I want all the potatoes. Apparently, if there was like a flight that had different variations of mashed potatoes,

that would probably be my dream flight. Dude, this place could have done it for you. Take a back seat. I'm gonna get the mashed potato flight. Daddy's got some work to do. Daddy got some. A mashed potato. Scarfing this place. Love mashed potato. I just needed to be out there. So you think they're okay? It's one of probably. It's my favorite food. Wow. Like, we can go past pizza. I would put mashed potatoes on pizza.

I once made a pulled pork sandwich, and on top of the pulled pork I put mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes with barbecue sauce. Mashed potatoes with ketchup. Mashed potatoes with A1 sauce. Okay. Cheese in your mashed potatoes. Throw it in the microwave. I mean, we're talking mashed potatoes. Greg, I'm going to defend one of the things you just said. Mashed potatoes with barbecue sauce. Yeah. Yeah, I'm in. There's a restaurant out here called Wood Ranch. It's like a barbecue joint.

Okay. So if you like it with barbecue sauce. Yeah. A1 sauce will change your life. I've not done that before. But, like, the Wood Ranch barbecue sauce is like the best barbecue sauce. And I will just fucking. It'll be gravy. I'll just pour it on, like, gravy Delicious. Yep, yep. Yeah, yeah. So did my rolls in that shit. I'm all chubbing over mashed potatoes right now. This is embarrassing. Need a bathroom break? I wish I could say yeah, but really, I'm just. I can't move right now. Stand up.

You might knock your computer over. Oh, dear. Well, this place would have been the place for you because they had regular mashed potatoes, they had cheesy mashed potatoes, they had wasabi mashed potato. You could have had a mashed potato flight. Missed out. That should be. It should be a thing. Should be for you. We'll call it the Flex flight. What about Mashed Potato Republic?

That'll be the after show Sister podcast. Yeah, let's not talk about my sister, please. Is she married? I don't. I. I don't know. There's something going on. Yeah. I don't know. She does love mashed potatoes, though, I'll tell you that. Come on. Really? Oh, yeah. And Flintstone vitamins. And, oh, yes, Ed, she very much related to your Flintstone vitamin discussion. Maybe we're like the never evers that could have happened and I could be your brother.

It'd be a little weird when I obsessed over you and I guess at you, but then I, you know, like, oops, I didn't mean to walk in you in the shower. I've seen movies like that. Yeah, me too. Although not. And I've seen movies like that, Joe, so. Yeah, I don't remember how we got on this whole mashed potato thing. Where were we? I don't even know what's going. You got the little outline here. I don't. Yeah. And nowhere on my outline does it say mashed potatoes. That's your fault. Yeah, it should.

From now on, every show, shout out to mashed potatoes for being our top snacking food of the week. Hell, yes.

I love it. Oh, dear. Where are we? All right, fuck it. We'll just move on. I don't know where the fuck we are. Doing any good research lately? Have you been out of the house?

You've just been balls deep in mashed potatoes. Oh, man, they're so warm. Oh, man. Just balls deep in mashed potatoes. Got it. Yeah. Maybe I am feeling a little thirsty, though. Yeah, let's do it. You know what? Let's dive into it. I can see your skin is looking a little tacky, like you're a little dehydrated. Yeah, I think I need a little hydration. Yeah, let's fix that. In a world where craft beer Is king a world where muscles are bigger than ground.

You better not drink mashed potatoes. One ton can guide us. One man mashed potato flavored beer. One tongue jobber in this I would. We can't find out. Oh, I know. Is flax drinking. Well, you're. You're drinking a beer from a friend today. I am. I am drinking a beer from a friend today. Oh, is he from Idaho where they make all the potatoes? He is not. Maybe I wish or maybe I don't. Okay, start getting potato mail. Speaking of up in the air, pilot Tom. Oh was out in Arizona.

Pilot Tom asked me if I wanted anything out of Arizona. And he did some research himself and he found a couple breweries. All right, all right. And he, you know, was buy a total wine. And he said, hey, I'll stop there and I'll check out for some beers for you. So he grabbed me a couple Tombstone brewing beers, which, needless to say, were actually pretty solid beers. Oh, can I. Can I real quickly interject? Yes. Somebody brought me tombstone.

I mean like five years ago or something like pre Covid. I think. I was not a huge fan. So I'm glad to hear they've. They've cleaned things up. Yes, there was a double ipa. Okay. It was a double hazy, this one was. It had to have been double dry hopped. It had to have been because the, you know, like that wake up the next morning, taste on your tongue, little hop tongue. Very much hop tongue. But the flavor of the beer was very solid. And then there was a single IPA as well.

I didn't look any of these up on untapped yet. I probably should have to call out the beers. But this was a single IPA was like 7%, 7.1%. The color of it was phenomenal and the flavor was a little bit lacking, but there was no bitterness on it. So it was like almost like a 7% beer that drank like a pail. And it was really enjoyable. I really enjoyed it. Very thankful. And then he picked me up two Renhaus beers, which Renhaus, Pretty big name in Arizona.

This beer I'm drinking today is quite a popular beer. It Ren House spellbinder.

Very fun can. It's got like that 3D esque. Oh yeah, blurry. Yeah. Kind of popular beer. Fun on the can though. It. It's got all their awards. Gold medal in 2020, gold medal in 2021, gold medal in 2022. And I can't see it, but I'm assuming a gold Pendle in 2023. True. Why not? Yeah, they're out of Phoenix and Prescott, Arizona. This beer weighs in at if I can find it. So Greg, you're going to love this. 6.9%. Can't even make that up. You really really fucking can't.

So unsafe Here says we've had the pleasure of bringing you spellbinder since 2017. Winner GABF Gold Medal in 2020 European Beer Star in 2023 Star Gold Base of North American pilsner malt Creamy oats and wheat provide a fluffy grain bed for our American and Australian hop editions. Bringing citrus, tangerine and peach flavors with a juicy and moderately dry finish. This has over 18,000 check ins on untapped wow collective 408 my friends. Rated a 396. Maybe I have shitty friends, I don't know.

So on the old schnoz, heaps of citrus and you get a little bit of that peachy stone fruit on the back end but a very delightful aroma as we warm up the old tongue jobber here. Best part of the show, you're hitting the bong. That is what it sounded like. It tastes exactly like it says here. The tangerine, it tastes like you're drinking a clementine and you get a little bit just like on the aroma, the stone fruit on the back end, you get a little bit of that peach just as the citrus is fading.

The bitterness is nothing. The lacing as you can see on my boot glass, gorgeous. Pretty gorgeous. The color sexy. The pale straw yellow. I wish I had a hundred of these fucking beers. Pilot Tom is a true mensch or even picking this up for me. And the funny story is. So I said how nice of a guy Pilot Tom was. Right. I just ousted it all over the show. This guy, nicest man I've ever met. Just super genuine human being. Sure, big words.

So when I went to meet him up at, you know, our Monday spot to get the beers, I walk in, I say hey Tom, I just want you know I got the money for you for those beers. He said oh man, don't even worry about it. You don't got to do no, no Tom, I will pay you for the beers that I didn't even ask you to get me but you went and got for me. I am happy to pay for those beers.

And he was so insistent of me not paying that I basically had to tell him to shut up and I took the money out of my wallet and I had to force hand him the money. You stuck it down his pants, didn't you? He is so genuine, so kind. That kind of Shit just blew my mind. Nice. He was going to say, this one's on me. But I cannot let anything be on him. Just for, you know, doing what he did. Right. Little, Little. Does he know Flex doesn't like free beer? I hate it. Please don't send me free beer.

Don't buy me beer. Don't give me free beer. Right. It's just. It makes. Maybe it's the Midwest in me. Maybe. I don't know, you know, I think that's what it is. I should say to defend myself. I did give Non Murder John a couple of beers from my recent travels. Well, good for. That's nice. In exchange for this amazing tree house. A little trade off. Yeah. But hey, I would rate this beer. I'm not even kidding you, Greg. Like a four and a half. Like a five. Holy shit. It's really fucking good.

Yeah. I can't even begin to describe how good this fucking beer is. Once I saw the can, I went and looked through the archives because I thought I looked familiar. I think I've had it before. I can't find it. I must not have had it on the show, but I'm pretty sure I got it from like Tavor or something. I don't know. It's great. Like I said, I wish I had a hundred of these and a 6.9%. You could basically drink that all day. That's an all day drinking beer to me.

Nice. It's a good football beer for you. It's just a great everything beer. Yeah, drink it all day. Watching foosball, I mean, man. Wow. Wow, that lacing, Wow. I wish people could see it. Yeah, both of us really came out on top with a sexy lacing tonight. I would say, what a great beer episode. Yeah, I wish it was a visual show because our lacing is so good. Little tree house, a little wren house. Yeah, all the houses raise the roof. Didn't even plan this out. Here's where it gets even weirder.

Talk about not planning things out. Once again, didn't talk about what we're drinking beforehand because we never do. Ludicrous libation Law comes from Arizona. Come on, I shit you not, people are going to think we do this on purpose.

This one says people who become intoxicated in a bar or restaurant are allowed to stay for 30 minutes. So basically they have to allow the drunk person to stay long enough to like get a ride. You can't just say, you know, like, you're drunk, get the fuck out. Well, I was going to say because like, you can't sober up in 30 minutes. Yeah, but when does it. So my question is, when does the timer start? That is a great question. Is it your tab, Right. Is it like, I'm going to kick you out now?

Oh, wait, now the timer starts. I'll kick you out in 30 minutes. Or does the bartender declare, like, you are now unruly? Yeah, because what if someone is legitimately being unruly? You guys stick with it for another half hour. Well, the law is the law. The law is the law, and I don't write them. And Arizona is the law. Arizona is something, all right. It's hot. Yeah. Yeah. And other things. Never been. Yeah, I've driven through, you know, stopped to pee, that kind of thing.

Okay. Grace them with my urine. Buy any turquoise jewelry? Any leather? I did not. My grandma probably did. She was real into that shit. Sounds like a big grandma thing. Yeah, Big grandma energy. BGE A little news before we get out of here. Marcus Baskerville name sound. That's not a real name. It's a real name.

And if it sounds familiar, he's not a real name. He's the guy who invented the whole Black is Beautiful beer. Oh, that's not his name. It's totally his name. Not only is it his name, he was on the show. God damn it. Sorry. Just sounds like a fake name. It's a great name. But yeah, Marcus was on the show back when the Black is Beautiful beer dropped. We had him on, and this is like mid lockdown of COVID so he joined via Zoom or whatever it was. And you can go back and listen to that if you want.

In fact, while I talk about it, I'll look up and see what episode it was. But anyways, he has left Weathered Souls Brewing, where he created Said beer and is starting Fresh Beverage Company. And yeah, it's like a really. More like a restaurant. Anyways, here. Black is Beautiful creator Marcus Baskerville is starting a new project, Fresh Beverage Company, which he described as where fried chicken meets craft beer in the heart of San Antonio. He goes on to say, this isn't just any fried chicken.

It's a dish I've been perfecting since I was 14, turning a lifelong love into something truly special. And now, paired with my other passion, beer, it's set to be the ultimate spot for comfort food and great company. And here's where it relates to you. Flex. Okay. Who eats fried chicken without mashed potatoes? Psychos. Exactly. So we might need to go check this place out. I. I'm down. Yeah. By the way, batch 206 from June 23rd of 2020 is when he was on the show. Yeah, that was before me.

That was before your time. The show may have been called something else at the time. Different show. Different show, different people. So anyways, if you're in San Antonio, get some sweet fried chicken and good beer. This one I thought related to you.

High ABV beer is growing, which I thought was interesting. I feel like everything I read is like na beer and locale beer and fucking Mick ultra bullshit and blah blah blah blah blah. But anyways, beers losses are coming from middle range ABV offerings which make up a majority of beer dollar sales, but recorded a 1.8% decline in dollars. Middle ABV beers, so 5% to about 7.9% also lost about the same amount of share since 2022.

Meanwhile, low and no alcohol beers have increased share from 3.1% to 3.8% during that period. But high ABV beers have gained a full percent from 6 to 7%. High ABV beers have recorded $3.2 billion in off premise sales year to date, an increase of over $217 million. For perspective, this is bigger than the entire hard seltzer category. Wow. So big beers doing better than seltzers. Well, people, maybe they're listening to the algorithm. I think they are. Get some bang for your buck, right?

Don't spend eight bucks on a pint of nothing, right? You could have a Dr. Pepper. So that's, I mean that's what I think of when I, you know, I go out to local watering holes or local breweries. If you got a, you know, a 5% logger, not harshing on loggers, that's $6. But I can spend $8 on an 8% double IPA. I mean, come on, it's right, it's easy. It's an easy choice.

And it's especially important like if you're going somewhere after like oh, I'm going to a sporting event or a concert or something like that where all, Give me the fucking 8, 9 percenters, right? Where all the craft beer is the same price, $34, right? It is the same price whether it's a light lager or it's a IPA or whatever they have out there. Get the bang for your buck. You know why? Because you deserve it. You've earned it. Hell yeah, you've earned it. This beer is for you.

You make that hard earned money, why waste it on some shitty 4% beer, right? So not worth it. Get a catch your Jag, man. Get a Little jag on. Get schnockered. Yeah, get that. 7, 8 percenter. Is schnockered a Midwest thing? Yeah, I would say. My mom says it. Does she? I was going to say it's a Wisconsin thing, but maybe it's Midwest. My. My mom says it. She's not from the Midwest or Wisconsin. I don't know why I was.

Yeah, the only time I've ever heard her say, or anybody say it was when my mom said it. She's like, you're schnockered. I was like, what the fuck did you just say to me? The real thing. All right, I believe you. I've been very schnockered before. As have I. Apparently not my mom. Yeah, well. But I like to say that's true for me, too. But brunch happened. Yes. Yeah, Brunch gets. You sure sobered up with some mashed potatoes. You just quit with the champagne.

Yeah, that's a problem, because the champagne takes a while to hit me. Like, I just drink and drink and drink. And then also I was like, boom, champagne's here, motherfucker. Yeah, maybe next time you brunch, just don't do the champagne. Maybe beers is where it's at. My liver knows what to do with beer. Right. Because you have it right all the time. Right? And the champagne gets you, and it's just like, what's this little fun guy? Mushrooms. And then it realizes it's not a fun guy.

No. Yeah. And then you're fun. Especially the cheap champagne. You know, these things are magnums for, like, eight bucks. So, yeah, that's when. That's when I'm not classy, Greg. I must admit, it's not the good stuff. Everybody has to take a day off every now and then. It's hard being classy all the time.

Let me tell you. Even Superman took days off. It's true. True. I'm not Mr. No Days Off. No. No. All right, back to beer. And you're my lowest lane. Oh, I'm blushing. AB Is investing more in Elysian and Golden Road production, but shutting down the

Georgetown location of Allegian. Apparently people care and I don't, so we'll move on. Suck it, A.B. Such bad beer. Elysian used to be good, too. Have you ever heard anybody say, ooh, really like this space dust? Remember that one time I had enamel on my teeth? Not anymore. Was it Laser Tiger? Cool name. This beer's great. Oh, back in the day, in, like, you know, the 90s, it wasn't. It wasn't bad. Oh, it's gross. Yeah, it's a little much.

Let's see. Oh, New Belgium is selling Upper hand brewery which they acquired as part of the whole

bells New Belgium, you know. Which is higher than lower hand. You're right. Yeah. It's even higher than middle hand. So it's the highest of all the hands. I'd say the high hand. Yeah. Well, it's not upst hand, but yeah. We'll end it with this one. Sophisticated tequila heist highlights the hard liquor hijacking.

That was hard Twister. Yeah. If you're looking for Guy Fieri. I'm sorry, that got me. If you're looking for Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar's Santo Tequila, you may be out of luck. Thanks to an Ocean's 13 level heist that disappeared two truckloads of tequila last week. Two trucks carrying Santo Tequila's year end shipment. A total of 4 urine year end shipments. Not worth the heist, but soon to be urine. You could make it for free. Yeah, well, after you drink enough of those tequilas.

A total of 4,040 cases or 24,240 bottles were hijacked in Laredo, Texas shortly after crossing the international border sometime between November 9th and 13th. I love it. Sometimes sometime between these four days, you lost track of a giant truck full of booze. The evidence thus far indicates that Santo Tequila's shipping broker accepted a bid to buy a trucking company set up and was set up to steal loads.

The sophisticated criminal enterprise picked up both trucks and used GPS emulators to spoof tracking software that monitored the trucks as they made their way from Mexico to their east and west coast distributors. Last December, 19,000 bottles of Hacienda check to Tequila. I'm sure I butchered that were stolen. And this guy's name is Butt Kiss. Oh my God. And Buck Kiss City has heard anecdotally that other more well known tequilas have also been targeted. But the thefts were not publicized like.

Fast and Furious for tequila. Seems that way. Yeah. Dom's riding under the truck and you know, Minaj and all that good stuff. Monica, I feel like it's not worth it. Tequila? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll drink it, but I'm good. You are good. So good. So good. Yeah. I just love that they're going through the trouble for free tequila. Yeah, I mean like. Yeah, whatever floats your boat, I guess. Yeah. Fast and the Furious 26 Dom Steel. Next thing you know, they'll be doing lime trucks.

Yeah. A salt truck went missing last week. I was going to say, then they'll be on high alert. Right? Lime and salt and triple sec. They mix it all and make a big market. Imagine working at a salt factory and being like, hey guys, we have an important meeting. There's been a big heist trend lately on tequila trucks and now they've been hitting the lime trains. So we're on high alert here at the salt factory shipping our salt. Everybody's got to wear bulletproof vests at the salt factory.

What a joke. Yeah. So anyways, that's it. I made some music. Yeah, do that. I'm gonna also say hello to Vanessa. Hi Vanessa. Hello. Follow us on the socials at craft beer Republic at flexmeer Underscores in a between mail

at craft beer republic.com 805538 beer 2337 let's see if this goes better than last week. I hope everyone is staying very well hydrated. And on that note, goodnight everybody. Technology.