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This is Beer in Front, part
of the Odd Pods Media Network. Sometimes

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the beer in front of you is
the best one yet. I'll talk about

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some old school beers that maybe you've
forgotten about, some new beers that have

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the potential to be a classic.
I'll also talk to various people around the

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beer world and get their stories all
about beer. That's Beer in Front,

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and it's coming up now. Welcome
to the November twenty first edition, episode

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one hundred and eighty seven of Beer
in Front. I'm your host, Dave

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Zalatorus, and Beer in Front is
a proud Odd Pods Media Network member.

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On this episode, I'll discuss Metropolitan
closing in Chicago, and I'll have one

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of their beers. I want to
thank everyone who listens and watches the videos

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on YouTube and other social media channels. If you'd like to support the show,

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head over to patreon dot com slash
beer in Front for more info.

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It's Thanksgiving week. If you're a
longtime listener, I hope you're fucking stuffing

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is not. Try Ruby's out of
town this week visiting family, so I'll

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be home with Moira Rose and have
my mom over for Thanksgiving. I'm not

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going all out this year because there's
only a couple of us. I'm gonna

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soueved some steaks, I will miss
the sides and desserts. So if anyone

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has any extra spare stuffing laying around, you know how to get a hold

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of me. I mentioned in the
intro that if you're a longtime listener about

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your stuffing. I realize after I
recorded that some people might not be longtime

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listeners. So at the end of
the show, if you haven't heard my

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grandmother's stuffing story, listen all the
way to the end after the closing credits,

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and I will tell you my grandmother's
stuffing story. In beer News,

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it's Thanksgiving week, which means people
will be lined up to grab Goose Islands

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Bourbon County brand stout all over Chicago
Land. I'm not one of those people.

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For the past couple of years,
bottles can be had fifty to seventy

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five percent off if you wait a
few months, so I think I could

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hold out. Twisted Tea is going
to be sold cheaply on the black market

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in the Memphis area thirty two thousand
cases. That's thousand and thirty two thousand

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cases, which is around eighteen truckloads
of twisted tea went missing from a warehouse

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recently. How the hell do you
steal eighteen truckloads a twisted This puts the

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Luftanza heist from Goodfellas to shame.
If you're the security guard, you have

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one job. I can imagine a
Memphis version of poly Walnuts and Silvio orchestrating

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this caper and trying to sell twisted
tea at the bottom, bing like,

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hey, Tone, we got some
twisted tea. Why do you have that

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many kes? Well, there's antioxidants
in tea, you know, Tone and

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Silvio just selling it at the bottom
ban how do you steal that much product?

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A group of former Anchor Brewing employees
have formed a cooperative and raised over

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one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
They're going to focus on assets and intellectual

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property from Sapporo, which shut down
the iconic brewery earlier this year. Brooklyn

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Brewery and Four Roses have come out
with the fifth edition of Brooklynn Black Ops.

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This is a twelve percent Russian Imperial
stout aged in four Roses bourbon barrels.

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I've enjoyed pass versions of this.
Four packs retail for about twenty bucks,

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so it has a reasonable price point
compared to some of the other barrel

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age stouts that are out there.
Voodoo Rangers Imperial Ipa is now the number

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one craft beer in dollar sales at
convenience stores, overtaking Blue Moon. Sam

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Adams seasonals have gone up now to
number two in sales at grocery stores.

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I just hope they don't store that
stuff in Memphis. Like the Twisted Tea,

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Goose Island and More Brewing, they're
teaming up for a new barley wine

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that's going to be double barrel aged. The new beer will be called Tusk

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and Grain. Good news on the
labor front, the Teamsters and ab in

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Bev have reached the Tentatives Settlement to
restore health benefits for active and current workers

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and end the two tiered healthcare plans. Church Street Brewing out of Itasca,

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Illinois is opening Barley House where you
could dine while having some great beer.

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They had a soft open this week, so look out for that. Sad

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news. Out of Chicago, Metropolitan
Brewing is closing its doors on December seventeenth.

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They filed for Chapter eleven last month, but cited a rent dispute that

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has been going on now for years, and low sales in the retail market

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is reasons for this. The owners
claim that the landlord came into the brewery

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while they were doing some renovations and
hurried them into signing a lease with an

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extra nine thousand square feet of space, which they did. They signed this

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without their attorney present. I'm not
going to dispute that one bit, but

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something just is never sat right with
me while reading this story over the past

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couple of years, even if you
didn't have your attorney president, no one

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looked at the lease's square footage in
monthly rent before signing and said, this

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is not what we agreed upon earlier. And after paying this for a few

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years now in twenty nineteen, before
the pandemic, you discover this discrepancy and

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then stop paying rent altogether. No
one said, this rent sure is much

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higher than we agreed to the footage
and I'm assuming the rent is more than

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a third higher than what they claim
they agreed upon before they sign this lease.

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They stop paying the rent altogether,
saying they've been overpaying. I don't

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know. I'm not a lawyer,
but I can't see how just not paying

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your rent is going to end up. Well. I'm not saying the landlord

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is an angel by any stretch,
but I'm having difficulty buying the brewery story

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in this. They were either extremely
naive or had poor representation in the whole

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affair, and it's a shame.
They put out some great, great beers.

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The facility was second to none in
the Chicago land area. If you're

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in the area in the next month, you got to stop by pick up

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some beer. Before they closed for
good, they had a statement on social

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media saying they have no current plans
to relocate or revive the brand, and

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I don't know what's going to go
into the spot. I mean, it's

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a great location overlooking the Chicago River, but I can't see, for like

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the landlord, how you're going to
fill this space. I mean, they

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still haven't put anything into the Ballast
Point location that closed down. I think

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it was the west Loop they closed
that down after the pandemic. That's another

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huge facility brewery that's been open.
So I don't know what's going to go

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into the old Metropolitan Hi. I'm
Tina ha Demio and I'm Hillary Doherty,

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00:08:13,879 --> 00:08:18,920
and we host the Muck Podcast where
we discuss the dark and sometimes weird true

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00:08:18,959 --> 00:08:22,399
stories in American politics. E Tina, did you know that Elvis crashed the

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Nixon White House for the sole purpose
of getting a Dea badge and it worked?

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00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:33,879
Who or how a gun control advocate
senator out of California engaged in gun

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trafficking with Notoria's gang leader, shrimp
Boy. Shrimp Boy I remember him,

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00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:41,080
Okay, So you know. We
cover all of that and more for Maladies,

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00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:45,399
madness, mischief, and murder in
the US politics, and we also

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00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:50,639
host a bi weekly interview segment called
Lil Muck. We interview politicians, journalists,

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00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,320
activists, and others who share their
experiences in politics. Find The Muck

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00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:58,320
Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts,
and check us out on social media at

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00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:01,080
the Muck Podcast. All right,
the beer that's in front of me is

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from Metropolitan. This was their flagship
crank Shaft. It's a kolsh beer checks

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in at five percent alcohol twenty two. IBus Untapped only gave this an average

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rating at three and a half bottle
caps, but over on Beer Advocate it

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was rated very good at eighty five. I've always enjoyed this, so this

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will probably be the last time I
get to have a crank shaft, so

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let's bust open this can. Crank
shaft has a nice, beautiful pale straw

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color, good foam on here,
really smells nice. It just smells like

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a delicious old school beer. They
use a little wheat in this, so

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I think that's why it's a little
bit lighter in a little easier than normal.

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But it looks and smells phenomenal.
Yeah, that's really good. This

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is something you could drink this or
you could in the past, drink this

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all day. It's just a phenomenal
beer. It's true to this style.

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It's just something that you could have
every day. It's nice and light,

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good hop finish here, good malt
taste of this, everything about this is

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just rock solid. Yeah. Just
tastes like an old school beer should like.

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This is something hopefully Metro comes back
in another life or another you know,

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brewery of some kind, because I'd
love to see this beer again.

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It's a delicious beer. If you're
in the Chicago area and you get a

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chance to head over there, maybe
they still have this on tap, or

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you know, maybe a grocery store
will still carry it. But definitely pick

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you up some crank shaft. All
right, try something a little different right

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now. I was at my grocery
store, Mariano's, and they had in

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the ready to drink a cocktail section
a Gray Goose Classic Martini cocktail. This

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is made by Gray Goose. It's
in a Gray Goose bottle, smaller bottle.

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It's a three hundred and seventy five
milli liter bottle. This is Gray

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Goose vodka blended with French vermouth.
I do love a good vodka martini,

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and they had this on sale.
It's normally twenty two ninety nine. They

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had this nine bucks off, so
for thirteen ninety nine. It's in the

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cart now. It says it makes
four to five martini's probably gonna be about

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three. But let's bust open this
Gray Goose Classic Martini cocktail and try this

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out. I didn't have it in
a cocktail shaker, you know, doing

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shake in, not stirred. So
I'm just having this over one of those

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nice big giant ice cubes. Smells
really good. Smells like just your classic

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vodka martini. I guess I should
say the color the color is clear,

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but no, it really smells nice. If you're a martini drinker. I

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think the smell is pretty good.
It's not bad, pretty smooth. I

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think I would probably add a little
more of amouth if I were to make

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a martini at home, but it's
definitely drinkable for the price point. I

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mean, if you get it on
sale for fourteen bucks in the cart twenty

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three eh, I don't know.
I mean, it's not bad. I

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guess if you're like me, you
like Martini's, but you don't want to

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have giant bottles of vodka and for
mooth laying around the house all the time.

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This would be something that would satisfy
your desire for a quick martini without

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having all these bottles of booze laying
around. So if you see the Great

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Goose Classic Martini cocktail, you could
do a lot worse. It's really not

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bad. I would make mine a
little different, but I think definitely this

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is drinkable. A couple of months
ago, I mentioned that I'll be branching

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out and occasionally doing different shows unrelated
to beer. It seems like those shows

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do a lot better the one that
I did. It was almost two years

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now on Stax Records, that still
has legs, and that's still one of

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my top downloaded episodes months to month. So I'm going to branch out and

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do a couple different things. I
talked about a while ago up that I'm

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going to do a show on the
Oakland A's and there was some news last

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week in regards to that, so
I'm gonna finish writing and record that episode

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this week. I have another episode
on Tom Petty that's going to come out

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probably earlier next year. But I'm
going to branch out and do some different

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things unrelated to beer. The beer
podcast is not going anywhere. It just

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might not come out every week in
the near future. All Right, that's

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gonna wrap things up for this edition
of Beer in Front. I thank you

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very much for listening. If you
want to get a hold of me,

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you could email me day that'sbeerinfront dot
com. You can find me on all

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the social media channels at beer in
Front. I hope everyone has a great

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Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, so
I hope you enjoy it with your families,

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and I'll talk you down the road
on Beer in Front and remember sometimes

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the beer in front of you is
the best one yet. I love Thanksgiving.

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It's my favorite holiday of the year. As a child growing up,

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my parents were divorced. Some years
I went to this parent, some years

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I went to that parent. You
know how it goes. But when I

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was stayed home with my mom,
we would have Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house

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and every year she would do the
whole thing, the turkey, the stuffing,

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sweet potatoes, you name it,
my grandmother did. It went all

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out every year, never failed.
She's in the kitchen making this, and

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my grandmother's like, the fucking stuffing
is too dry. It never was.

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The stuffing was always great. It
wasn't I'm sure it wasn't home made.

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It was probably stovetopper. Domini's was
the grocery store we went to back then.

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But the stuffing was always great.
But every year, without fail,

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the fucking stuffing is too dry,
and we would like laugh at her,

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and of course then you know me, I'm a ball buster. So she

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would ask how the stuffing was,
Oh, it's really fucking dry. Nada,

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I don't know what to tell you, and then she would get mad.

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But the stuffing was never dry.
So wherever you're spending your Thanksgiving holiday,

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I hope you're fucking stuffing is nice
and moist