This is Beer in Front, part of the Odd Pods Media Network. Sometimes
the beer in front of you is the best one yet. I'll talk about
some great beer, and I'll also talk to various people in and around the
beer industry to get their stories all about beer. That's Beer in Front,
and it's coming up now. Welcome to the special fourth anniversary episode one hundred
and ninety nine of Beer in Front. I'm your host, Dave's Alato.
I say that shit every week, but I'm the only one doing this show,
so I don't know. But I'm your host, Dave Selaturus, and
Beer in Front is a proud Odd Pods Media Network member. Later on in
the show, I'll have the annual Samuel Adams Boston Lagger, the first craft
beer I ever had and the first one I talked about four years ago.
I'll also sample some from breweries in Illinois that I don't always talk about,
and it's not that I don't want to, it's just there are so many
great breweries in the state that it's hard to get to them all. I
plan to change that this year. I want to have a beer from a
brewery in Chicago or Illinois for each episode. I'm putting together a spreadsheet so
i'll know which ones I still need to get to. Four years ago,
for whatever reason, I decided to start a podcast. Up till end,
I never listened to them. Ruby does, and she tried to get me
to listen to Hi. I'm like, no, I don't want to listen
to podcasts. But then I had a bug up my ass. Oh maybe
I should have a podcast and talk about beer. Now. This was a
couple weeks before the pandemic hit, so you can't say I did this instead
of making a sour dough starter like many did in twenty twenty. But it's
funny. Maybe podcasts started around that time, and I noticed that a lot
have quit since that, And to be honest, I'm frankly surprised I've lasted
this long. Sometimes the weekly grind gets a little overwhelming, but this is
almost like therapy to me. I've shared things here and stories that I've only
told a couple people. Now, don't be a jag offen send me a
bill for listening. I'm going to talk about some beers in a bit,
but I wanted to give you some show and personal updates. I'm making some
more hot water and it won't explode the soda stream bottle this time. Longtime
friend of the show, Dan said jested making like a hop extract and adding
that to the carbonated water. Now as I'm recording this, I'm making this
extra act right now, i bought some hops from Billy Goat Hop Farm and
I'm soaking them in vodka and then I'm gonna strain it out and thanks Mom
for the vodka. I'll use drops in their already carbonated water like I've done
with other products. So we'll see how this goes, and I'll have videos
up on that now. Because this is soaking in vodka, there's gonna be
a little alcohol in it, but considering it's only a draw couple drops in
a twelve or sixteen ounce glass of water, it's gonna be minuscule. So
keep an eye out for that. I'll post videos on how that hop water
comes out. Also later on, I'm gonna chat with the folks at Billy
Goat Hop Farm, probably later on in the month, and we're gonna talk
about the hop industry, So keep an ear out for that. Pinter makes
a homebrewing apparatus. Now I'm going to receive one from them to make beer.
It looks pretty cool, almost like a I don't know, like a
carrig if you will, for making beer. It's like an all in one
apparatus. So they're sending me one later on this week. I'm going to
brew the beer and share the beer with some friends of mine at the end
of the month, and I'll have updates on the podcast, and I'm sure
i'll be posting videos on how the process is and to get people's reactions to
the beer, because I mean, the beer has to be good or else
why would you buy it. But keep an eye out for that from Pinter.
My back is still messed up. Now. The doctor doesn't feel that
surgery is needed, but now I'm pushing six months of this and I'm at
the end of my rope. He is now going to give me an injection
into the affected discs to see if that helps get this. Instead of just
sticking the needle in my back, He's got to go through my ass cheek.
He's explaining this, and while I pulling his fingers apart to tell me
it's a big needle. Dude, all you gotta do is tell me are
you putting me under for this? That's all I need to know if you're
putting me under. Don't tell me how big the needle is because I don't
want to know. But it's a big needle. It's going through my ass
cheek and they're gonna put me under. So I'll see. Maybe Ruby can
lie stream this. In Beer and Beverage News, the Teamsters and ab in
Bev have a tentative agreement ending the strike. Now. This contract's going to
be for all five thousand Teamster members working for ab in Bev. Snoop and
Dre have come out with Gin and Juice. I'm actually having one of these
right now as we speak. This is ready to drink cocked and it has
gin, juice, honey and other flavorings. I picked up an eight pack
variety the other day. I had the Apricot. That was good. I'm
drinking the citrus right now and it's really good. I put a video up
on social media of the Apricot. But this is really good. So if
you're looking for something a little different, check out Gin and Juice. Legendary
frontman Roger Daltrey of the Who turned eighty last week. In Lakedown Brewing in
East Sussex, they put out Roger's Pale Ale. Now Roger and his son
own the brewery and the beer is not for sale. It's just for Roger.
So I guess if you're a Roger Daltrey, you could have your own
beer. But happy eighty after Roger Daltrey. Goose Island is bringing back Honkers
Ale in cans. This was the beer that started it all for Goose.
This is gonna be a four point three percent beer going to be brewed here
in Chicago. The release date is unknown, but Honkers was always a great
choice. I'll be picking this up again when it comes out in cans.
I remember when they still had the Clyboard location before they moved to the Salt
Shed. They still brewed it there and you could pick up a growler I'm
sorry, like a crowler or growler of it. And it was always a
good beer. So I'm looking forward to having Honkers again. Goose is also
teaming up with the New York Yankees. It's going to be called Legendary Ale
and it's going to be the twenty five ounce cans. So I'm assuming this
is just going to be sold to Yankee games, But I don't want to
know what a twenty five ounce beer is going to cost you a Yankee game.
On March fifteenth, Cruz Blanca and Hop Butcher they're teaming up for Royal
Palm. This is a variation of Cruz Blanco's Terrific Palm shade, so look
for that on the fifteenth. Hey, this is Grabbing the Brisket podcast.
Join us every Monday where we talk about the latest trends in barbecue, interviews
with world top petmasters, celebrity cooks ooh like we Man from Jackass, and
musicians like rich Osool. So check us out. We do beer reviews,
barbecue fails, so many fires do a lot of people just burn their houses
down for no reason. We also talk about cocaine, hippos versus Besgators,
learn how to make some tailgate gravy, altercations with Texas Rangers, people throw
on recents, peanut butter cups. Yeah. So check out grab the Brisket
dot com for podcast info, viral social media post and so much more.
All right, So it's the Fourth Anniverse, three hundred and ninety ninth episode.
I have to have the beer that started it all off. Samuel Adams,
Boston Logger. I think it's my annual Samuel Adams on the Show.
If you listen to the show before, this was the first craft beer I
ever had been back in nineteen eighty nine. Still, like you go to
an airport, there's nothing better than a Boston Logger that's on tap. You
don't find it everywhere else. It's usually like airport bars, or like Chilis
or Benegans if they were still around. But sam Adams on tap is still
a great beer. They rechanged the recipe last year to a more cleaner formula,
and I had it last year and it wasn't that fond of it.
But let's try this one again. The Boston Lagger looks great. Nice color
here, good foam. It does smell good. I'll give it that now.
The date on this say is best by June, so I'm assuming this
is fairly fresh and not last year's. That's still a good beer. But
and this just could be me in my mind playing tricks. I mean,
I do think that I liked the older one better, that wasn't as crisp
and clean, But since I haven't had that in a couple of years,
you know, woos to say that's true or not. But I think the
other one had a little bit more character to it, if that makes any
sense. I mean this is still solid, yeah, I mean it's still
Boston Lagger is still you know, a really good beer. I'll never say
no to a Boston Lager. But since we don't have any like chilies or
anything like that in Chicago, I'm going to have to like go to Rosemont
and find the Chilies or one of those type of restaurants where I could have
a Sam Adams on tap. Again. But if you see it, put
it in the cart. I mean, you don't find Boston Lager as much.
It seems like they're pushing more of the variety packs and things of that
nature. But I did have to dig deep for this one, but I'm
glad I found it a great beer, So Damn Adams, thanks for starting
me on this craft beer journey. And if you see the Boston Lagger,
you still got to put it in the cart, all right. Next up
is Energy City Brewing. Now they contract brew in a Tasca and they're known
for their fruited beers. I'm not sure I've ever talked about them on the
show, so I wanted to include them. Now, this is a Berliner
that's called Bestrow banana split. It's got a lot going on here. I'm
going to have to read it six and a half percent. This is they
have bananas, pineapples, strawberries, chocolate, cherries, and natural flavors.
So I don't know. It doesn't say lactose, so that's good. So
it's eckopen the Bistro banana split from Energy City. It's really hazy, nice
foam at aroma. It does smell like a banana split. There's so much
going on here with the aroma. I get chocolate up front, but I
get everything that I read off it's right there. But chocolate is the first
thing that hits my nose with the aroma. Wow, Yeah, that's that's
a banana split. I get banana tastes, I get. I get everything
here. It's pretty good, really sweet tasting. I don't know, to
be honest with you, that I could drink more than like one of these
in a sitting, because it's a lot, but it's good. I mean,
I definitely get everything here. Let me have some more of this.
I definitely the chocolate and the cherries hit me right up front with the flavor.
But I do get the pineapple the banana. The I get everything here,
so it's good. So they do make a lot of like fruit sours
per liners. So if you see something from Energy City, you got to
put it in the car. Get yourself a banana split, all right.
One of the ones I want to talk about is from Plainfield, Illinois,
Workforce Brewing Company. This is their Ultra Premium super Galactic India Pale Ale seven
point two percent alcohol. They use pale malt, red x Munich and red
caramel malt with Citra Galaxy, Cascade, Mosaic, Centennial and Columbus hops.
They use Chico Ao yeast. So I'm guessing this is going to be West
Coast. But let's crack open the Ultra Premium super Galactic. Oh yeah,
that's a beautiful color. Nice foam here, good three fingers of khaki pants
looking foam, looks really good, smells great. It just smells like this
huge big West Coast IPA huge flavors out of the aroma that's outstanding, really
good, big flavor of the malt in the hops, little bitterness at the
back, which I like. This is fantastic. It's one of the best
IPAs I've had in a long time. I don't think I've had much from
Workforce. I know I haven't talked about them on the show, so when
I was doing this, I wanted to grab some beers from places I haven't
really talked about in Illinois. But I'm gonna be grabbing more from Workforce,
that's for sure. It's W E RK Force. They're in Plainfield, Illinois,
and if you see the ultra Premium super Galactic, you gotta throw this
one in the cart or get a four pack. Don't just mix and max.
Get a four pack and throw this one in the cart. The next
local beer I'm gonna have is from horse steef Hollow. They have looks like
on the can, two locations, one in the city and one in Beverly.
This is annexation. This is a West Coast Ipa they use on this
Centennial Cascade and Simcoe Hops big fan of West Coast Ipa, so I'm looking
forward to this. I don't think I've had anything from horse steep Hollow yet
on the show, so I'm correcting that. Now. Beautiful artwork on the
can. I love the artwork here. I'm a big fan of West Coast
Ipa, so this should be good. Let's crack this one open. Oh,
Annexation looks great, nice good color. Here, good foam. Oh
yeah, that's just smells like a good West Coast ipa. You really get
those citrusy piny notes in the aroma. Smells great. Oh yeah, that's
really good. Trying to see I McCann if it has an ABV listed.
But it's delicious. This is really good. It's one of the best West
Coast beers I've had in a while. I like this. I'm gonna have
to try to pick up some more stuff from horse Thief Hollow. Yeah,
that's really good. If you're a fan of old school West Coast IPAs and
you're in the Chicago area, definitely pick up Annexation. This is a West
Coast once again from horse Thief Hollow. I highly recommend this one. Put
this one in the cart, all right. And finally on my beers from
Illinois to have, I'm gonna have from Haymar. This is called The Defender.
I'm assuming this is named after the legendary black newspaper The Defender. This
is an American style stout seven percent alcohol. I'm a big fan of Haymarket,
So let's crack this one open. Really nice foam here, good three
fingers of foam, smells good. I get that nice roasty smell to the
aroma. I like it. No, that's good. That's really good.
Get all those nice roasty notes with the flavor here. I think this is
really good. Now in fairness, like Haymarket, this is Brooded Michigan,
but their bar is in Chicago, so I don't know if this is an
Illinois beer, but I'm gonna count it. But let's get back to the
beer itself. This Defender is excellent. Yeah, definitely put this one in
the cart. I don't know if this is gonna be like a year round
release, but I think this is really good. Nice price point here,
It's not going to break the bank like some of your bearrell age scouts are.
Haymarket does have a good beer age program. I think they had I
forget the name of it now, but this Raspberry one they put out a
couple of years ago that was good. So Haymarket does do a great stout.
If you see the Defender, put it in the cart, all right.
That's gonna wrap things up for this fourth anniversary Episode one hundred and ninety
nine of Beer in Front I thank you very much for listening. Whether it's
your first time listening or you've listened to one hundred and ninety eight other shows,
I thank you very much. It means a lot. If you want
to get a hold of me, you could email me Dave AT's a beerinfront
dot com, or you could find me on all the social media channels at
Beer in Front. You have a great week. I'll talk to you next
week on Beer in Front. And remember, sometimes the beer in front of
you is the best one yet.