Secretly Drunk in the Closet

Welcome in everybody to the Craft Beer Republic. Thanks for drinking. Thanks for joining. I am Greg and I am being joined by one big mother bucker and that's Flex. What's up big fella? I am feeling pretty beefy today. Speaking of huge, I googled today what the largest goldfish in the world was. 67 pound goldfish. Wow. Yeah. And why did this get brought up? I was looking at my goldfish as I was feeding him and I thought,

wow, I wonder how big these guys can get. And sure as shit, 67 pounds. Pretty gnarly. And how big is yours would you say? Like under a pound? Oh man, I would say it's like two ounces, three ounces. It's a nice size goldfish for like an at home tank. Sure. Yeah. We'll get there someday. We'll just keep putting on the pounds. All right. Well, thank you all for drinking and joining. Like I said,

make sure you follow us on the socials @CraftBeerRepublic and of course @FlexMeABeer_. In between, we've got lots to get to today. If you didn't listen last week, you're missing out. This is my interview with Preston from Red Engine Brewing, the new spot over in Fillmore, California, which I guess this is no mystery to anybody, but our top listening city of last week is Fillmore, California. Get out of town. Who could have seen that coming?

So thanks Fillmore for checking in. Hope you liked the interview and I hope you like Preston's beer. A lot to get to tonight. Like I said, I did some pretty good research over the last week or so. I love when you do research. Oh, thanks. Yeah. It was good stuff. Got a voicemail from the homie. Not chew your rue. Got some booze news to get to. The regular chew. The regular chew. The Florida games happened. We got to recap that. So anyways. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And an eventful show to say the least. So let's dig right in to some hydration. I am loving my beer. I'm drinking thanks to Erica. Thanks Erica. She set this down and I'm super stoked because I've been wanting to try this brewery since I saw that they were announcing their

opening and this is Shred Beer Company's Extra Sunshine Hazy IPA. Oh nice. For those who don't know, Shred is co-founded by the former head brewer of Arrow Lodge Brewing. Her name is Amy and she makes some fucking killer beers. So when I saw that she was opening up her own spot, got super excited and they're up in Erica's hood. So this is 7% of 413 untapped after a little over 300 ratings and they say it's a double dry hopped hazy IPA with galaxy, mosaic, simcoe and citra hops.

Pungent flavors and aromas of apricot sorbet, peach nectar, and fresh cut mango. I'm gonna dig in here as I almost knock my glass over. Oh that looks really good. Really hazy. Great color, great haziness to it. It almost looks like my beer. They do look very similar. You just got a little better lighting in yours. Mine's against a black t-shirt but yeah. All right on the schnoz. It feels like mango, maybe a little bit of that peach I'm picking up there. Very fruity bouquet of sniffs.

Let me dig in with the old tongue. - On the jobay. - Bokoa. Bokoa. (laughing) Ooh, I'm the old tongue Joe, babe. Lots of juicy, like these hops were late edition hops, lots of tropical juiciness. Uh, the peach comes through. I'm not picking up on tons of apricot, but I am getting that fresh cut mango real heavy. And by that, by the way, everybody, he meant apricot. So, uh, no, I said it right the first time. We're good. Don't, don't worry. I nailed it.

Yeah. After I corrected you that it's apricot. I got it. This is great. And this is so easy to drink and does not drink like a 7% or like this is an easy,

dangerous zipper. So, uh, thanks to Erica for sending this down and cheers to shred. I can't wait to come up there and check that spot out. Maybe I'll crash at Erica's house and come home drunk. She actually sent me a shred beer as well that I trounced actually, uh, like a week ago. Wasn't this one, was it? No, I would have felt terrible if it was, it was this, uh, fat, nasty triple West coast. Oh, that nasty was called supernatural. The canner was wild.

Uh, probably post something about it because I did take pictures. I'm just lazy as fuck. Um, but yeah, it was like 11%, just your 100% true classic West coast. Nice. Dig it. Thanks, Erica. Yeah. Thanks. Send us some good shit. Uh, all right. I want to start off the show with an apology. I'd like to apologize to this three pack of beers that I found in my fridge last week.

This all makes sense now. Cause I'm like, who do you apologize to? Yeah, mostly nobody. Uh, but I was cleaning out my kegerator. I needed to go get some CO2 and I opened up my keger and sometimes I stashed some extra beers that I don't have room for in the fridge. And I was like, Oh no. And as soon as it's very distinguishable, as soon as I saw it, three cans of there does not exist. And I was like, fuck, when was this from? And I checked the date. It was literally a year old. God damn it.

So my apologies. Did you dump them or are you, I was okay. Good. I was going to say like, don't make any rash decisions. I am not an animal. Come on. Beer is beer. I mean, if anything, it's more like a science situation now. Yeah. I mean, I drank them cause uh, you know, time was of the essence and they were still fine that the hop flavor had subdued a little bit. Um, but you know, there wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good as it could be. Correct. That's I understand that.

Yeah. So I'm proud of you for doing that. Yeah. So I'm, I'm sorry. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong and I'm a big man. So my apologies to those three beers that I left behind for so long. Uh, what else? Oh, when ax throwing over the weekend, the first time. Nope. Not for, you know,

like fifth time or something like that. Yeah. Okay. So you're a pro. Yeah. And they serve beer, which I always laugh at. I'm like, man, that insurance must be high. It's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. They always have local shit. Uh, like they always have tarantula Hill and naughty pine. I had a pale rider from a pedals Monica's beer over there. So they, they were one of the ones that really liked having a Monica and I's a collab. The, these guavas are making me thirsty.

Yeah. They had that on steady rotation while that was still in supply. So a shout out to the mighty ax for having some good beer on tap. But I bring this up because it was a Shannon's. It was the wife's nephew's birthday. And we're like, Oh, we'll take a max ring. Cause his mom was out of town. How old is he? If he's a nephew turn 15. Oh, okay. So we took him over there. He had never been before. I was like, this is great. I get credit for hanging out with the kids and I get to drink beer.

Yeah. So, you know, win, win. And we get to throw some sharp objects. Uh, I feel so old afterwards. Like I was doing the one handed ax throw. And by like minute, they teach you not to do that. there's two methods. Like there's the double handed over the head throw, which I can't for the life of me get down. And then there's the one handed like back over your shoulder throw, which is how I do most of my damage. Interesting. And yeah, they, they tell you like you do this or you do this.

The spot downtown in Milwaukee, they put you through this whole tutorial before they let you start throwing. So they make sure that they show you the two handed ax throw and not to do it with one hand. Oh wow. They show you the two hand.

And they go, or you can do one hand and you hand up here over your shoulder. Keep her up straight. Yeah. And if they see anybody like doing one hand throws, I'll like step in and be like, Hey, remember guys, like two handed throws. Oh no shit. Yeah. Yeah. I can't do it two handed. Like I'm so bad. I think honestly, this is going to sound braggy. I don't mean that. I think I put too much power behind it when I'm two handed and it just off the fucking board every time that does happen.

So anyways, one handed is my style of hurting myself. And by like minute 48, my, my shoulder was on fire and the wife's like, maybe we should go for another hour. I was like, not unless I could drink a couple more beers. Like, good God, am I old? Ooh. That was like my first couple of times that I was hitting up those golf bays.

It was like, I felt great while it was happening and you wake up the next morning and your body feels like you got T-boned the day before, you know, and you wake up and everything on the left side of your body is just, yeah, just a little fire. It needs some icy hot after that one. So we actually need to buy more Advil because of that. Glad I can remind you get the Costco size. It sounds like you're going to need it. Uh, what else do we do? Oh, hit up a pedals and pints.

You know, we were talking about the new beers that Monica released last week on the show when she was with us or two weeks ago when she was with us and I finally got a chance to stop by and try them black and blue is her new sour and chef's kiss. Yeah. That was a blackberry blueberry, right? So yeah. So fucking good. Had a couple of those and then brought a Corral at home. Like good God was that durlicious. Also had the, the uptempo the coffee collab with California coffee Republic.

That one was good. It's a little less my speed cause it's on nitro. That's right. I'm not a huge nitro fan. Yeah. But, uh, they did a good job with it. It's nice and creamy and a little bit of lactose to make it more like a, you know, coffee drinking experience than just your regular coffee beer. So that's good stuff. If you like that nitro, go check it out. I was explaining to someone over the weekend, they're like, I just don't like beer. And I was like, what is it?

Cause she was drinking, she had had a Pilsner and I was like, well, what is it about beer? Like you had the lightest, easiest one to drink. It's a Pilsner. She goes, I don't know. It just, it's so heavy.

I was like, Pilsner is anything but heavy. And we drilled into it. We realized it's the carbonation. I was just going to say maybe the heaviness comes from the carbonation. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. She's a wine drinker and as we drilled into it, it was the carbonation. And I told her, I said, right now at Pedals and Pints, which is somewhere she's been and knows and all that stuff. I said, they have a nitro beer with coffee. This person loves coffee. Then you should go try it.

So I'm waiting to hear back. I want to see if that like solved her, her quote unquote heaviness problem. Yeah. No carb. It is a lighter beer too. So some hazies I feel like aren't carved up a super ton. Sometimes you get those sours that are pretty mellow on the carbonation. Exactly. There's tons of options out there. Yes. Yes, there is. What else? Oh, we're talking about that coffee beer and we got like all weird and we're like, Hey, what's it Somalia coffee.

I looked it up. It's called a Q grader. Can I get that in a sentence, please? The coffee nerd is a certified Q grader. Like Q U E? Nope. Just the letter. Sesame street style. The letter Q. Yeah. Like a Q tip. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Q tip. And it says it's the closest equivalent to a Somalia in the coffee industry. It's a Q grader. Q graders are certified as expert tasters or cuppers by the coffee quality institute. The CQI offers two Q level certifications, Arabica and Robusta.

Oh, the more you know, I guess. So there's some nerdy coffee shit for you. And I had to bring this up. We'll get to the reason why I thought you would love it in just a second. Went to pale last, last week. Personally or the list? Oh, you're going to love this. Okay. So the first half, whatever the second half, this is where we're going to get into it. Went to pale fest,

which is put on by institution brewing out here, institutionales. And last year had a blast. This year is a little less exciting, but it's all pales and congrats to made West. They won. Hey, I hear you really liked their pale. I do really like it. So fucking good. It's the best pale in the area. Anyways, congrats to them. And I, I missed it. They, they tapped out of a Brit's pale before he got there. I hope she still has it on tap. Anyways, did that had a couple of beers.

It was a little less exciting than it has been in the past. So we bounced and we went over to a bottle and pint, which is where Spencer of made West Spencer does a little beer pouring on the weekends. This is a Sunday. Love me. So yeah. Do you have this problem where when you Uber, you feel like you should drink more like, cause you know, you're not driving. Right. Like I got to get my Uber's money worth. I got to tell you what, I'm so old, Greg, how old is he?

I've really never gone out and gotten hammered and had to Uber home. Oh, I mean, neither have I, like, I just got to the point where I just started, you know, over drinking at home. So I never needed the Uber. Sure. I mean, that makes, it saves a lot of money doing it that way. So I can't, I can't honestly answer your question, but I could understand the thought process of yes, it would make me want to drink more. Yeah. I mean, we Ubered out there. We thought it'd be a party. We got there.

We didn't know anybody there at first. And then finally like Philly from VCBC showed up and a couple other brewer friends showed up. So then, you know, we had a few beers, but nothing, definitely could have driven home, but we'd already Uber there. Like, all right, well, so then we Ubered to bottle and pint to hang out with Spence. And I was like, all right, we're here. You know, let's keep strapping it on. We Ubered. What's the worst that can happen?

Well, I was drinking a triple IPA and I met this guy, Beau who, and this is where you are going to like this is a pro wrestler. No way. Yeah. He's this big fucking dude. Big all around big, tall, wide bald, just big dude. Kind of like those Bam Bam Bigelow vibes. Okay. Yeah. And he was just, he was talking, we were sitting. Yeah. RIP Bam Bam. He was sitting near us at the bar and he just kept getting everybody involved in conversation.

I don't remember how it got brought up, but then finally got brought up that he's a pro wrestler. And Oh, before we got to that, this is where I started getting hammered. I had half my triple left and he goes, Hey, let's chug. Don't be a pussy. One, two, three, go. I was like, what? Oh, huh? What? I just pounded my triple. It doesn't sound like a good idea. It was a horror. I didn't even think of it. Like, Oh, this is a triple IPA. I just pounded it like a fucking idiot, like an amateur.

That's where the downfall go on. Yeah. Anyway. So then he's like, Hey, are you a wrestling fan? My wife's like, he's a huge wrestling fan. He's like, what do you mean? I was like, I said, honestly, I don't watch it all that much anymore. I watched a little, this little, that. So, but you know, back in the day and he goes, who do you like back in the day? I was like everybody. And we started talking about ECW. It was fucking great.

Yeah. And apparently he was part of XPW, which is a local promotion that was when I was in high school. And then they went under and they've recently started coming back, but now they're all death matches. So I'm not really into it. Yeah. Not into that either. But I brought up like Sabu and Chris Candido and like all those guys. And he's like, Oh, hold on. And he pulls up his photo album in his phone. He's like, yeah, look at all of that.

It's like Sabu and Candido and Taz and like he wrestled with everybody. Cool. From back in the day. That shit's wild, man. Yeah. He's got pictures with him in the ring is fucking bad-ass. So we talked wrestling and, and he showed me some shots of him, you know, juiced out of his mind and covered in blood. It was cool. It was good times. There's like no conversation better than finding out somebody likes wrestling. Yeah. Or is a wrestler. Right. Right.

I mean, we're talking like if you meet this person at 7:00 PM, like you are talking till bar close, it's just going to fucking happen. Yeah. It was the best thing that ever could have happened for my wife is that his wife was like, we need to go. They have a newborn who was not having it. So luckily my wife got me back pretty quickly. But yeah, it was, it was good times. We're, we were talking old school wrestling and dude was pretty hydrated himself. So it was fun.

He has a podcast as well as the, I think it's called the hops and horror. So it's like beer and horror movies. Which Oh, neat. Yeah. I'm not super into horror movies, but I'm super into beer. So anyways, we, we exchanged follows and all that good shit. And so anyways, Go check out the podcast. If you're into that, Beau's a funny guy. He was a black. He was one of those guys were like, yep, this tracks. There's no way you don't cut promos for a living. Brilliant.

But yeah, anyways, got super hammered that night. Like amateur hour hammered. Yeah. And it was back to the Uber. Yeah. And so like the last thing I remember is the Uber pulls up and we get in. That's it. Come on. Like, I don't remember the, I, I finally the next day I was talking to my wife, I was like, I don't remember the ride home. Was I okay? She goes, Oh, you were fine. I didn't realize you were that drunk until like when we were going to bed and you weren't feeling very good.

The night went sideways. I got, we got home and made us food. Like I'm still very functional, even though I'm just absolutely plastered. And so made us food. We're eating the dog needed to eat. And, uh, I had to make that whole saga. Dog's been six. We're having to make them like ground Turkey and rice. And, uh, I had to boil the ground Turkey, the smell of boils. Turkey. I don't even want to know. Oh my God. I mean, it was like, I gotta go.

And I ran into the bathroom, thought I was going to puke, never puke. I wish I would have. Uh, cause then the next morning when I woke up, I had to feed the dog again. That's when I started it. Like I was like, I ran for the bathroom. This is the worst. I was like, all right, you know what? I'm going to puke it up and I'm going to feel better. Even though it's the next morning. Like that's, that's how it always happens. Yeah. Always. Oh, it was dry heave for five minutes. Nothing.

That's the worst. Fucking worst. And I was like, God damn amateur hour. This is, this is already processed everything. And now it's just like a kick in the balls. Yeah. Yeah. On top of like the headache, here's your fucking kick in the balls too. Right. And then your throat feels all sore the rest of the day. Cause all those muscles just right. You feel like you were smoking the night before. And I was so mad. I was like, just puke, man. Just fucking puke. Give yourself a little bit of dignity.

Right? Anyways, that's, that's too much. That's way too much for me. We've heard my voice long enough. Wow. I mean, you really tied one out. Yeah. Well, you know, it's been a couple of weeks since we recorded last and I've put in some work. So I'm proud of you. I don't want to let the listeners, don't want them to think I was sober or anything like that. That would be tragic. Shame on you if you did that. Yeah. I didn't drink for like four days after that.

>> [LAUGH] Might have been some sobriety happening. JG: Believe it or not, but I do believe that. CM: Yeah. [Laughter] CM: It's like the most time without drinking I've had in like a year after that. But I don't have a problem. Anyways, that's all for me. Sorry, everybody, for taking up all your airwaves. Flex messaged me earlier in the week. We were talking some shit about, I don't remember what, and he goes, "By the way, I have the greatest story for you." And I said,

"Oh, what is it?" So I can put it on our show rundown. He goes, "I'm not even going to fucking tell you." JG: Yeah, I'm not. Yep, I told you I'm not even going to tell you the story until we get on and I can just get your reaction. CM: Does it involve pro wrestlers? JG: No, I do lack on the pro wrestlers. CM: All right, well, I'm out. JG: So it was a normal Tuesday morning. I woke up, I got my workout in, went on my way to work.

The wife and I, every morning, we do this good morning bit of texting and you kind of explain how your day is looking. CM: Yeah, we do the same thing. JG: Yeah, right? It's a classic relationship communication thing. CM: Yeah, pretend you like each other. JG: Yeah, and then you get to go on your way for a couple hours without talking and you saved face. CM: Yeah. JG: So at, I remember this time, exactly, this is how important this story is to me.

It was 9.22 in the a.m. and I receive a text from my wife that says, "Why is there an empty bottle of vodka in the man cave closet?" I replied, in all caps, "Vodka?" CM: Right. JG: What are you talking about vodka? You're not a vodka drinker. JG: I fucking hate vodka. CM: Yeah, we've covered this. We both hate vodka. JG: Plenty. It's like the throw up trick, right? CM: Right. JG: Put vodka in my system and I'm going to throw up. And I said,

"I don't know what you're talking about." She says, "There is a empty handle of vodka in the closet. Where did it come from?" So I just go like total defense mode, man. I'm thinking my wife thinks I'm a closet alcoholic. And I'm just stashing empty bottles. Mind you, this closet, it's like our "secret closet." It's just this utility closet. It's no bigger than three by five. It's got some water pumps. It's got the spigot for the front yard. CM: Hide some Christmas presents.

JG: It's where we hide all the Christmas presents, the birthday presents, et cetera. So I said, "First off, why would I hide something in a closet where I know you randomly go?" CM: Right. JG: So I go, "Hey, maybe I'll have a couple extra days to get rid of it." But she said she had bought some Easter shit for the kids and she went to put it in there and there was a bottle and she wanted to know where it came from. So me, I've had a buddy come over in the last two months, just one friend.

So I even reached out to him and I said, "Hey, man, any chance you ditched an empty bottle of vodka in my basement?" And he said, "What a weird fucking question. Why would you even ask that?" I said, "Hey, look, this is a story my wife asked me. She said there's one there." So I said, "I'm just trying to figure shit out." So then I even look up this vodka brand. She sent me a picture. It was Mr. Boston. Now, I don't know if you know anything about Mr. Boston, if it's even- CM: Never heard of it.

JG: Okay. I think it might be kind of like a regional thing here. CM: Okay. JG: It is $7.99 for a 175. Classic. JG: It is cheap, plastic handle- CM: Yeah. JG: It's like that grocery store brand. CM: Right. That's exactly what it is. So I'm sending her the reviews online of this shit and the price. And I'm saying, "Look, if I'm going to secretly be drinking anything on you- JG: It's not this. CM: "If I'm going to be secretly drinking vodka, first off,

I'm going to drink something a little bit better than this." JG: Yeah. You're like, "Honey, I'm going to spend at least $25." CM: Right. So I said, "I'm going to come home from work on lunch. And we'll see what's going on." So I get home and she's real passive-aggressive. She's vacuuming, she's taking care of shit around the house. So naturally, I'm just like, "All right." JG: Her passive-aggressive is vacuuming? CM: Well, so- JG: That's fantastic.

That's usually what- JG: I piss her off on the weekly. CM: That's usually what my thing is. It's like, I usually start doing laundry or something, whatever. So I start taking care of some dishes. I eat my lunch. And when she gets done vacuuming, she comes in the kitchen. She actually starts talking to me now. JG: Yeah. CM: And she's putting stuff away in cabinets, in the fridge, and she's loading up all this extra garbage and recyclable shit.

She gets done with that and she goes, "Hey, on your way back to work, can you take care of the garbage for me?" I said, "Yeah, no problem." And then she goes, "And then go downstairs and take care of that bottle of vodka." And me, knowing it's... I have no idea where it came from. So I'm just like, "Yep, will do." Gonna get right on it. But as I'm walking down the stairs to my basement, I just keep thinking to myself, "This is fucking... This just feels weird, JG: Yeah.

CM: Is somebody sneaking in my house, ditching bottles? I don't know what's going on. So sure as shit, I open up the door. There's a bottle on the floor. And I'm telling you, a three by five closet. So I'm sitting there thinking, scratching my head, looking up. And I turn my head over my right shoulder and I look up into the corner of the rafters and there's two more bottles stashed. JG: What? CM: So naturally, Greg, that's not even the best part. JG: Same brand, same shit vodka.

CM: So two different brands now. Now we have Skoll Vodka. JG: Oh, yeah. CM: And Fleischmann's, which is like the big cheap around Milwaukee. I don't know if it's... Okay. CM: Fleischmann's is national,

but here you definitely know what it is. So I call her down right away. I said, "Hey, you gotta come check this shit out." I said, "I found two more bottles." So she comes downstairs and she's like, "Whatever, just get rid of them." So I'm just thinking to myself, this is fucking crazy. So I go back to work and it's just stewing in my brain. I told all the guys at work about it. I was getting overwhelmed, thinking my wife thinks I'm an alcoholic. And it's just not sitting right with me.

JG: Yeah. So I said, "You know what? I'm gonna go home from work. I'm gonna get my step ladder, and I'm gonna peek up in that fucking ceiling." I shit you not, Greg, there are about minimally 30 empty handles of vodka stuffed all the way in the ceiling rafters. JG: Fuck off. No way. CM: No. I'm gonna send you pictures right now because... JG: I can't wait for this. CM: It's the most unreal thing. You always hear about people buying a house and years later, they find something in it.

Sometimes something cool. JG: A lot of these old stamps. CM: Yeah, or money, or goonies, a treasure map. Who knows? JG: Right. Time capsule. CM: No. For us, 30 empty handles of vodka stuffed in our ceiling. And the pictures I'm sending you are after I have already reached up there to grab some more bottles. JG: Holy shit. There's just a secret passageway of vodka. CM: Yeah. And there's no telling how far back it goes or where else in the house there's like secretly stored bottles of vodka.

JG: Oh my god. Is it okay if I post these on the show story or something? CM: Please do. JG: Okay. Because this is fantastic. CM: I think it's hilarious. So once I sent my wife those pictures, I'm totally off the hook. JG: You know, she really thinks you're an alcoholic. CM: Well, that's when talking to my family about it too, my brother-in-law says, "Hey, how do you know the bottles aren't hers?" JG: He's got a point. CM: She's not downstairs just tying one on. JG: Yeah, he's got a point there.

CM: But yeah, how fucking bizarre. Holy shit. That's insane. I'm just, I'm still staring at these. That's fucking insane. JG: I was able to retrieve 11 bottles from the ceiling. CM: There's still more. JG: And there's still more. The pictures I sent you, that's like what's still back there. CM: that's what you can't reach. JG: Correct. CM: And you can see like, what, like an electrical cable running through like wherever the electrician ran the wiring and then there's bottles.

Yeah. Everything's just stuffed in there. So you bought the house from some closeted alcoholic? JG: Five years ago. CM: So how did it get into the closet? Did it like fall from the ceiling? JG: So now when we saw where everything was, right, this was a couple, this was, so everything happened on a Tuesday morning, I told you, into the afternoon.

So a couple days later, my wife gets home from work and we're talking about it cause we're still just so shocked by what we, you know, what we discovered. And she goes, "I think I figured it out." She's like, "I, me?" She's like, "You took one of the, you know, the oldest kid to Taekwondo on Monday night, Monday evening." I said, "Yeah?" She said, "When I was at home with my youngest daughter," she said,

"When you guys left, she put on her tap dance shoes and she started dancing all around and jumping around the living room floor." So she's thinking all of that jumping and vibrating and pounding rattled, you know, cause like when I told you, I looked up in that corner and I saw the two bottles, there had to be one like resting in between those two and it must've just rattled that one out. And there you have it. CM: That's fucking nuts. JG: Dude, it's fucking crazy.

CM: Thank God it was vodka and not something you like. Otherwise you'd be in so much shit. JG: Right. And every single bottle was like some cheap shit. It was either, all the bottles are that Mr. Boston, like I told you, or Skoll or Fleischmann. CM: Yeah. Could you imagine if it was like 30 cans of a triple hazy? You'd be so fucked. You would be out of the house. JG: That would be completely my fault. CM: Yeah. JG: It would definitely have been me.

CM: There'd be no way you could explain your way out of that. JG: No. CM: Even if it wasn't you. Well, that's what I was trying to explain to her too, like with how cheap the vodka was. Like, do you have any idea of the amount of money I spend in beer? CM: Right. This is where I'm going to skimp. JG: Yeah. I'm not just going to be like, "Oh, hey, vodka. Better cut costs." CM: Oh man. That's so good. Yeah. That's the one thing, like my wife knows what I will and won't drink.

So if she found some cheap vodka bottles, she'd be like, "Who broke into our house?" JG: Right. CM: There would never be a, "Did you do this?" Like, "No. God, no." JG: That's what my wife started to bring up. She's like, "We never changed the garage code." CM: Oh God. JG: Like what the old neighbors had. So like what we have. CM: Yeah. Which is, it's not unheard of or terrible. JG: But also, maybe you want to change it.

CM: Also, the first thing that crossed her mind was, maybe somebody that used to live here snuck in. JG: I mean, it'd be weird to just sneak into Leith Bottles, but- CM: Right. JG: Yeah. CM: Yeah. Who knows? CM: It is fucking bizarre. JG: You don't have a camera down there in your man cave, do you? CM: No. I don't think you'd want to see half those videos anyway. JG: Yeah. You'd be surprised. (laughs) You let me be the judge of that. You don't tell me what I like.

So yeah, so that was my eventful story. My great story. I hope you liked it. I did. That's great. That is so, I'm going to, as soon as we're done here, I'm going to tell the wife. She's going to fucking love it. Like that is such a good story. Well, now you know a little bit about your old house owners. Well, yeah. So then we're trying to figure out too, like, Hey, was it like, cause the lady had three kids. She was like a single mom. Oh, Well, no. So like her oldest kid was in like sixth grade.

So she was divorced. So we're either thinking it was like, why she's divorced. It was the, yeah. Like the guy before, or she was seeing some dude and they put a lot of work into the house before they sold it. You know, like they finished off the whole basement and everything like that. Oh yeah. So maybe this guy she was seeing was just like, well, you gotta hang this or put up this drywall today. Better get lit. Yeah. Was there like a date on those?

I know, you know, beer cans have dates on them. Did they talk about other dates? So I searched high and low. Oh, it's too bad. Some of the bottles have like those protruding, like, you know, there's like letters and number like cereal, whatever. And a batch number. Yeah. So I don't think they're like dates of anything. That's too bad. But I did try to check. But also there's like no dust on any of the bottles. That's so weird. Everybody well protected.

Yeah. Everybody I talked to too, they're like, Oh, like you think if they're old, they'd be like caked in dust or something like that. There ain't no fucking, there's no dust on the wood in the rafters. Right. Yeah. It's well protected. Right. How long have you been in the house? It'll be five years in October. All right. So those things have been up there for at least five years. Yeah. Four and a half years we lived here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

My house is insulated with plastic vodka bottles. Whatever works. No wonder it's so cold down in the basement. Cheap way to go. Yeah. Holy shit. That's good times. Yeah. It's a, it's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad she finally realized it wasn't you sneaking shit vodka. Most importantly, I think she'd be smarter than that. Yeah. I think she was just so caught off guard by opening up the closet door and then seeing that.

And then, you know, her mind probably just started jumping everywhere. Yeah. I immediately imagined like, uh, is it Kyle's mom from South park? Yeah. As she opens the closet door. Oh, I haven't heard that in so long. Well, I think you've earned yourself a beer. So, uh, let's, let's ask the question. Let's do it. In a world where craft beer is King world,

where muscles are bigger than grounders. Only one tongue can guide us. One man, one tongue, one tongue jobber in this world. We must find out what is flex drinking. All right. So, uh, my, my local shop just, uh, started bringing in hop butcher. Oh, hop butcher for the world. Yeah. They're, uh, they're super solid. They're in Illinois. I think like a suburb of Cago ish,

like everything else basically. I can't tell you that for a fact, but any weasels, you know, they, they had like six or seven of their beers. And this one in general really caught my eye. And I show, I usually never show you stuff before the show. Right. But this artwork is phenomenal. It's a hot dog with like a Hulk Hogan mustache and band and he's lifting some dumbbells and it's called all beef Frank. And I just thought, again, it's fitting.

I work at a butcher shop now we sell all the Franks and I like lifting weights. So this is a double IPA hopped with Simcoe and Nelson Sovin. I'd read the untapped for you, but that's what it says. Um, so that's fair. Yeah, there we go. I think it said it was like a four one five cumulative to nicely done. Not terrible. Um, I didn't realize this. I haven't seen a hop butcher can on the longest time, but it has the tasting notes on the back.

It's like when I drank that neutral a couple of weeks ago and it had all the ingredients or like the grains and the malts and the hops and notes you should be looking for. So I always enjoy this thoroughly. There's no description on it. It's just, uh, it says bright citrus, crisp melon and tangy berry. I always like to see if the can lives up to my taste buds and my senses. So we'll, uh, we'll dive in with the old schnauz first.

So I do get a lot of cantaloupe on the nose, which is kind of wild, but it's like not ripe cantaloupe. It's like you opened up a case of cantaloupe that's like fresh into a store. So a little on the green side, you get a little bit of citrus pith in there. Um, not so much like the juicy flesh, but you can kind of pick up on those, those are better. Yeah. So then, uh, without further ado, here we go.

While you explore that, I want to mention that I think two, two weeks ago we were talking about hazy IPAs with Monica and you brought up like multi hazy IPAs being gross. Right. I had one over the weekend. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. It's from other half and it was so multi. Um, I had one of those from other half, uh, about six months ago. Uh huh. And I was like, what's wrong with you other half? So maybe other half ain't, uh, ain't all that in a bag of chips.

That's kind of what I was saying to my wife. So, uh, tongue Joe Bay, um, I do pick up on the citrus and it's that bitter pithy citrus. Uh, I, I hate when cans or when, when beers say that they do taste like berry, because it is so hard to pick out any kind of berry flavor in a beer. Um, but I get a lot of the bright citrus gooseberries. It's got the Nelson solvent hops. I feel like you always get this sense, this flavor, the smell that you can never really put your finger on it.

That's like one of the top notes in the Nelson hop is gooseberries. So I believe that's what I'm picking up in this a little bit of peach doesn't say on the can, but this is a wonderful beer. It finishes off very dry. We already talked, you know, it's got great color, great Hayes, Greg can art, some lacing going on now that you can see it through my shirt. Yeah. Um, this has a good lacing. Yeah. The head retention on it. Super solid.

Like I said, I haven't had these guys in a long time now they're my local shop. So this might be my new phase three. I don't know. We'll see. There's some big words. I mean, this is an 8% or, you know, it's 1499 for the four pack. Oh, that's, that's right up in the algorithm, right up in the algorithm. The can art. I mean, it all dope. This is a like one to one to one ratio nailed it. It passes, but I'm not MVPs. You know what I would say early MVP for, uh, you know, flexes through the year.

Oh, Oh shit. We're only in March people. It's early. It's early, early. Just saying, don't time to take it over. These guys are, they're hitting it all. That's pretty good. All right. Before we move any further, the homie chew your beer called in to, um, well celebrate himself. You'll see. Hello?

No one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone. Yo, what's up homies. Crappy Republic. It's your favorite, favorite, chew your beer. Not true. You're rude. Fuck that guy. My primo sucks for me. Anyways, got to celebrate my 48th birthday with my homie Marvin and Vivian over at pizza port in San Clemente. I wanted a pizza, but I didn't have a pizza. So I'm going to get my pizza and I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer.

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I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer.

I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. I'm going to get my beer. So he made a call for your boy, good old true your beer. And we got a little beer tour and we got to taste some beers that are not coming out yet that are freshly brewed right there in San Clemente. So I got to try a peanut butter stout.

I got to try a barreled age peanut butter stout. And I couldn't untap them because they don't have them out yet. So look out for those homies. I got some one offs. Amazing place old man. Awesome. I would love to go back and my kids, my sons can't say kids because they're fucking 17 and 22. I fell in love with that spot too. The pizza was amazing. You know how it is, homie. Wish they had one closer to us. That would be fucking dope as fuck. But that's it homies. 48 years old. True your beer.

I might be the oldest listener of the craft beer Republic podcast. I think son of a bitch. I'm two years away from fucking 50 homie. That makes me a veteran. I don't know homie. Orderly. All right homies. This is true your beer and I'm expecting a lot of well wishes on the fifth, which is Tuesday. This comes out on Wednesday. So you got till Thursday motherfuckers. A lot of well wishes. So my kids think their dad's cool. This is true your beer. You have to watch your peace out.

Well, I'm sure he's real pissed that instead of airing his voicemail, we had an interview last week, but anyways, happy birthday to the homie. True your beer. I didn't even think about that. He's going to be so I can't wait for all the text messages. But yeah, happy birthday. Go drop true a line at OG. True your beer on the gram. Yeah, I'm not going to say it now because I'm going to say it tomorrow, which is last week, which is last week. Yeah. As we record. Anyways, so happy birthday.

If you guys want to call in and make us wish you a happy birthday, it's 805-538-beer. Oh gosh. Do you want us to wish you a happy birthday?

You want to guilt us into wishing you a happy birthday. Call the show. Good time. All right. Florida man, the Florida man games. We talked about this back in fuck like December.

I thought this was happening like later. I know. February into February is the Florida man games. They had events such as people dueling in muddy waters with guns or like just hand to hand combat, like the fucking jousting thing that kind of like American gladiator. It's like swamp jousting basically. They had sumo style wrestling while holding pictures of beer running from actual Sheriff's deputies while jumping fences and avoiding obstacles. That's hilarious.

A scramble to grab cash flying in a simulated hurricane wind machine. I mean, it was all boarded up. It was 45 bucks to get in fucking worth it. How many people? Oh, is that to enter to like view to watch spectators? Yeah, they paid 45 bucks to watch all this stuff. And so this was only the first ever. It's only going to get better from here. Just wait till there's one where they have to like hog tie a gator with a lit like M80 in their butthole.

You got to like hog tie the gator before the firecracker goes off. We're not pulling that out until you hog tie it. Right. Or better yet, hold a grenade in one hand with the pin pulled out and then have to. Yeah. I mean, they all know as soon as you enter Florida, grenade and alligator, grenade and gator. Yeah, exactly. Grenade or as you say, grenade a gator. But now you nailed a grenade. Or my favorite wrestler. I nail things. Yeah. So I hear in some weird slash I don't care.

News. June shine has acquired flying embers. So if you're into the hard kombucha garbage, I could read the story. But who drinks that shit? Gross. Yeah. I won't even drink regular kombucha. No. Yeah. Oh, it's got probiotics. Oh, eat some fucking yogurt. Right. You know what I'll do? I'll take probiotics. We're good. Save yourself the vomit. Yeah. I remember a couple of weeks ago, Tennessee was introducing that bill to make us.

They can't sell cold beer. Right. Well, that's been withdrawn. Tennessee. Solid light, everybody. Yeah. So our CBR trip to Tennessee is back on. We go. Yeah. Fucking idiots. Rednecks. Oh, who said that? Georgia. Roll Tad. A Georgia small brewer bill fails to advance.

Georgia Senate committee has failed to advance legislation that would have allowed the state's craft breweries to self distribute up to 3000 barrels of beer annually. Reform the state's beer franchise laws that lock brewers into contracts with their distributors. Remove the daily to go sales limit on taproom sales and allowed for direct charitable donations of beer. Way to go, Georgia. Yeah. Just let them do it.

Yeah. The Georgia Crafters Guild basically went on to say that we're locked in handcuffs from these asshole distributors. Geez, man, between New Jersey and Georgia now. I know. What's wrong? Come on. Pull your life together. Yeah. Just let them do it. Who cares? Right. I don't know how stupid the whole distribution laws are. You do a whole episode on that. It's a prohibition laws. You can think Budweiser for all you like. Danny and Heizer Bush. Yeah.

They basically wrote the laws after prohibition. Still makes you hard. Yeah. Yeah. Bud Light doesn't because boy, are those sales still dipping? Budweiser had their AB had their investor call last week and two weeks ago. Didn't go well. Didn't go well. Can't lay off more people. They didn't talk about that, but they definitely are not selling as much beer as they used to. I think they're down like 15% or something. Get better. Yeah. Denver based brewery, True Brewing.

Have you heard of True? Yeah. It's like T R V E. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bugs the shit out of me because it's a V not a U. Yeah. Why? Because it's a V not a U. Yeah. Thanks. They're moving their production away from their own facility to New Image Brewing in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Interesting new take. They're not going to make their own beer. They're still going to have their own tap room, but I guess they don't want to deal with making the beer anymore. So what? I don't know.

That blows my mind, I guess. That's kind of weird. Contract brewing. Yeah. Contract brewing, but your own recipes. Yeah. Pretty much. And then just to keep your tap room open. Yeah. I think they're talking about opening up a second location in Asheville, North Carolina. So it's an interesting business model. Maybe it's smart. I don't know. I'm not a genius. Yeah. I guess we don't know the funds and the financial. Right. Maybe it's cheaper to contract the beer.

Yeah. You don't have to hire a brewer. I've been to true brewing. It was years ago. It's all right. People really say big things about it. Yeah. People like it out there. Yeah. And it was fine. It reminds me of Second Chance Brewing in San Diego. They have completely closed all their locations, including their production facility. You can only find them in Total Wine and stuff, and their contract brewing. Interesting. Yeah. I think at Alesmith. I think I saw that somewhere. All right.

We'll leave you with this one. Drunk man arrested after slapping his rear and flipping the bird to officers.

Is he naked? No. Okay. This comes out of, not Florida, comes out of Oklahoma. Well, I mean, it's- Not far. No. It's like middle country Florida. Yeah. It's like less stellar Texas. Prior Creek Police Chief Jeremy Cantrell shared a story of a bizarre interaction with a prior man on Friday. Chief Cantrell said he was with another officer at Prior City Park Friday morning when they noticed that Michael Chalalike was in his yard nearby.

Chalalike threw his hands in the air, slapped his rear end, and then went inside his residence. He then proceeded to flip us off from inside the residence, Chief Cantrell wrote on a social media post. The chief said that would have been the end of it, but then Chalalike went back outside with pen and paper to collect their license plates numbers. Cantrell said Chalalike was highly intoxicated and, shocking, wound up being arrested for public intoxication. It's fucking weird.

It's like you're in the clear. Right. You know, like- Yeah. You got what you wanted to do. You smacked your ass at the cops, woo-wee, right? Woo-wee. You flipped him off from inside your house. Pretty safe bet, right? Right. Well, they get to knock down your door. Yeah. And then you do it to yourself. Yeah. Came back out. You just stayed inside. I've been really drunk on multiple occasions. I feel you. Not once have I ever thought, "Hey, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to get after these cops." Yeah. It's always smart. It just crosses people's minds. Yeah. You know what? He was probably drinking that shit vodka from your ceiling. You're probably right. Maybe he's got vodka bottles in his ceiling. He probably does. And if he doesn't, he should. You know, we haven't even checked the attic since we started living here. So I assume- I can't wait for next week. I assume you pull the latch and it's just going to just rain vodka bottles.

You guys can get rich from all the recycling. Yeah. Maybe like $15. Yeah. That's enough for a four pack of all beef franks. You got that right. Yeah. See? Hashtag worth it. I like where you're at with that. Hashtag worth it. All right. Let's hit some music over here. Let's head on out of here. I'm going to say hi to Vanessa. Oh, hello Vanessa. Number one listener. Hello. Hope you were at the Florida games. Please let us know how it was. Follow us. Send us pictures and videos. Yes, please.

Follow us on the socials, Crappy Republican.

Of course, flex me a beer, underscores in between. CrappyRepublic.com, CrappyRepublic on all the socials really. 805-538-BEER. That's 2337. If you have a special birthday shout out you want us to make. If you want us to say happy birthday to you. If you want to guilt us into saying happy birthday. Happy birthday, Chewy Happy. Happy birthday, bud. And mail@crappyrepublic.com. I think that's everything. Hope everyone out there is staying very well hydrated. And on that note, good night everybody.

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