Split the Corner Podcast
2 ex bartenders have their favorite bar conversations. Your home for phone down bar discussions on movies, music, sports, history, hypotheticals and whatever else we feel like.
Split the Corner Podcast
Season 1, Episode 13: Talking Beers, Beers, Beers
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Happy National Beer Day everyone! We are dedicating this entire episode to perhaps the most celebratory and celebrated of adult beverages...beer. Whether you are a casual enjoyer of light and cheap beers or you're the guy that can tell where the hops came from in a double IPA within a distance of two municipalities, we are here to celebrate with you today. Kaz and Kyle are taking a little trip down memory lane to cut it up about some of their first beer experiences, favorite drinking games, and the craft beer boom that swept the nation earlier this century. There is a beer for every occasion and an occasion for every beer and we are celebrating them all on today's episode of Split the Corner.
Um split the corner. What can we get you?
SPEAKER_01What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Split the Corner podcast. My name is Kyle. He's Kaz, and we appreciate you being back here with us. Those of you who cannot see me, which is all of you, should know that my cat's butthole is in my face.
SPEAKER_02Ladies and gentlemen, our podcast has its first guest. You guys are actually really lucky. I mean, you're usually lucky that it's not a video podcast, because you know, some people have face for radio, but that was a solid four seconds of cat backside that we would have had to like put a little star sticker on or something to get out. Like I that was that was great. That was great.
SPEAKER_01What a way to get things started. Oh my goodness. Kaz, would you like to tell everybody what it is that we're celebrating today?
SPEAKER_02It happens to be National Cat Butthole Day. Explains the guest. There you go. So that no, it's uh it's National Beer Day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which, you know, shout out to everyone cracking a few. We should we should get that, we should pay money for that sound effect or anything.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'll pay money for that sound effect. Yeah. I mean, I could just go upstairs and grab one real quick, right? Like maybe we should be drinking beers while we do this. If I didn't have to coach kids baseball tonight, I think I would be a lot more susceptible to celebrating the proper way.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, split the corner. We we we owe you one and we'll blame it on kids' baseball. Absolutely. But yes, April the 7th is National Beer Day. And most of these days we say are days because someone cared and filled out the paperwork and that becomes a thing. Uh, this one is actually historically significant. Kyle, do you know why today is National Beer Day?
SPEAKER_01I don't. I maybe should have done a little research before we got on here.
SPEAKER_02I gotcha on this one. Beer is uh beer happens to be an area of expertise. Um, I spent a lot of time in the in the craft beer movement um training staffs on tidbits of dorky beer trivia. So uh here we go. We're gonna start with this one. April 7th is Little Repeal Day. Little repeal day is the day that Roosevelt said, look, I mean, prohibition sucks for everybody. What about a little bit of beer? About just a little bit of beer. And April 7th is the day that they signed into effect, April 7th, I believe, 1933, uh, that beer and wine of less than 4% could now be consumed and sold uh to generate revenue for the state. So today is Little Repeal Day, not to be confused with Big Repeal Day when the world got its booze back. Uh today is when the country got its beer back.
SPEAKER_01You know, just when you thought that FDR couldn't do more for the people of this fine country, he says, let them have beer.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Like like most of the great historians did, right? Like Ben Franklin talked about beer a lot.
SPEAKER_01It's one of my favorite quotes of all time. He said, uh, I might be paraphrasing a touch, but I believe the quote goes, beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, which is just an unbelievably awesome quote.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, we could all be so lucky if that's that's what we're known for, right?
SPEAKER_01I would have liked to have been in the room with the person that thought prohibition was a good idea. Who was that guy? Because it had to stem from one dude, like they were probably in some sort of really conservative, you know, church meeting or something, and they were like, Well, we can't do anything about the beer, and then some guy in the back is like, Yeah, we can. And he had to come up to the front, and he's like, Listen, everybody, alcohol is you know the devil's urine, and we should stop everyone from enjoying it because let's meddle in everyone's life and make sure they don't have a good time. So let's take away the booze. What a stupid thing, just the dumbest thing.
SPEAKER_02Like things weren't bad enough, right? Right? Like, I you gotta think if if you don't need booze, your life's probably pretty good, right? Because we're not just talking about booze, right? Prohibition was uh was uh an outcry to almost all things that we consider you know recreationally positive nowadays, right? Right, they didn't they didn't want you doing anything, no fun, just no fun at all.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we've all seen those old video clips where kids were running with big hoops and sticks down the street. That was their form of entertainment. That was that was as good as things got back then, and then they grow up and they're saying, No, you can't have any booze, like come on, man.
SPEAKER_02First you're too old for your hoop stick.
SPEAKER_01Now they take away your booze.
SPEAKER_02The hits just keep on coming.
SPEAKER_01Thanks a lot, the 1920s. Although, if you've ever done any research or or or read up on any speakeasy culture from back in those days, man, like people said we're not gonna take this, and they did underground bars and clubs and called them speakeasies. And if you read anything about those things, they were freaking wild, man. Like they sounded like a really good time.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you also had people going to jail for long periods of time for things like having a case of beer, but yeah, man, bootlegging and the the guys that were you know running stuff across the the state lines and NASCAR as a concept owes its entire history to Prohibition and bootlegging.
SPEAKER_01Just one more thing that Prohibition did wrong. It gave us NASCAR. Thanks a lot, Prohibition. But those those bootleggers, man, like they were ingenious. Like the one I saw that I thought was the the most clever was a big truck, like a like a load-bearing truck that had fake logs on it. And in the picture, they got caught somehow. I don't know how they got caught, but in the picture, the cop is standing next to like a little doorway that's open in the logs. So they're they're fake logs, they're hollow. They would put all the booze through in this doorway in these logs, and it would just look like a like you're hauling a bunch of dead trees around. I mean, it's ingenious, but I really don't know how they would have gotten caught with that. Unless the door was incredibly obvious, they had used some sort of ornate door handle.
SPEAKER_02You can hear the bottles jingling inside the wood. They they didn't think to soundproof it, and it's just glass rattling. Your logs sound an awful lot like beer bottles. All right, so let's go. I don't want to I don't want to say let's go back to the beginning because this isn't gonna turn into beer class, but let's let's go back to personal beginnings. Where did your love of beer start? Not even love, where did your beer journey start? Because most of it doesn't start with love.
SPEAKER_01No, mine specifically does not. Mine started in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, at Shippensburg University. Um, I was not a big drinker in high school, it just wasn't my thing. And so I get to college and I start going to parties, and it was all Keystone Light or Lion's Head or something to that effect. It was cheap and you could get a lot of it for a little bit of money. And I had never really played drinking games before. So I remember very distinctly playing uh a power hour one time. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a power hour, it is a shot of beer every 60 seconds for one hour. And I can recall doing one of these for the very first time and thinking, this will be easy. I can I can handle myself. This won't be a bad thing. I believe I got to about hour, or excuse me, I think I got to minute 46 or 47, had to excuse myself so that I could go vomit just uncontrollably in a total stranger's toilet and then lay on the floor for a little while until I collected myself and then went back out to enjoy the rest of the party, having vomited profusely in a total stranger's toilet and laid on their floor for a little while.
SPEAKER_02See, I I I only put part of that blame on you um because you said play power hour, which to me leads me to believe that someone sold you a bag of goods, man, because power hour is not a game. You don't you don't play power hour, power hour plays you uh it's it's an experience that you live through. It it's something that you and your friends talk about for months afterwards, like like you went to war together, that you just have flashbacks like while you're going through daily life of something you went through. Same thing with uh I I think this is a I think drinking games is not a direction I thought National Beer Day was gonna go, but I think it's fantastic. Uh, you ever play Edward 40 hands? Yes, that's another one that someone's gonna tell you it's a game 20 minutes later. It's not a game.
SPEAKER_00It's not a game anymore. You're just trying to survive.
SPEAKER_02For for those of you that haven't, uh a 40 is uh a 40 ounce of usually malt liquor, which is worse than beer in lots of ways, that you duct tape to both hands, and you only get to free your hands once you've emptied the 40s. That's it. Unpaws life.
SPEAKER_01Dude, I remember a game of Edward 40 hands at a house I lived in my sophomore year of college, where we had a buddy that was a little bit older than us, uh, because he had been in the military. So he started his freshman year of college, I think at 25, and lived on the same floor as I did and kind of was part of our little group there for a bit. Um this is a big, tough son of a gun. I mean, he's seen some shit, he's done some shit, but the nicest guy in the world. But we taped him up but good. And he was maybe halfway through one of them and a quarter of the way through the other one. And by the way, there is strategy involved. It's one and then the other. It's not do one first and then the other. It just doesn't work that way, in my opinion. But this dude, this big tough military guy, got this look on his face and he looked at the door, and we ran over and we opened the door, and he sprinted out the door. And I mean, this guy threw up everything he'd ever eaten in his entire life, and then went right back to it because that's how the game is played. I mean, he might have got some on a car, like it was a it was a rough go for this guy. I think his name is Martin. Martin, if you're listening, hope you're doing well, buddy. Not playing Emperor 40 hands anymore.
SPEAKER_02I I think it's good to have left those in the past. I think a I think a game of beer pong every once in a while is is not the worst thing. Uh I wish wish more people played beer die. I don't know if you ever played beer die. I've never heard of that before. Uh two people sit on opposite ends of a table, you put your you put your drink kind of you know, in a in a corner-ish area, like not right up against the edge, but kind of a little space. It the goes where it goes. And then you you proceed to kind of throw a dice kind of back and forth underhanded. It's got to bounce off the table between the cups to score a point. I I like I like drinking games that allow offense and defense, right? We we've played a lot of uh bottle bash, right? Where you throw the frisbee and you knock the bottle off the thing, which you know is also a drinking game for lots of people. Um, but it it allows you the chance to you know catch the frisbee or catch the bottle, or you know, you you can it's not cornhole where if you throw three straight right in the hole, I go, Well, good game. You know, like I'd I at no point have any option to play any sort of defense, and you know, not that I don't I love a good game cornhole every once in a while, but that that added aspect is something that I always loved about beer dye, and I do see people playing it on social media every once in a while, and I wish the game would have gotten cooler, um you know, just gotten bigger at a different time because we played constantly, like that's we had a table set up that was just for that, and and that was our go-to.
SPEAKER_01Um we got real into quarters for a while until it got boring because we got real good at it, so you just nobody missed, you know, you'd go around once and nobody had missed at this point, and then the the game just got got boring. So we started trying to do like trick shots and stacking two shot glasses on top of each other and all of this, but that was a big thing for a few weeks in the in the house that I lived in. But I want to go back to beer pong for a second. Did you have any kind of ritual or anything that you did before you threw the ball? Because I have a tendency, I know, to I have to dip the cup the ball in water first of all. And before I go any further, can we talk about the fact that at one point in our lives, that ball that was going into the cup of beer was on the floor of a frat house or of a house in general that probably hadn't been thoroughly cleaned in quite a while, and then we were just consuming that basement most of the time and that water cup wasn't any cleaner. No, I like now the most anytime I've gone to play at like a neighborhood party or something. Uh we use water in the cups now and just hold a beer because we're adults. But as far as my ritual before I throw, I have to dunk the ball first, and I take a couple of like I have to hold it a certain way and all this. But I had a guy I lived with for a while, he crossed himself with the ball. He did the Catholic crossing of himself, spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch before he threw the ball every time. And I don't know, I don't know if it helped him, but I mean he won a lot of beer bongs.
SPEAKER_02No, I don't have a I never had a ritual. I I like you, I played, I played with someone who did. They had to they had to spin the ball on the table and then wipe their hand on their pants, and then they and then they would shoot every time. Spin, wipe, grab the ball, shoot. So like like you said, who am I to say shit went in a cup? But you know, yeah, I I do think I do think that was a fun one to watch people take very seriously. Beer bomb games got real competitive, super competitive.
SPEAKER_01And you it for what there was never a prize at the end. You just had to go on to the next one. I think that's maybe the beauty of it. You're not playing for a championship or a trophy or anything, you're playing for bragging rights, and maybe that's just maybe that's all it needs to be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it's the it's the little kid video game win, right? You didn't have to give up the controller. There it is. You got to play all day, and you never had to give up the table. That makes perfect. No one, no one could beat you. You ran the that's that's all people wanted to talk about. Who ran the table?
SPEAKER_01Right. Or we ran the table, you know. You go to the next one, be like, man, last time we were here, we ran this table. Ugh, to be 18 again. Those are simpler times. Actually, I went to a party when I was like 22 or something, it was a house party, and there was a young mother, a young single mother who lived next door to the person whose house it was, and they were friends. And her kids were maybe like seven and eight, eight and nine, something like that. But we're having this, it's the beginning of the party, and this young single mother brings her children with her, you know, to the to the beginning of it before anything got too devaucherous. But those kids were playing beer pong right along next to everybody else, or doing celebrity shots or something like that. And I remember that being very entertaining because the kids actually were pretty good at it. I mean, they didn't hit the cup every time or even get close on occasion, but that added element of, hey, this is actually kind of fun and we're making it a kids' game. I enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_02I've I've seen a couple adaptations where they've turned it into you know, where you're like, really? Is this is this beer pong for children? Is that what we're doing here? Dave and Busters had had a couple of them. Yeah, where you know, like it's you know, you're you're standing there looking at it going, yeah, that's beer pong. Yeah, he's he's training for beer pong.
SPEAKER_01It's a red solo cup. I know exactly what you're talking about. Exactly. They used a red, like a like a big red solo cup.
SPEAKER_02All right, do you have a historical figure that you would choose to play beer pong with? Oh man.
SPEAKER_01Are we keeping it to athletes? Are athletes not excluded?
SPEAKER_02If athletes are excluded, you're allowed to you're at a you're at a party with everyone from all throughout history, and you're gonna run the table with someone. Who's who's it gonna be?
SPEAKER_01Genghis Khan? For the intimidation factor. He's got that hooked sword next to him, and if he loses, man, that thing's coming out in a hurry. So I think the intimidation factor would be big.
SPEAKER_02I feel like he knocks the cups over a lot.
SPEAKER_01He just gets really mad when a cup goes.
SPEAKER_02He does, like, and and like people are tired of seeing it because he did it last weekend already, and like it's like, oh, Genghis. Come on, man.
SPEAKER_00Just a game, Genghis. Clean that up now. You can go back to taking on the world next week, man. Just I need you here right now.
SPEAKER_02Consumer Mongolians in here and clean that up. Genghis.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think, you know, maybe somebody somebody with an intimidation factor. So like a Genghis Khan or like an Alexander the Great. Or like a Ted Bundy.
SPEAKER_02I can't see like that's you can't go Jesus for the same reason.
SPEAKER_00You know, like yo dude, is your partner Jesus? Yup. We concede.
SPEAKER_02He's standing on the water cup again.
SPEAKER_00Jesus, you can't do that, man. Yes, I can.
SPEAKER_02All the ping pong balls are stained purple because it keeps turning into wine. Oh, your mid-beer chug. Oh, gross. What is that? Is that Sauvignon Blanc?
SPEAKER_00Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Or like an Abe Lincoln. I feel like Abraham Lincoln's a good call. He's got the reach. He used to be a boxer. So if anybody really needs to throw down, like if there's gonna be some stuff going on, he's you know, he'll give you the old underhand. That's right.
SPEAKER_01If he has if he's on the table long enough, he eventually lets you wear that cool hat.
SPEAKER_02I've been running this table for like four score and twenty minutes.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_02I think it's interesting that that we always seem to find a way to turn drinking into a game. Right? We don't we don't really do that with anything else. We're the we're the fattest country in the world. We don't play eating games the way we play drinking games. You know, you're not playing beer pong with little ramekins full of dipping sauces, you know, like you're not sitting down to watch Lord of the Rings, and every time they say ring, you eat an onion ring. Like they're we just don't do it.
SPEAKER_01Sounds awesome though.
SPEAKER_02Right? Like, like now that I bring it up, quarters into some honey mustard.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, well, it's not like you can take the consumption of other things that are meant to inebriate you in some way and turn them into games. Like, can you imagine a game in which if you won, you had to consume a bunch of cocaine? Oh, I threw the ball in the cup, now I get to take a hit of credit. Crystal math.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, so drinking games, I let's let's acknowledge what they are, right? They're they're a they're a mode of getting the cheap shit down. Right? Because you you don't see you don't see a bunch of guys in three piece suits tossing ping pong balls into McCallan 12 rocks glasses, right? Like we're not we're not playing into Kettle One Cosmos. Like we're we're we're throwing we're throwing ping pong balls into Lion's Head, like like you said. I went to college right by the Lion's Head brewery. We got cases of Lion's Head for eight dollars.
SPEAKER_01It was ten in Chippinsburg.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like it that's a case of beer for eight dollars.
SPEAKER_01Can we talk about Lion's Head for just a minute and just what a wonderful thing that they did for everybody? They put pictogram riddles on the inside of their beer caps. So I can remember very distinctly, especially towards the end of a party where everybody was kind of winding down and sitting down, and those beer caps were getting passed around, and you'd sit there and you'd be struggling with it, and you'd be like, Oh, I got it, and then you pass it to the next person, you wait for the next one, and people would get just bombed for not understanding what some of these things were. Oh, you didn't get the little bird, like you're such an idiot.
SPEAKER_02There was a poster uh that hung in one of the distributors behind the register that had all of the lions' head caps on it. Oh wow, as like a giant um like that the brewery put out, like an official key, like a legend that that had all the answers to all of them. Um, but yeah, that's but that's the whole point, isn't it? That like look, the beer came with a game because it's something to do while you drink it, right? Because we're not sitting around and enjoying the the wonderful hop notes and the roasted malt deliciousness of Wilkesberry's pride and joy.
SPEAKER_01Um but to be fair, Lion's Head wasn't terrible. Like of all the cheap beers you could buy, if it was Keystone or you know, if it was proud of it, Miller.
SPEAKER_02Like we drank so much of it because it didn't cheaper than Keystone, but but about as good as a Miller light.
SPEAKER_01See, I think you're you're doing Lion's Head a disservice right there. I would take a Lion's head over a Miller light any day of the week today. Does it still exist? Is there still Lion's Head?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, if there's anyone from Lion's Head that's listening, send us some beer. We'll promote the hell out of you. We're both big fans.
SPEAKER_02Lion's head. Our first sponsor is the cheapest pocon beer imaginable. Let's upgrade to Iron City.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, talking about quality, I know that you've got a lot of experience in the in the beer world. I myself have taught a beer class or two in my day, but do you have a specific type of beer that you gravitate toward? Is there a a season or is there a like a type of beer that you enjoy over all others?
SPEAKER_02So I think we kind of came up in the in the craft boom, right? Like we were around for for the better part of it until the the corporate buyouts started to ruin everything, um, which I know affected both of us uh personally in a lot of ways. Um But I think I've done I've done the full lap, right? I got in on on the the like so many of us do in craft beer. I got in on the lighter stuff, and then I got into uh like Saranac would do the 12 beers of summer and then the 12 beers of winter, and they would be these variety packs of different styles that would let you try a pilsner and a kolsch and a pale ale and a you know, then the dark one would have a brown ale and it'd have a porter, it'd have a stout, it would, you know, and and you could try all these different styles through these different variety packs, and then you know, from there we got craftier and and you go super hoppy because now you're into hops and you understand hops and you've got favorite hops, and you can talk about all these different IPA styles, and then you get really into Belgians and you become a super traditionalist, and then at the end of the day, when your palate comes back, you just want a nice light Pilsner. And I I think that's where I'm at. I think I've done the full lap. I like a good a good summer ale, a good blonde ale, give me a victory summer love, or or something like that. Nice, light, clean German wheat beer, something something nice and and sippable. I'm not trying to outdo anything. I'm not trying to ruin my palate on sours or or drink some 18% Belgian, give me a nice light, sippable, clean, well-made beer, and I'm good.
SPEAKER_01I think I kind of went in the same direction, but at the same time I pivoted a little bit towards the end because I just recently, over the last year or two, have started to get really into stouts. I don't have them all the time, but there was a time when I thought, you know, if I can't see through the beer, then I don't want the beer. I went through a sour phase, I went through all of that, I went through an IPA phase. And nowadays, you know, my father-in-law drinks a lot of Miller High Life. That's his thing. So there's Miller High Life around. So I have come to enjoy Miller High Life. Champagne of beers. Absolutely. I mean, let's get regionally specific. You know, we live in southeastern Pennsylvania and I live in southern New Jersey, and you know, we have Yingling Lager right here. So you just go up to the bar and you order a lager and you're getting a Yingling. It's not a bad beer, man. It's a good amber color, it tastes good. If I'm able to have what I want, if I'm able to have my pick, I'm always gonna go for a German Marzan lager, like an Oktoberfest. So from about the end of August when they first start to trickle out until the beginning of November when they're starting to be sold out. I mean, I'm that's all I drink from I don't care how hot it is, I don't care where it's from, if it's a Marzen or if it's an Oktoberfest beer, I'm drinking it immediately. And I'll tell you who does a good one, man. Sam Adams does a great Oktoberfest. The Sam Adams October is the one that got me into this style of beer, and I'll drink it forever. I mean, it's an it's amazing. And I always say every year I always say I'm gonna stock up on cases of this, so I just have it in the house, but I always forget or drink them.
SPEAKER_02It's very strange because it's one of their more consistent beers, right? Because they they do a lot in the seasonal world and they've put out a hundred plus beers at some point in time, and and they get a lot of guff for inconsistency, right? You'll you'll say things like, Well, cold snap was better last year. You know, like you'll hear that from people, like, oh, I just I wasn't a big fan of it this year. And and it they never say that about Oktoberfest. I've I've never heard of anyone that said, Oh, we got a bad batch of Sam Adams Oktoberfest this year, or it doesn't know it's not selling well because you know it we we're not sure what what happened. So I'm gonna I'm gonna throw some history at you though, since it is your favorite beer style. So there's two there's two tidbits in there. The first one is you called it a Marzon style. Uh the Marzin style, Marzon is German for March. And the Marzin style comes about because in the mid-1500s, they passed a law that says that you could not brew beer during the summer. Wow because the the hot summer months were likely to spread bacteria and people were brewing bad beer. So in order to keep it in the cooler temperatures and being able to store it in the caves where it can it can last longer, all of the beer had to be brewed by a specific day in March, and then you couldn't start brewing again until September when the weather turned. No kidding. So your Marsans were a little stronger in alcohol than your standard gold nails, which is what gives them their darker color because they had to be able to last the summer because it's all people were going to have available. Now, tidbit two doesn't happen for another two hundred and some odd years when Oktoberfest starts as a wedding between Prince Ludwig and Princess Teresa. Uh, and that's 1810. And essentially what happens is they have this giant wedding, and the wedding turns out to be this huge party, and everybody comes out and they're like, Our future is so bright, this is amazing for everyone. This is like the greatest party we've ever been to. So the next year they just do it again. They're just like, You remember last year when we threw that big party because they got married? We should have another one, and they just kept going. And that's what Oktoberfest is. It's the anniversary of this wedding in 1810 that just keeps going every year. Now, Oktoberfest beers are different from Oktoberfest style because an Oktoberfest beer has to be brewed by a brewery in Munich. So there's only six breweries in the world that can brew Oktoberfest beers. Everything else is just an Oktoberfest style of beer.
SPEAKER_01That whole champagne thing. Yeah, there we go. It can't be, it's not real champagne unless it's done in the champagne region of France.
SPEAKER_02Frankia.
SPEAKER_01Frankia. That's interesting. I did not know that.
SPEAKER_02I figured you could tuck that in your pocket. It's your it's your favorite beer style. You know, know your history. I should know these things. Know your history.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Absolutely. Is there a beer that you just can't get on board with?
SPEAKER_02No, I think I think there's a there's a time and place for pretty much all of it. I some of the stuff that gets alright. Alright, I'm I'm gonna draw the line in the sand. Edible fucking glitter. I've I've had I've had enough of a hand in the craft beer movement in the eastern half of the United States in the past fifteen years that I should be able to look somebody in the face and go, knock it off. Edible glitter is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Your swirly, lucky charms. Knock it off. That's my line in the sand. That's my bridge too far. I don't care what you put in it flavor-wise. I do sparkly. We need sparkly beer. I don't even say anything about Green Miller Light on St. Patrick's Day.
SPEAKER_01But there are sparkly beers. Who are they doing that for? Like who is the target market for a sparkly beer?
SPEAKER_02I couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_01It just seems like such a such a waste of a thing.
SPEAKER_02Such a waste of a good sparkle. There's some some preschool out there that's underfunded. You had all this edible glitter. We need a beer regardless, man.
SPEAKER_01There's a summer camp out there whose arts and crafts table is getting specifically unglittered because somebody had to put glitter in a beer. Assholes.
SPEAKER_02See, I'm with you on that. I will I'll get on the train. You've lived amongst, I know your your wife has run a brewery or two. I've uh is there is there a style that you've come across that you're just like hard? No, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01Pumpkin. I know it's not a style. I know it's not a style, but it's become a style.
SPEAKER_02I would I would it it yeah. I mean you gotta kind of put it in the fruited beer section, but it dominates that second. There's like what? It's like that and like you know, an occasional peach beer, peach beer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can I can get down on a on the peach or or like a shandy, you know. I don't mind that kind of stuff. What I mind is that I'm drinking gourd-flavored beer. I but I don't like pumpkin in general, like I'm not a pumpkin pie guy, none of that. So I don't want to be drinking that. And also, what do you what part of the pumpkin are you eating in the pumpkin pie? You open up a pumpkin for a jack-lantern and you scoop all of that out. Is the inside of it like what's left over? Is that what you're putting in pumpkin pie?
SPEAKER_02Yes, the the flesh, not the not the stringy, gooey, seed-covered bit, but the firm yellow innered that you can lap.
SPEAKER_01How many pumpkins do you need to make a single pumpkin pie? Because I can't imagine there's too much of that in there.
SPEAKER_02Usually like four small pumpkins make about a pumpkin pie. It seems like so much pumpkin.
SPEAKER_01No, but I I do I do feel the same way as you do in terms of there's not much in terms of a style that I will turn my nose up to. Um I have seen recently though, maybe not recently, I have seen that the IPA movement has been making a bit of a comeback. It went away for a little while. But I feel like sometimes the IPA people are drinking really bitter, hard beers with you know 400% alcohol in them. They're triple hopped or whatever, and they don't taste good. But these these guys sit around and drink these things just so they can say that they did it, or like, oh, I'm this guy, I'm the IPA guy. The more hops, the better. I don't, I don't think so, buddy.
SPEAKER_02So I watched that. I I watched that whole thing happen when when IPAs started coming out and we had the bitterness battle and the and the kind of war of who can make the hoppiest beer the the fastest. And and they there is a there's a unit of measurement called IBU, International Bitterness Unit, that they use to actually measure how almost unpalatable this beer has become, right? Because that's what you're doing. The the more bitter it gets, the more it makes you make that bitter beer face, which was a whole commercial campaign back in the day. So I remember having people come into the bar and say, you know, do you know the IBUs on your IPAs? I'm I'm not looking for anything under 60 IBUs. And like, okay, fine. I I do appreciate a certain level of knowing what you want, right? Like, there is a certain level of when you come up and order an old fashioned, I appreciate it if you know what kind of bourbon you're looking for. But uh the snobbery that came with some of this craft beer was was real akin to like the wine snobs, right? Like these and as someone that came pretty close to being essentially a beer somalier and and shout out to everybody else that's gone down that path with me. Um I get it. Like I get having something to geek out about that that isn't wine, because some of us just can't do wine and terroir and soil content and all of that, but you know, give us some hop varieties and and we're down, but it got so out of hand. Same with same with these things that became limited editions and limited releases, and these guys are lining up for four packs, and they're paying, you know, twenty dollars a beer to get a special edition Tired Hands four pack that they had to wait for four hours for. And I'm I'm sorry, but it it there's rarely would you ever be able to convince me that that's worth it.
SPEAKER_01Because here's the thing you're gonna consume it, it's gonna be gone, which is why I have a hard time pay paying like premium dollars for wine. It's just gonna go away.
SPEAKER_02I had a bottle fridge at one point and I collected rare and wonderful beers, right? Things that were gifts from reps that you know can't be brought into to the state, but they got a sample bottle and they wanted to bring it by, or things that I picked up on my travels, or yada yada. I had a whole mini fridge full of stuff that I was collecting, and and what you end up doing is you end up saying, you know, and this has got to be true for scotches and cigars and wine and all sorts of things, but you say to yourself, I'm waiting for a special occasion, right? And then and then this occasion isn't special enough, and and maybe maybe if I wait a little longer, I'll be able to break it out for this. And next thing you know, 10 years went by, and you got a bunch of things you never drank. And now the occasion has to be so special that you'll never get to it. Man, just drink the thing. They're with all those beers.
SPEAKER_01What happened to all those beers?
SPEAKER_02Oh, they got they got passed around and shared. They were they were taken to bottle shares and and no, they've been gone for a long time.
SPEAKER_01I feel like you should have saved one for your friend Kyle, but you know, whatever. I think it's funny that you brought up that that snobbery, that uh that competition, as it were, because it it was a real thing. I mean, I remember it very well. And I think uh being in Philadelphia through most of that, you know, Philly was kind of a like a hot point for a lot of that stuff. Um, there was a beer bar in Old City, uh, can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, it's not there anymore, but their slogan was 120 of the best beers you've never heard of. You know, and the guys that would go in there, they they were hipsters, man. They were these guys that came in with their little twisty mustaches and ironic band t-shirts, and they would sit down and they would pick one at random. And I think I went to that bar one time, and I just remember going, This is just this is too much, this is absolutely too much. But I just remember Philadelphia being very, very engrossed in this whole thing. And then as a bartender, these guys would come in, you know. I would work at a sports bar, so we had Miller Light or Coors Light and Lager, and then you'd get up into some of the special stuff, which was still probably a nationwide thing, or you might have a solitary tap that was reserved for something local, and they'd come in and be like, This is all the beer you have. Like, dude, kick rocks. You're here to watch a Flyers game, shut up and drink your beer.
SPEAKER_02Well, there was a real rush for it, and and again, I I played my part, but I I ran a tap house that had a hundred draft lines, and we had a hundred beers on tap at any given moment.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's the overhead for that is insane.
SPEAKER_02It's an unfathomable task to keep that all alive and going on a regular basis. It's a full-time job just to manage the keg room, yeah, and the menu that goes with it, and the online menu that goes with it, and the staff training that goes with it, and the glassware that it it so but we did, and we did, and and you saw them everywhere 100 taps, 50 taps, 25 rotating taps. You know, we we managed 20 taps uh at at the last spot that we were together, and that's you know, that was not a big craft footprint, but we had you know, had an IPA, had a dark beer, had a logger, had some local stuff. Like we we did our best to make sure that we were represented. I mean, but there were there were spots not far from us had whole walls full of taps, and and how many of them were out all the time? You know, all the time you're like, oh, this place has 60 taps, and you go in and 20 of them are empty. Right. So, and I think that's I think that's eventually what what they found is that you know, maybe 20 of them stay empty and and maybe we put a cocktail there and we put some wine there and we you know, we we don't try and fill a hundred taps because that I like we said earlier, the that that That bubble burst. Yeah, 100%. It's not what it was. There's still craft beer out there. There's still some outstanding breweries making some outstanding things, but but that rush of it's here and it's new, and let's get in and let's get on board, and and all of the new beers that were coming out, and the whole culture that went along with it. And you know, all of a sudden you're working at places that are trying to grow their own hops in their backyard because they want to partner with a local brewery to brew a custom beer, and like none of this was a thing before. Well, we have Sam Adams. You know, like Sam Adams was craft forever and a day, and then and then Dogfish kind of poked its head in. And and that was always the telltale sign, right? You'd have people come into the bar and they'd go, Oh, I've I saw this commercial for this new craft brewery, and you're like, No, you didn't. No, no, you didn't. If you saw a commercial, it's not a craft brewery. Because Dogfish Head never afforded commercials. And if Dogfish Head couldn't afford commercials, then craft beer couldn't afford commercials. Right. So when Angry Orchard comes out and all of a sudden we're doing the apple cider craze that was fun for a year and a half, you know, and you're seeing Angry Orchard commercials everywhere. No, they're not a craft cidery, they're a subsidiary, and they're getting funded.
SPEAKER_01That's the crazy thing, man. You'd mentioned it earlier, was about just how quickly everything got bought up. You know, Anheuser Busch and Miller Kors, like they all just they swept in and just took everything over. I mean, most beer, like there's what two or three at the very top of the mountain that are in control of everything.
SPEAKER_02It was fun to see some of the smaller guys kind of conglomerate together to to stave off that that big push. You know, you had some some little breweries in the south that kind of formed their own little unions. Um, but yeah, it was what do you well, what do you do, right? Because I remember when Ballast Point went, and that was one of the first ones to go, because they had some amazing beers. And and in comes big beer, I guess, with with these imaginary numbers, right? They got bought for a billion dollars. Like would no one has ever seen that kind of money in a buyout until Ballast Point got bought for a billion dollars. Billion. That's crazy with a B. B as in ballast point. So, you know, and and what happened? You know, Constellation took their their two or three best beers, pimped them out in 14 flavors, and then wondered why it didn't work. You know, all of a sudden we've got sculping and grapefruit sculping and habanero sculping and pineapple sculping and pineapple habanero sculping, and you know, like and and no, we're good.
SPEAKER_01The thing that I was really happy to see go was that whole flavored thing. It just got out of hand. You don't need dragon fruit in your beer. It's just you don't need a habanero in your beer. That's such a bizarre concept. I mean, I think I understand why people would want that. I understand why it became a thing, I understand why it was popular for a little while, but at the end of the day, all you're really doing is making juice.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the shock value of it was where it it crossed a line for me, you know. Like, I'm if you if you want to make your wheat beer a little fruitier than normal, or you think you know that this fun flavor balances out the hops, or or fine, whatever. But when you're making a beer with Doritos, or you're making a beer with fried chicken, yeah, come on, or you're making a beer with frozen pizza, all of which are real things. Like, I'm out. You're not doing that because you thought, you know, like put put the joint down, walk away from the freezer. You don't have to do it. You know, like at no point when you were heating up your Elios should you have said, Man, I can make this into a stout. And then everyone else in the room let you proceed with that idea. And you made it in a big enough batch that it could be bottled and cased and shipped all over the country, which was a lot of Elios pizza, into a lot of stout, and no one stopped you. It's gotten out of hand. And I I felt that way about the the Northeast IPAs, the milkshake kind of juice bomb everything's a slushy orange Julius thing. Like, I know I had my hand in in bringing Northeast IPAs down to Philly, but I I just I think we ran away. Like, I you were right, dead on the money earlier when you said that IPAs are making a comeback. I just I really hope we get West Coast IPAs to make a comeback, like traditional hoppy. I just want to taste the hop and the beer. I don't need to taste lactose sugar and orange juice and pineapple pulp and all of that crap. Like, but again, I've done the loop. So I'm back to please don't put that crap in my beer. Right? Like, I just a nice clean German Pilsner and I will take my seat by the window. Thank you. What's the best beer you've ever had? Oh, dude. What's the can you can you do a top three no particular order? Not not favorite beers, best beers you've ever had.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. I can I don't know if I could do specifics on some of them because there were there were times where I was in like Colorado or something and it was something local and I just don't remember those things. Man, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that. Just because I don't have I don't I don't recall some of those things as well.
SPEAKER_02I like the shout out to the you know, I was in Colorado, I tried something local, because that's something you don't hear of in a lot of other industries or a lot of other segments of our industry. You know, you you don't hear maybe with bourbon if you're traveling through America, maybe maybe with some like well let's just call it alcohol in general.
SPEAKER_01I think alcohol in in general is the only not the only, but the only one I can come up with off the top of my head where you you do do that kind of stuff from a local perspective. I mean, yeah, you're you're in a certain place and you try the local food, but it's basically the same stuff everywhere. It's just it was cooked in South Carolina as opposed to, you know, Montana. But with bourbon and stuff like that and beer, I think it is very much more regionally specific to the the where you are. I mean, think about water content, think about you know what's available, all that kind of stuff. And I think that that alcohol is the is the leader, at least in making sure that the local flavor is is there, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you and you said you said water content. I think that's a great point because the the history of so many of these beer styles goes to you know that that point in time when water wasn't safe to drink. So you know, you're you're tracing the lineage back to whatever was was native to that area, right? Because it's not even about what's been brought there, it's about when people were cultivating this area for the first time they made beer or or wine or some sort of spirit with what they had in local abundance. You know, it it's not about well, you know, we had this shipped in and that shipped over here, because it it we're talking before all of that. So if you, you know, if you've been to some place in Belgium where you had a beer at a at a dinner that was brewed by the monks up the street, and that was the best beer you've ever had in your life, that's not an uncommon story. I would the fish tales of so many people say that they're the best beer they've ever had was something that their buddy made. You know, oh man, my buddy made this thing in his garage and and and it went bad, but there were two bottles left, and we split them, and that was the greatest beer, and we'll never be able to make it again. Like so many of those fish stories in in beer get away of the whole the cultural collectiveness of of what it brings together for the people.
SPEAKER_01In that vein, I think I'd have a much easier time telling you that that the beer associated with a certain activity or a certain memory would be an easier call for me to say that was the best beer I've ever had, as opposed to like, you know, this brand here, this brand there, whatever. Because I remember being out in Colorado um with my wife and some friends. We were going to see fish, and she was super pregnant at the time, and we stopped at this local place for brunch. And of course, you know, it was uh right in the middle of Oktoberfest season. So there was an Oktoberfest there that I had that was amazing to me. I mean, it probably was, you know, by everyone's standards a good beer, but like I remember it being incredible because I had just gotten off the plane and I knew that you know, this was the last time I was gonna be in Colorado doing what we were doing before I was a dad. So it was one of those like last hurrah kind of things where that beer associated with that particular memory makes it one of the best beers I've ever had because I was about to start this whole new chapter of my life. But that beer right there, I wasn't a dad yet. You know what I mean? And I knew that I had a couple good days ahead of me. I was gonna see some people I wasn't gonna see again for a long time that I hadn't seen in a long time. I was gonna have a good time. And that was the first beer I had while I was there on that particular trip. So that beer I remember being ridiculously good, but I think what it was associated with led to it being a particularly good beer.
SPEAKER_02I think it has to count. I I think it has to count because because you can't argue it. Because if I said that the best beer I'd ever had was the beer that I had after I finished my 10 mile tough mutter, right? You come across the finish line and the first thing they hand you is a banana and a beer. It's awesome. Right? Like, or if I would have told you that the best beer I'd ever had was Fenway Park opening day twenty, you know what I mean? Like, there are there are metaphysical answers to best beer I've ever had that I would have to be like, you know, the the first beer on vacation. Yeah. You know, like that's that's that's great beer.
SPEAKER_01I remember when the Eagles were in the Super Bowl in 2018 and I I didn't drink at all for that game. I was too on edge the entire time. But as soon as they won and I cracked my first beer as we were putting a bunch of beers in backpacks, ready to run down to Broad Street. You know, that was one of the best beers I've ever had. That Miller light that I cracked open and just I drank maybe like a quarter of it because most of it ended up on the floor because there's hugs and just people are freaking out and all this. That was one of the best beers I ever had.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I think that's as it's as valid of an answer as saying, you know, there's a there's a phenomenal brewery out in Belgium called uh Lupus Browerij, uh, that made a beer called the Wolf Seven that we only were able to get in in small quantities, and it's a Belgian golden ale and it haunts my dreams. Has to be pretty much the just as valid of an answer, right? Like you'd have to be like, well, yeah, I mean it goes.
SPEAKER_01I think that that that's the beauty of the beer, man. The beauty of the beer is it doesn't matter if it's a golden ale from Belgium that haunts your dreams, or it's a you know half warm can of Miller Light after a Super Bowl win. You know, that that there's a beer there, and that's the beauty of it, man. That it doesn't matter what the context uh is, as long as you were in a good place and you had that beer, like that's a good beer, man. That's just a good beer. Sitting out in center field in the middle of the afternoon, sun's out, you got a beer, washing the fills, or whomever your local sports team is. I mean, that's a great beer. It doesn't matter what it is, that's a good beer.
SPEAKER_02I feel like we do a whole spin-off on great beers of history. Um, like the beers that they drank after signing the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, I I bet those were good beers.
SPEAKER_01Surviving the Battle of Agincord. Those are good beers. Getting back from the Apollo 11 disaster, those were good beers, right? Like who's a historical figure you'd want to have a beer with? We talked about beer pong partners, but who are you like who would you want to sit down and just like knock a few back with?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I would I would want to pick I I enjoy I enjoy happy drinking, right? Like I want to laugh. I want I would like to have a drink with someone funny, and the the first couple people that come to mind would be like Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, someone, someone to that effect. But I think Robin would be a bit much to handle. Yeah. Um and so it it would probably be uh someone in a comedic vein, maybe George Carlin. And I feel like he'd be a cool guy to sit down and and have a have a nice drink with and and have a conversation that's that's probably meaningful and and funny.
SPEAKER_01I'd probably go like the baseball route. You know, like sit down with hear some stories from Ted Williams or or you know, anybody from Murderer's Row and just have him tell you what it was like, you know, Yankee Stadium in 54 or whatever. I mean, that's those are gonna be some fun beers. But I'm not getting a beer with Genghis Khan. I don't think that would go well. He can be my beer pong partner, but we're not sitting down for beers together.
SPEAKER_02Once the tournament's over, we're going our separate ways.
SPEAKER_01I feel like Jesus would just get preachy and turn your beer into somebody else blank. Well, if it wasn't for this stupid baseball game tonight, then I have to coach. I can tell you right now, after talking about beer for about an hour, all I really want is a beer right now. But I've got to go mold young minds and be a professional assistant volunteer coach, not show up hammered.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, have a beer for us today. Yeah. Whatever day you get to this podcast, have a beer.
SPEAKER_01And remember to toast your friends here at Split the Corner.
SPEAKER_02Next one's on you. Yeah. Next one's on you.
SPEAKER_00Cheers.