November 11, 2025 • 43 mins
A brewery story that starts with nuts and bolts and ends with medals and cult beers is worth a pint and a half. We set up at Kuhnhenn Brewing and talk with brothers Eric and Bret about how a family hardware store in Warren became a fiercely independent microbrewery known for high-gravity ales that still drink refreshingly clean. The path wasn’t smooth—paperwork delays, a sparse early Detroit beer map, and a lot of trial batches—but the lesson from Belgium changed everything: strength means nothing without quaffability.
Live from Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. https://kbrewery.com/
Hear how DRIPA, their double rice IPA, flipped expectations by using rice not as a shortcut but as a precision tool to dry out the body and let hops sing. The result is a 9.5% IPA that sips like something far lighter, showcasing Mosaic, Simcoe, and classic hop notes without a sticky finish. We also dive into 4th Dementia, their award-winning old ale, where stressed yeast and careful fermentation build layers of fig, toffee, and spice that unfold as the beer warms. For barrel-aged variants, they blend across Heaven Hill and other cooperages, explaining why beer often thrives in barrels that aren’t overly old and how blending achieves consistent, nuanced character.
It’s not just malt and oak. The team shares how their cider program won top marks with clean, unsulfury ferments and balanced acidity, plus why they tinker with sake and eye icebock for future releases. Along the way we talk independence, scale, and the practical reality that DRIPA keeps the lights on while limited bottles build legend. If you love craft beer, bourbon barrels, and the art of making big flavors drinkable, this conversation pours out hard-won wisdom from two brewers who never stopped learning.
If this story made you thirsty, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves strong yet smooth beers, and drop a review so others can find us. Cheers.
https://linktr.ee/ManCaveHappyHour
www.ManCaveHappyHour.com
Jamie Flanagan @DJJamieDetroit
Matt Fox @fox_beazlefox
August Gitschlag @rawgusto
Merch www.WearingFunny.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:01):
I said hey hey welcome to the man cave happy
hour I said hey hey welcome tothe man cave happy hour we're
gonna drink a fine whiskey andsmoke a really fine cigar it is
(00:25):
time for happy hour it is theman cave happy hour whiskey
cigar spirits the stories thatgo along with it I'm Jamie
Flanagan that over there isAugust Gitchlag we have Matt Fox
here oh my god just to my leftacross from me sort of yeah I
got a little bit of you know Igot I got a nice silhouette of
you over here so isn't it quitethe silhouette okay and we've
(00:48):
taken the party on the road weare uh Coonin's brewery we're
the it's we're at a beer housewe're ties time to drink and it
said winery on the wine I wantsome wine before we're done I
want to I want to I want alittle wine before all said and
done um put an umbrella in itI'm a girl drink drunk get me
going so uh yeah but uh so I wewe've talked about it talked
(01:10):
about it talked about it you'vebeen up north on uh
extraordinarily many manyoccasions and uh the beer
selections is uh 20 20 foot tallwe're gonna find out we can ask
the question can't we full of uhfull of full of 20-foot tall
board full of uh expressions toto dive into yes we have many
(01:31):
many a flavor on the wall hereand we have uh we have the three
Kunan boys here now we've got uhthe brothers and the so pop's
just wandered in there uh wehave uh Brett and Eric Kunin
here the founders of the brewerywelcome to the man came
gentlemen we're a couple billtonight because we also have uh
later on the Kunan Guild ofBrewers KGB who make their home
(01:52):
brewers all meet here tonight sowe'll talk to some of those guys
about the hobby but right nowthe guys that turn the hobby
into their livelihood rightthat's basically how this all
got started so Jamie always asksthe question but since I'm
holding the microphone I'll doit tell us about your childhood
as dad as dad just walked inyeah it was not filled with beer
(02:15):
I think it was no my dad did notyou know he did not even embrace
beer at all no um no we had a ohI mean we probably drank more
stro's signature out of hisfridge than he did that was
signature that was his his beerin the fridge but it sat there
long enough case at the houseand lasted two three months and
(02:37):
I'm like oh Papa this beer'sgonna go banned I think your
children should drink it.
SPEAKER_02 (02:43):
Oh but this this location that we're sitting in
was your family hardware storeright yeah this was the Lutz
hardware my dad bought in uh 72okay and he converted over from
an old fashioned hardware thathardware goes back to uh being a
wagon wheel repair shop andblacksmith shop that's how old
it was wow wow so it stood onthis spot right here and then
(03:07):
they ended up buying the generalstore across the street which is
the middle of Mound Road now andthey moved it and built it brand
new as a a hardware store overhere uh back in 1930 1934 okay
so pre-year childhood yes it'snot that old none of us are that
(03:28):
old so he bought it and he herevamped the whole thing into a
uh a general general hardwarestore because the hardware store
that it started with had allyour just uh crazy different
stuff it had your uh uh you knowyour washers and dryers the
fishing licenses all the all thethings from a small town but it
(03:52):
wasn't really it was like the itwas the village of Warren at the
time so so he he he made itprogress and made it into more
main street stuff he made itboring he had he put a whole
section of a big amount of painthe put in your nuts and bolts he
put in all the stuff that youneeded to fix up your house I
remember as a kid they had allthose old potbelly stoves like
(04:14):
seriously like you put your woodin it and you would cook off of
this thing you know I rememberseeing that as a kid and that
like blew my mind like peoplecook off wood.
SPEAKER_04 (04:24):
We had a little neighborhood store on the east
side but it was uh Viterihardware on seven mile uh in
like Kelly area and it was knownas it was hardware and hockey so
they had hardware so you get youknow some bolts and latches and
locks and hockey things but Ialso remember distinctly there
being beer supplies and brewingsupplies in the hardware store
(04:45):
and trying to get my dad I goyeah you drink a lot of beer you
should make some it's like Iwhatever I make it I just buy it
from the store.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
Yeah so that was what kind of blew my mind is
when I started uh homebrewingand it really came from my my
brother when he when he uh hewas a fraternity brother or he's
a Delta Sigmafy I was in easternMichigan and uh go Eagles yeah
right and um I went to a partyand I tried some beer it was a
(05:11):
fraternity party was it withHeroes back then yeah oh wow um
and essentially I wasn't datingthey were happening to be up in
Traverse City and they found aplace that was selling homebrew
kits and they they brewed somebeers back at the fraternity
house from from this uh you knowthis place and I'm like wow and
uh I went to the party and Itried this beer and I couldn't
(05:33):
believe how good it was Iremember drinking this uh Irish
stout I was like this is so muchbetter than anything I've ever
tried it was just amazing thiswas at EMU at Eastern yep yeah
he was at the fraternity houseand we were we they'd he'd hang
out come up for a fraternityhouse and hang out for some some
beers before he was I want to beeducated he did he tried the
(05:55):
stuff and he fell in with lovewith this beer this beers that
we were back then we had theyellow pages right and it's easy
open up this yellow book andlike home brew supplies and
guess what most of them werehardware stores it's like okay
all right we had a hardwarestore why didn't we start
selling this yeah so it's likeokay let's let's bring it in you
(06:19):
know and Brett Brett brought itin I was I was actually I
freaked out on him a little bitbecause I came back from Eastern
and he all of a sudden turnedlike a huge section of the
hardware store said I onlyinvested ten thousand dollars he
said what did you do he saidonly well this is what's this is
what's profitable he showed yeahthere's margin on the product
(06:42):
compared to a lot of otherthings could all at that point
in time all your hardware storesyour big boxes were coming in
okay you had candy home quartersbuilder square square was when I
repeated builder square dealyeah so they were all
undercutting and they're 10times larger than anything we
had all of them had hey our ourtheir electrical department
(07:05):
their electrical department waslarger than our whole hardware
store you know yeah so what wasthe precipice from a a shift
from the hardware business intouh the brewing where did that
where did that uh rock paperscissors that challenge come out
conversations with my father itwas convincing him that he said
(07:25):
what the because he owned thebuilding wow he gotta be
shitting me what do you own thebuilding so he was he had that
kind of thing and he actuallyhad to convince him a little bit
and show him what's going on andwe took him to some of the few
places we had in Michigan butthe Detroit brew factory was one
of them we started with brew onpremise which Detroit brew
factory was a place it was asimilar thing we did but we
(07:45):
wanted you guys remember whatbrew on premise is I don't brew
on premises like where you comein and as a group you guys come
in and brew and make six oreight cases of beer as a little
of like a brew kettle yeah butthose like those like yeah those
those that system line up overthere we walk you through the
(08:06):
whole process from from brewingto your drinking which was a lot
part of it to like making labelso I'd like hey you gotta send
me a file you know or give me apicture or something and I'll
make you a custom label.
SPEAKER_03 (08:21):
So you were educating folks then the whole
time yeah and it's like it wasall about these parties yeah
parties a group of like eight totwenty people would come in and
brew one batch of beer make sixcases and they'd split it up so
it was a like a two step processyou come in brew you know spend
two three hours like drink withyour buddies talking about beer
(08:44):
making a batch of beer hopefullyyou don't boil over all the
place and you know it explodesyeah you know and like they well
they've got they grouped theyground the grain it was it was
great selected the hops smelteverything tasted everything all
the raw ingredients that reallygot them into you know this is
like we really made this beerit's pretty cool.
So what year was it that youstarted to have those
(09:05):
conversations with Dan oh godand he said what the actual HDR
you think 2002 uh 2003 that'syou know we did a lot of Jupiter
how long how many years you justsaid this is like uh well the
business has been open like 2002we we sold our first beer but we
started in 98 honestly okay umit took a long time to get
(09:27):
licensing you know we had youknow September 11th screwed up
all our licensing we were we hadhonestly we were we had the beer
on the bar on this side of thebar for a whole year and we just
gave samples away for free Iremember those early days when
this bar was right there ourlicensing was like wouldn't come
(09:49):
through and I'm like why is itnot coming through oh I'm so
sorry I lost your licenses I'mlike sorry your paperwork I got
can you send me it um it's intriplicate blue ink only um and
they don't know how easy theygot these it was so easy if you
do it all digital and it's likedone it's like back then it was
(10:09):
like yeah like you saidtriplicate blue if you did
something I sent stuff and blackthey said ones that were making
beer it was like Traffic Jam andSnug was making beer Michigan
Brewing I think was making beerwas motor city just opened okay
right here yes Franklin Streetas well I think downtown oh yeah
you remember that I rememberFranklin Street Brewing Company
(10:31):
yeah um yeah there was um not alot you know Atwater was just
open they were just gettingstarted yeah they were you know
a great help we learned a lotfrom those guys when they first
opened and Tom Morosi yeah hewas a great awesome from Germany
they're brewing there was a goodfriend of ours a lot of tight
fruit and break but you guysstayed with it and you continue
(10:52):
to put your own spin on yourbrews and everything nobody was
making high gravity anythingthat was the thing it's the the
strong beers no and that'sthat's what we that's what I
really for Drake is highgravity.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
Okay I got no idea what the heck is high gravity.
SPEAKER_02 (11:12):
So it's high anxiety like I just think no anxiety
inspiration is when we firststarted like two years in and we
were already trying to to goafter fun specialty big beers it
just didn't exist i mean one ofthe first ones is like having uh
expedition stout from from thatwas one of the few things you
(11:32):
could get in Michigan at allthat opened the door to what
high gravity was it really butbut but Belgian beers were the
other big inspiration bringingCorsandon Brown was like one of
them yeah couldn't you brought aRussian imperial stout to
Punchky Day one year and peoplewere falling over because they
didn't know how to drink it.
We didn't have eight ounce cupsfor that stuff that was yeah
(11:53):
that was a long time ago heywe'll get to you later we'll get
to you later pal yeah so yeahRussian Imperial stout to punch
day in the morning yeah whowould have thought that right
that was my introduction to ahigh gravity well that was was
that the creme brulee Java styleprobably was Russian imperial
style okay so yeah we're exactlysaying don't sell it in cups
(12:15):
more than 10 ounces we gottastart deciding to go on an epic
trip a couple years into beingopen we said can we really do
this and get it because wewanted to have our Oktoberfest
party right when we were tryingto leave for a trip to Europe
with my parents and Brett andhis ex-wife and it was like boom
we all went over there and itwas amazing we ended up going to
(12:36):
Belgium for uh this grand uhbeer uh beer tour breweries and
when we did that we we learnedall about high alcohol brewing
Belgian styles and the biggestthing we learned is like
everything even the respect isthat even at a super high
alcohol beer it has to havequaffability so it's got to be
drinkable even if it's that 1415 that's high gravity yeah like
(13:02):
chame blue label aged for fouror five years in a pub nothing
nothing like sellers that wedrink now which is not so much
drinkability but we drink thoseto share and enjoy you know I'm
saying but but what we learnedin Belgium is like oh you should
be able to drink a whole pint ofthis strong beer well that's the
(13:24):
the optional word for yeahshould well that's where they
where they get the the term uhdevilishly strong over the doval
with like duval yeah because itit'll bite you in the ass if you
don't watch what you're doingbecause it's it's sure it's
strong but it drinks very smoothbut you don't notice it until
you stand up true right totallywe we kind of tried following we
(13:48):
do love we love very strongbeers I mean you know the fourth
dementia old ale or 4D as wecall it now it's not just
because it's high alcohol it'sbecause if after you start
brewing these things and seeingwhat happens is you make the the
yeast work harder you end upgetting more complexities and it
drinks like even more complexthan red wines we found after a
(14:12):
while because you get thismulti-dimensional characteristic
as it warms up that you getdifferent characteristics coming
off of it and it's just anamazing amazing thing to to make
so so distillery distilleriesbreweries i we mentioned a bunch
that kicked off kind of aroundwhen you did uh not everybody's
had the longevity you've had sowhat do you owe to your
(14:35):
longevity to what do you what'swhat's keeping you what's keep
what what is keeping your dooropen august is yeah well I mean
you guys have some signaturehigh end beer like your triple
your double rice IPA is a eightand a half no nine and a half
percent double IPA which drinkslike a six percent IPA get a
(14:58):
couple samples of very quaffyears ahead trip no how about
the new mosaic we made a limitededition mosaic only which is
fine okay really tasty um maybemore fruity than um the regular
and so let me go uh secure acouple samples of that i i
happen to know someone here sothe use of rice okay so maybe uh
(15:20):
we could talk about the use ofrice that's something that we
really learned in Belgium so youuse the use of rice and we would
not rice so much but adjunctsadjuncts so when we we like we
went to we read about all thebooks and everything about going
to Belgium they use Belgiancandy sugar to make all the
great Belgian beers Belgiandouble triple you know we went
(15:41):
there no no well this is what wereally do learned some stuff
from the Belgians you know andthen like man I was like how do
you make this beer so crisp anddelicious and it wasn't candy
sugar it was the use of rice ohokay it's interesting and that
was it was very very interestingand like okay Anneheiser Busch
(16:03):
is the only people that use riceand rice I was gonna mention
Budweiser but I'm like I'm notgonna go that we don't want to
talk about it but I was likeokay so why do you guys use it?
And I'm like oh really they toldus outright oh makes the beer
much drier you can drink more ofit and it's it's like uh yeah
it's crisp it's crisp crisp allright but you're like crisp but
(16:25):
Brett's first experiments weredoing a a light domestic beer
like the classic American yeahand I started brewing it all the
time and we said you know backin the day when we were making
our IPAs it's like what waswinning all the awards uh in the
categories for IPA andeverything judges become based
(16:47):
upon what they know so a lot ofthe judges that were out there
back then for GABF and WorldBeer Cup were guys that were uh
used to having West Coast IPAsthat's when west coast IPA first
came around and it was a drycrisp I call it like a naked
style beer that actually hadcrisp and dry and said let all
the hops through show throughunlike having your two hearted
(17:10):
which you know I love a lotwhere you chew on it when you
you chew on it a little bit morebut it has some caramel malt has
some backbone and body to itthese are a little bit
different.
So that's what was actuallywinning the awards and we said
well you know and we were withour buddy Dan Rogers and we were
scratching our head what thehell's going on we went around
tasting all the winners a coupleyears prior and then we figured
it out oh I can see what thejudges are looking for we said I
(17:32):
get it I see what they want Isee what's so nice about it's
letting the hop shine through sowe decided well what can we do
different to put our own twistand signature on it and from
making that classic American alewith the dryness we know how
easy it was to give it aChristmas and high alcohol to it
as well and like what Brett wassaying about Belgium and that as
(17:54):
well but it was a lot of thingswent together.
SPEAKER_03 (17:57):
So just use just use the adjunct yeah you you
increase the alcohol content umand we throw a lot of hops at it
and that's what how the drip itcame to be it was essentially
like hey we can make we can makethis beer crisp just like the
judges want sure at the JAVFthey you know they want it very
(18:19):
light and how do you how do youmake uh a nine percent beer look
light and golden right right youknow and that's that's and it's
like the rice doesn't contributea lot of flavor just the
crispness right okay and thatmakes the hops shine through so
that's how the drip of it cameto be um it was essentially a
variation on the classicAmerican filter let's like let's
(18:42):
not cut it with any water allright you know let's add it's
all the hops that we love andwe've gone through so many
different varieties of hops andlike which ones taste you know
for bitterness the the the thebeta to alpha acid ratios you
know what what do we like youlike the citrusiness um yeah
(19:03):
there's a bigger back then a lotof these hops are just coming
into play what we started doingis like simco hops was a was a
brand new hop back then and ithad this huge mango papaya
characteristic to it and this isthe mosaic so this is a mosaic
okay i i i have a really goodmemory when i smell something
(19:27):
and this really is reminiscentof and if it's okay if i say
what it is you are with thatwell it's made with mosaic hops
so okay tell me what you thinkof it it smells like an M43 okay
so does m43 have mosaics see ican't remember but i just just
on the we don't do a lot of beershows we don't we don't do a lot
of beer right they've you know alot of places have gone a lot of
(19:51):
the new hybrid hops have a lotof these high fruit note
characteristics too even thoughthey're different hops a lot of
citrus a lot of now like a greatjuicy citrus character
grapefruit to them depending onand we had some of the first
ones we dealt with was amarillosimco even old school columbus
even had some goodcharacteristics columbus hops
(20:13):
good i mean co silly was my beerhere was always kind of staple
too and everybody knowscentennial you know man that's
the most popular IPA but youdrink this and say this is nine
and a half percent this is nineand a half percent this is nine
and a half percent and it drinkslike a you know a six percent
beer yeah and it's a schoolnight and it's a school night
(20:36):
for you yeah you know the that'sso quaffable yeah I love I love
the word very drinkable yeahthat is uh that really sits well
that's really good it's almostgot because of its viscosity
because it it is it's it is thatstrong you know but it's still
(21:00):
um it coats the tongue it has alittle creaminess but it
finishes really dry it's so it'ssitting so nicely you know it's
you know it's a funny story isthat back in the day they were
trying to the BrewersAssociation was trying to come
up with what makes a craftdefine what makes a craft
brewery a craft brewery and oneof the things they said is they
(21:20):
they're they're throwing aroundthe different ideas and one of
the things they want to do isput out there that adjuncts at
the time would be something ohwell all the they're using corn
syrup and they're using rice andthey're using corn and and then
you say wait a second if youtake away that from us it's like
that there again you're you'reactually well that was the year
(21:42):
the year that you're holding usinto something it's not true.
SPEAKER_04 (21:45):
And they want and yeah and they had to back off on
that they had to change thedefinition of craft beer because
oh if you used an adjunct youknow rice or corn in it oh
you're disqualified well theyhad to redefine it only if you
use it to enhance the beverageokay so yeah we use a lot of
rice in this you know 30 rice ina drip up okay you know wow
(22:07):
double rice yeah double ricesingle rice would be like 15
right you buy out of a can thisis doesn't taste like too hard
it doesn't taste like hop slamit's not that that IPA there but
hop slam is a double IPA as wellright but it doesn't have the
sharp drinks to so sweet like ahop slam this drinks like a
(22:28):
regular IPA that's what definesus as so different really you
said something earlier you saidyou made you make the uh the
yeast work harder define thathow do how do you guys make the
yeast work harder with Belgianbeers and a better example for
us would be like our fourthdimensional old ale when we
actually make it work under a aunder higher viscosity
(22:52):
environment okay stressconditions the stress stress
conditions stress it brings outmore esters you stress the yeast
sometimes it like flavors comeout more okay in the stress
condition is it a heat atemperature not necessarily
sometimes so you get a newstress you bring all the yeast
ex girlfriends around so theyget stressed out green apple we
don't want green apple so youbring all the yeast ex
(23:14):
girlfriends around and then ifthey get all stress girl you
threaten her they just like heythey get all stressed out of the
wind yeah it's like what is wehave to add a lot a lot more uh
yeast I'll count to it toactually make it happen so that
it can attenuate which is youknow make it dry enough for the
drinkability of the whole thingbut what if you want the
fruitiness to happen how do youyou you stress it a little bit
(23:38):
stress it out a little bit it'seasy to do under a high you want
the plum characters the figureunder a high gravity density
like dehydrated how do youstress it do you like put Fox
News on in the brew housecontrol and oxygen levels and we
we we don't want to discloseexactly how we do that secrets
(24:02):
okay you guys like bourbon Itake it oh yeah so you know you
you a lot of happy there's alittle ex oxygenation going on
you know not a lot through thatbourbon barrel but do you have
an old ale on tap right now ordo you only have it in the
bottles at the moment um yeahthat's I don't think I would no
no we don't have it at this timebut that's a model you've got we
got a bottle of bottles we havea bottle the the old ale's come
(24:25):
out uh pretty solstice youhaven't had old ale no way
unless they hand up a break sowe're like the definition of the
style for old ale okay okay wewon the award like a bunch of
times so they put us as like heyyou want to try an old ale you
got to get a coonin there's thisfun book out there that show I
think we have it in the backcorner still but the uh they
(24:47):
they make this definition mapwhere they have all the circles
and they show the uh definitivethe styles and then they show
which breweries produce it andthen the beer and fourth
dimension old ale is is one ofthem for the old ale category so
love that it's great that beerthat's like one of my favey
faves right yeah that's one ofour variants right there of it
(25:11):
that's the gingerbread for oldale gingerbread man okay so
that's a a variant of the fourthdementia so that's kind of
popular in in craft beer is onceyou've got a nice signature beer
that you've been doing for anumber of years is come up with
a neat variant yeah of itbecause you've got such a
following for it and they wantto say oh my gosh I can't wait
to see what that tastes likewith you know the gingerbread
(25:34):
man in it so who doesn't likegingerbread so this is aged for
a year what is it aged in whattype of is it age in a barrel
those are mainly heaven hillbarrels maybe some old
Fitzgerald um that's what wemainly buy all right um we have
some blatons um aging um moreheaven hills we've got uh will
(25:56):
it um so when you go to sourceyour barrels you know do you go
on your own wants to send usbarrels heaven hills have
actually played us really wellwe've got the best results from
heaven hill honestly okay umwhat we found is like that the
longer that the bourbon's beenaged in it yeah the less you're
(26:20):
gonna get in your beer oh okayso it's not it's like if it's a
if it's above like eight yearsin the barrel right then you've
already took all the goodnessand it went into the bourbon
like there's nothing more sexysaying that you have a Pappy Van
Winkle barrel right but honestlyPappy Van Winkle's been so
mellowed out and so perfectlycaramelized yeah you're gonna
(26:40):
get some but you're gonna getthe bourbon exactly the big bull
nuances you're gonna get whatonly has so many wood sugar
they've already extracted somuch out of it yeah wow okay
yeah that does that does soundnot necessarily a good thing
like really old barrels thestave ain't doing what it's
supposed to be doing for thebeer no because it's spent yeah
(27:01):
well that's got a that's got adecided nose on it you got that
ginger one yeah so this is thethe gingerbread barrel aged
older gingerbread mangingerbread had this oh wow i'm
pretty sure you've had it yeahi'm pretty sure i have too i've
had most everything they usuallyrelease these at their solstice
party which happens to always beon like my birthday December
(27:21):
21st oh yeah so when they'reserving it in glasses like this
they hand it to me in pintsthat's my birthday so I've done
a chimper kit some of the stuffI drank it's his birthday and
he's got his driver I alwayshave a driver usually my
brother's taking care of mealways a fun time that is a
tasty treat gentleman now thisis something that you you do get
you can judge this like you do abourbon yeah with all the
(27:42):
different flavors you get it's atasty treat fellas thank you yes
you guys are bourbon guys do youI can feel it I don't want to
ask you do you have a favoritebourbon or so we we we all do we
all do we have our dailydrinking likes what they like
right so you know mine Brad Ialways drink I always drink it
(28:05):
at cadu it's my favorite bourbonno wild turkey that's just wrong
yeah it's wild turkey rye rightyeah yeah yeah the one I so you
know we're talking about rye youknow are ryes really much more
spicy and hotter than regularbourbon not hotter but there's
(28:26):
uh but rye is not bourbonanyways rye whiskey is rye
whiskey there's more of a spicethere's a spice to it on a rye
not temperature wise it's just aa spice of warmth that that a
rye will catch you with so rightwhen we use rye you know in beer
it's very very similar to wheatyou know it really is it adds
extra creaminess to it um I Ireally like the rye but it comes
(28:51):
out so different in the spirityeah really it's its own animal
it really is its own animal yesI mean you look at when you when
you grind it out it's so tinyit's like it's it's different
altogether and it does itproduces a different flavor
altogether I I'm upset with youfor talking shit about my wild
turkey you know you've beenthrough this with me wild
(29:13):
turkey's product wild turkey nowfor a penalty like we did
something early on early on thatwas a penalty shot now I mean
their rare breed line they're101 eight year aged they they
just had their 75th anniversarybottle this is good stuff
compared to what you're payingfor everything else right now so
I'm gonna say I'm gonna stopdefending wild turkey all right
(29:34):
well it's a great if you everget get the tour the tour is
awesome I got a I found my oldturkey call I got from there
should have brought it out forthe show tell us about your wild
turkey experience that was justan amazing uh this is a this is
a kid show just an amazing tourthat's all huge I mean the place
(29:56):
is mammoth everything about ityou know the tanks were just
SPEAKER_02 (30:00):
Wide as this room, that's it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03 (30:02):
Did they make more than just wild turkey?
SPEAKER_02 (30:05):
There, do you remember?
That's all we were doing.
SPEAKER_03 (30:07):
We just had uh like two of those huge when we went
to Buffalo Trace like a couplemonths ago, and there were so
many brands that were allconsolidated.
It's like really, it's like Iwas like, How many brands do you
guys really make out of here?
Just four and free mash recipes,and it's like only you know what
comes out of the top of the RickHouse, one of the bottom of the
(30:30):
house.
SPEAKER_04 (30:32):
Cazerac owns all of it, all of it, right?
I'll grab a bottle of Cesarecrye.
I love Cesarek, all right.
That's good.
SPEAKER_03 (30:40):
Eagle Rare.
I mean, black eagle rare isgood.
I don't think it's bang for thebuck.
It's all about what who whodecides on what tastes it's on
allocation.
Let's like let's blend thisbarrel with that barrel.
Oh, I don't like that one asmuch.
Let's move it to a lower brand.
SPEAKER_04 (30:58):
Thank you for bringing that up because do you
guys blend some beers togetherto come up with a beer that you
like?
We always blend.
SPEAKER_03 (31:03):
We always blend all our bourbon stuff together,
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:06):
All our bourbon stuff.
That's the only way you get theright characteristics you're
looking for for the stuff, justlike with with burbons.
I totally understand it with thebeers as well.
Because though, look what you'redoing, you're using barrels that
were left over from the bourbon.
So the characteristics from thatare the same thing that are
going on with that as well.
SPEAKER_03 (31:24):
Don't buy a bourbon barrel that's like aged over
nine years, it's just worthless.
Like there's no flavor left init.
SPEAKER_04 (31:32):
I hate to interrupt that.
Is this the uh cocaine in thepoker podcast?
No, it is not.
No, that's that's in the nextroom.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
Oh boy.
So, how much of your week isspent uh brewing?
How much how much time are yougonna spend it every week?
SPEAKER_02 (31:54):
Usually three to four days out of the week.
Yeah, the rest of the time.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Every day is cleaning, every day is clean.
SPEAKER_03 (32:01):
Every day is uh three three or four days a week.
SPEAKER_02 (32:05):
And depending on what we're doing.
Sometimes we're like when we rundrip because we make so much
drippa, we're doing uh two tothree batches a day.
All right, and that's the doublerice IPA.
So we can run more batchescycle, yeah, is what we can do.
SPEAKER_03 (32:23):
As much as we love the bourbon barrel aged
everything, and like what reallybrings in the bill, the bills.
SPEAKER_00 (32:29):
The drip.
You need yeah, that's what youwant.
How much, how many, how much areyou making uh every six months?
SPEAKER_03 (32:35):
2200 gallons is not or 2200 barrels.
A barrel is 31 gallons, sothat's not that much.
We don't make much, we're verysmall, still small.
SPEAKER_02 (32:45):
So we're still looking for a Clinton Township
to to do a big expansion withit.
Uh, we've been working on it foralmost a decade over there, but
uh, you're not quite a microbrewery, you're a little bit
you're a craft brewer.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
Would you uh definition that's a great
question?
I think that that definition'schanged a bunch of times.
Yeah, I think it has too.
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
Yeah, where would you put yourself on that scale?
SPEAKER_04 (33:07):
We're definitely a micro, yeah, because they're not
owned by another guy doing theircraft stuff.
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03 (33:13):
We've never sold out like almost everyone else in the
state.
SPEAKER_02 (33:17):
But you know, it's everybody's their prerogative,
they want to go and make money,you know.
SPEAKER_03 (33:23):
All the bigger ones have all sold out.
SPEAKER_02 (33:25):
You haven't taken the we are the last independent,
you know, one that distributes,but maybe along maybe um the
only who else is yeah, a lot ofthem are taking checks, even
even the guys that aren'tdirectly taking checks for it,
you know.
I think who's the closest one,who's the largest one we have
right now is uh well it there'sthe in dev guys, and there's the
(33:48):
bunch of who owns Modella?
SPEAKER_03 (33:49):
Then they just buy a bunch of places too, Australia's
and all those guys.
I don't know, I can't keep upwith it.
It really is hard to keep up.
SPEAKER_02 (33:57):
So well, the marijuana industry just
purchased a bunch of them.
SPEAKER_03 (34:01):
That's right.
Yeah, so uh is owned by India,right?
No, no, they're the ones thatthe Canadians that that grow
weed.
So okay, it's changed.
SPEAKER_02 (34:14):
You never know who's you know gonna buy brewing is
owned by um I was thinking ofyeah, by Monster, really yeah,
so monster beverage they made aton of money during the uh
during COVID.
Yeah, I think they just didn'tknow what to do with all the
money they had, so they startedinvesting in fun things.
SPEAKER_03 (34:31):
So what's going on with bourbon right now, guys?
I mean, is it uh you know,there's a you got when I was
down there a couple weeks ago, Iheard like one of the Cooper
Riches, um, like the whole shiftwas canceled on making bourbon
barrels.
SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
What's going on with the bourbon?
There's like big peaks andvalleys, right?
Because bourbon is super popularand it stays popular for a
while, but then it starts tokind of peter off a little bit
for a few years, and then it'llslowly start to come back
because things are continuing toage.
SPEAKER_03 (35:01):
Um, and then when they come out with something
new, it's good.
A lot of people bought a ton ofbourbon from like COVID until
now, and like their cellar andtheir house is full.
Yeah, and they just uh they'relike, I need to start drinking
my bourbon.
Their wives don't want to givemoney on something they're not
drinking, yeah.
SPEAKER_06 (35:20):
Right?
SPEAKER_00 (35:21):
So I I crack, I crack a like I well.
I bought I bought so much.
I'm trying to get to them, butI'm not I'm not I'm like saving
it.
People collect, I don't collect.
SPEAKER_03 (35:32):
How much how much bourbon do you have at your
house?
SPEAKER_00 (35:35):
That's a great question.
SPEAKER_03 (35:36):
Be honestly, do you do you know how much?
No, I do not do you have an idealike how many cases you have.
SPEAKER_00 (35:41):
No, it's not well, because there's six in a case,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
I probably have is there six or twelve in a case?
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
See, well, it depends on the case.
A lot of bourbon barrels havesix.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (35:58):
Okay, I didn't know that.
But I probably should have knownthat.
SPEAKER_00 (36:01):
But I might have 50 bottles around the house.
SPEAKER_03 (36:04):
Well, that's not that bad.
No, no, no, I'm not crazy,crazy, crazy.
How about you?
What do you what do you what doyou think you got?
SPEAKER_01 (36:10):
Five five hundred five bottles.
That's it, so you can drink itall.
I I drink, I I don't buy tosave, I buy to consume and
share.
Yeah, because bourbon reallydoesn't age on the shelf at all.
SPEAKER_03 (36:25):
Once it's out of the barrel, it really doesn't age
anymore, right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:28):
It only oxidizes right.
I I have a bottle of Colonel H.
Taylor, uh EJ Taylor that I justgot last weekend.
Oh, that's lovely.
And I'm savoring that.
I'm gonna hang on to that, I'mgonna savor it.
What do you think for thetailor?
Uh it was like a buck.
SPEAKER_04 (36:42):
That's that square bottle.
SPEAKER_01 (36:44):
Yes, that's that actually comes in this comes in
the cylinder tube.
Yeah, um, so I got a bottle ofthat, and then I have a bottle
of um oh, what is it?
Four roses, small batch.
It's you know, that's beencracked, and then I got uh uh
four rangers that's down in thebasement that's just kind of
waiting to be consumed that myfather gave me a while back.
So, and then there's about thismuch left to whistle pick.
(37:04):
So I just kind of savor and justhang on to it.
SPEAKER_00 (37:06):
You know, well, there's a lot of people that
have a lot of bottles out there.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, and I get stufffor the show, and we'll do
something, and I'll be like, Oh,cool.
And then I'll take it home andI'll have it.
It'll be like, okay, cool.
That's why you have 50 bottles.
It's kind of on the shelf.
And when I have friends comeover, it's like they're like,
You got this?
I'm like, I haven't.
That's good.
I don't care, you know.
(37:26):
It's it's fair, it's fair game,it's everything's fair game.
So yeah, I'm not collectingthem, you know.
It's just I there's so muchstuff I haven't gotten around to
drink.
SPEAKER_04 (37:34):
And the ones that I have at home are barrel picks
from my friends.
I have a barrel pick from uh theCharlotte Boy, a barrel pick uh
buffalo trace, which is great.
I have the barrel pick OldForester from Butter Rum, which
is like 130, something crazy,some super high barrel.
So that one's gonna be there fora minute.
I have a bottle of 1792 smallbash that I just finished, which
(37:55):
was delicious.
A nice little sip of watchingsports.
And those are and I got like abottle of Crown Royal, like some
standard stuff.
Sure.
And uh, you know, I do haveaccess to some uh regular
Buffalo trays from now and then.
Uh comes from uh you know, Igrab a couple airline bottles
here and there from the store ifyou don't store.
You said from the store, fromthe store store, but yeah, and
(38:16):
then but our my the bourbon thatI drink regularly is usually at
our studio, yeah.
It's at your studio, and then wehave good stuff in there, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (38:23):
You know, we we'll go into daddy's closet in the
studio and we'll have somethingthat that you'll you know, ego
rare or not eagle rare, but wildturkey is in there.
We got a makers in there aswell, you know, and old forester
will pop in there every once ina while.
SPEAKER_04 (38:36):
The only time we ever did a beer was when I
brought some uh goose islandbeer league while we were doing
one of our bourbon tasting.
That's right.
So it's a nice heavy end.
SPEAKER_01 (38:45):
Yeah, yeah.
We like to we we like to tryanything.
We we want to put our for lackof a better term, fellas.
Sorry, we want to put our lipson something that's going to
entice us to want to consume itmore, and that's what we're
looking for.
Like what this gingerbread band,I want to consume more.
It's a big beer.
SPEAKER_00 (39:04):
So you guys have a process.
What's your favorite part of theprocess of brewing?
Is it the drinking?
SPEAKER_01 (39:10):
Drinking or the drinking part of it.
SPEAKER_03 (39:14):
It is we love the brewing part of it a lot.
Um, yeah.
Is it the experiment?
SPEAKER_01 (39:22):
Is it experimentation?
Is I was gonna say we do loveexperimentation.
SPEAKER_02 (39:25):
We have, I mean, I think it shows we've done
thousands through the years ofdifferent beers.
SPEAKER_00 (39:30):
It's like how many different expressions are are on
the board here and coming out ofthe taps at any one time.
SPEAKER_02 (39:37):
A lot of 20, what do we have?
25?
25?
It might be more than that.
We actually added some smalltaps on the side, but we've done
some other fun stuff too.
Other than that, like we we gotinto making uh cider, yeah, in
the last few years.
Cheers on that.
That that was this right here.
And the side, we've actually wonsome really good awards for it.
(39:58):
So we've we've done really good.
What cider was it?
The Great Lakes Cider, GreatLakes Cider competition.
We've we've won uh best in classuh for the the parry last year.
SPEAKER_03 (40:08):
Yeah, so we source our juice like you know, it's
like but it goes and shows thatwe have a hundred years.
SPEAKER_02 (40:14):
The juice is one thing.
Whoever can, if you know how toferment stuff properly and use a
particular yeast and and manageit, that's that's what we do.
SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
You can't say which, can you?
What's that?
What yeast?
You can't say which yeast canyou?
No, I won't tell you the yeaston it.
SPEAKER_04 (40:29):
No, I won't, because that yeast is very fresh.
SPEAKER_03 (40:32):
So you may notice the uh I'll tell you it's not
sulfury, okay, super, superclean.
It is clean, very sharp.
SPEAKER_04 (40:39):
Love it, very sharp.
SPEAKER_03 (40:40):
Yeah, and it's not too sweet either.
SPEAKER_02 (40:42):
The judges say it has a candied fruit aroma to it.
SPEAKER_00 (40:44):
They all that's one thing that's kind of crazy.
My wife, she loves the ciders,but not the sweets.
It's like yeah, you know, she'sit's like the wood chuck and the
woodpecker, they're all just waytoo sweet.
You know, she's got to have thestrong bow, you know.
SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
It's the I think the drinkability is like, oh, you
have to have a certain amount ofdryness, and the acidity is not
too high either.
Right.
So if you have it too too highin acid, it just hurts your gut.
Yeah, you know, it's like, howmuch or shoes can you drink?
It's like cider is like the samething.
SPEAKER_04 (41:16):
So the listener may notice the ambient noise is
kicked up here in the uh uh inthe chat room where uh the KGB
Brute Club is about to kick offtheir uh their little meeting,
and after their meeting, we'regonna sit down with some of
those guys and talk about thehobby.
So uh, right now, you two, we'regonna try something else in the
downtime.
What do you recommend we open upand try while these guys are
(41:37):
talking about their uh theirhobby over here?
SPEAKER_02 (41:39):
Talking about icebach, maybe or a great idea.
SPEAKER_00 (41:43):
What is icebach?
What is icebach?
And what it's beer-flavoredbeer.
Didn't he invent the bomb?
SPEAKER_03 (41:48):
No, no, different.
SPEAKER_00 (41:51):
That's different.
SPEAKER_03 (41:53):
A different kind of bomb.
SPEAKER_02 (41:55):
Another fun thing too is our sake.
But um bomb.
I don't know if we have any sakeleft on draft or not right now.
You guys ever had sake before?
Sparkling sake.
That's sparkling sake.
That's like this this stuff ishigh octane, too.
So it is beer.
SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
All right, you know, every day.
It is a it is a school night.
Presently it's a school night.
SPEAKER_04 (42:17):
We're taxing.
So uh Eric, thank you.
Brett, thank you guys for beinghere.
Appreciate you hosting us.
And uh, we're gonna stickaround.
We're gonna try some of thesehomebrews these guys are making
and get a whole nother level ofeducation from some of those
folks.
Uh these guys, I guess this iswhere I do the like and
subscribe in uh all the podcastplaces.
Uh, dear leader, would you liketo bring us out?
(42:39):
That was it.
SPEAKER_00 (42:40):
It's uh all the podcast, all the podcast places.
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Gentlemen, thank you for having us into your home
here.
This is gorgeous.
Appreciate you.
Cheers.
Thanks so much.
Matt over there is AugustKitchlag.
Uh, that's Matt Fox.
Jamie Flanagan.
You're so handsome.
You're so handsome.
SPEAKER_00 (42:56):
Thank you.
I needed that.
All right, we'll see y'all nexttime.
I said hey hey welcome to the man cave happy
hour I said hey hey welcome tothe man cave happy hour we're
gonna drink a fine whiskey andsmoke a really fine cigar it is
(00:25):
time for happy hour it is theman cave happy hour whiskey
cigar spirits the stories thatgo along with it I'm Jamie
Flanagan that over there isAugust Gitchlag we have Matt Fox
here oh my god just to my leftacross from me sort of yeah I
got a little bit of you know Igot I got a nice silhouette of
you over here so isn't it quitethe silhouette okay and we've
(00:48):
taken the party on the road weare uh Coonin's brewery we're
the it's we're at a beer housewe're ties time to drink and it
said winery on the wine I wantsome wine before we're done I
want to I want to I want alittle wine before all said and
done um put an umbrella in itI'm a girl drink drunk get me
going so uh yeah but uh so I wewe've talked about it talked
(01:10):
about it talked about it you'vebeen up north on uh
extraordinarily many manyoccasions and uh the beer
selections is uh 20 20 foot tallwe're gonna find out we can ask
the question can't we full of uhfull of full of 20-foot tall
board full of uh expressions toto dive into yes we have many
(01:31):
many a flavor on the wall hereand we have uh we have the three
Kunan boys here now we've got uhthe brothers and the so pop's
just wandered in there uh wehave uh Brett and Eric Kunin
here the founders of the brewerywelcome to the man came
gentlemen we're a couple billtonight because we also have uh
later on the Kunan Guild ofBrewers KGB who make their home
(01:52):
brewers all meet here tonight sowe'll talk to some of those guys
about the hobby but right nowthe guys that turn the hobby
into their livelihood rightthat's basically how this all
got started so Jamie always asksthe question but since I'm
holding the microphone I'll doit tell us about your childhood
as dad as dad just walked inyeah it was not filled with beer
(02:15):
I think it was no my dad did notyou know he did not even embrace
beer at all no um no we had a ohI mean we probably drank more
stro's signature out of hisfridge than he did that was
signature that was his his beerin the fridge but it sat there
long enough case at the houseand lasted two three months and
(02:37):
I'm like oh Papa this beer'sgonna go banned I think your
children should drink it.
SPEAKER_02 (02:43):
Oh but this this location that we're sitting in
was your family hardware storeright yeah this was the Lutz
hardware my dad bought in uh 72okay and he converted over from
an old fashioned hardware thathardware goes back to uh being a
wagon wheel repair shop andblacksmith shop that's how old
it was wow wow so it stood onthis spot right here and then
(03:07):
they ended up buying the generalstore across the street which is
the middle of Mound Road now andthey moved it and built it brand
new as a a hardware store overhere uh back in 1930 1934 okay
so pre-year childhood yes it'snot that old none of us are that
(03:28):
old so he bought it and he herevamped the whole thing into a
uh a general general hardwarestore because the hardware store
that it started with had allyour just uh crazy different
stuff it had your uh uh you knowyour washers and dryers the
fishing licenses all the all thethings from a small town but it
(03:52):
wasn't really it was like the itwas the village of Warren at the
time so so he he he made itprogress and made it into more
main street stuff he made itboring he had he put a whole
section of a big amount of painthe put in your nuts and bolts he
put in all the stuff that youneeded to fix up your house I
remember as a kid they had allthose old potbelly stoves like
(04:14):
seriously like you put your woodin it and you would cook off of
this thing you know I rememberseeing that as a kid and that
like blew my mind like peoplecook off wood.
SPEAKER_04 (04:24):
We had a little neighborhood store on the east
side but it was uh Viterihardware on seven mile uh in
like Kelly area and it was knownas it was hardware and hockey so
they had hardware so you get youknow some bolts and latches and
locks and hockey things but Ialso remember distinctly there
being beer supplies and brewingsupplies in the hardware store
(04:45):
and trying to get my dad I goyeah you drink a lot of beer you
should make some it's like Iwhatever I make it I just buy it
from the store.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
Yeah so that was what kind of blew my mind is
when I started uh homebrewingand it really came from my my
brother when he when he uh hewas a fraternity brother or he's
a Delta Sigmafy I was in easternMichigan and uh go Eagles yeah
right and um I went to a partyand I tried some beer it was a
(05:11):
fraternity party was it withHeroes back then yeah oh wow um
and essentially I wasn't datingthey were happening to be up in
Traverse City and they found aplace that was selling homebrew
kits and they they brewed somebeers back at the fraternity
house from from this uh you knowthis place and I'm like wow and
uh I went to the party and Itried this beer and I couldn't
(05:33):
believe how good it was Iremember drinking this uh Irish
stout I was like this is so muchbetter than anything I've ever
tried it was just amazing thiswas at EMU at Eastern yep yeah
he was at the fraternity houseand we were we they'd he'd hang
out come up for a fraternityhouse and hang out for some some
beers before he was I want to beeducated he did he tried the
(05:55):
stuff and he fell in with lovewith this beer this beers that
we were back then we had theyellow pages right and it's easy
open up this yellow book andlike home brew supplies and
guess what most of them werehardware stores it's like okay
all right we had a hardwarestore why didn't we start
selling this yeah so it's likeokay let's let's bring it in you
(06:19):
know and Brett Brett brought itin I was I was actually I
freaked out on him a little bitbecause I came back from Eastern
and he all of a sudden turnedlike a huge section of the
hardware store said I onlyinvested ten thousand dollars he
said what did you do he saidonly well this is what's this is
what's profitable he showed yeahthere's margin on the product
(06:42):
compared to a lot of otherthings could all at that point
in time all your hardware storesyour big boxes were coming in
okay you had candy home quartersbuilder square square was when I
repeated builder square dealyeah so they were all
undercutting and they're 10times larger than anything we
had all of them had hey our ourtheir electrical department
(07:05):
their electrical department waslarger than our whole hardware
store you know yeah so what wasthe precipice from a a shift
from the hardware business intouh the brewing where did that
where did that uh rock paperscissors that challenge come out
conversations with my father itwas convincing him that he said
(07:25):
what the because he owned thebuilding wow he gotta be
shitting me what do you own thebuilding so he was he had that
kind of thing and he actuallyhad to convince him a little bit
and show him what's going on andwe took him to some of the few
places we had in Michigan butthe Detroit brew factory was one
of them we started with brew onpremise which Detroit brew
factory was a place it was asimilar thing we did but we
(07:45):
wanted you guys remember whatbrew on premise is I don't brew
on premises like where you comein and as a group you guys come
in and brew and make six oreight cases of beer as a little
of like a brew kettle yeah butthose like those like yeah those
those that system line up overthere we walk you through the
(08:06):
whole process from from brewingto your drinking which was a lot
part of it to like making labelso I'd like hey you gotta send
me a file you know or give me apicture or something and I'll
make you a custom label.
SPEAKER_03 (08:21):
So you were educating folks then the whole
time yeah and it's like it wasall about these parties yeah
parties a group of like eight totwenty people would come in and
brew one batch of beer make sixcases and they'd split it up so
it was a like a two step processyou come in brew you know spend
two three hours like drink withyour buddies talking about beer
(08:44):
making a batch of beer hopefullyyou don't boil over all the
place and you know it explodesyeah you know and like they well
they've got they grouped theyground the grain it was it was
great selected the hops smelteverything tasted everything all
the raw ingredients that reallygot them into you know this is
like we really made this beerit's pretty cool.
So what year was it that youstarted to have those
(09:05):
conversations with Dan oh godand he said what the actual HDR
you think 2002 uh 2003 that'syou know we did a lot of Jupiter
how long how many years you justsaid this is like uh well the
business has been open like 2002we we sold our first beer but we
started in 98 honestly okay umit took a long time to get
(09:27):
licensing you know we had youknow September 11th screwed up
all our licensing we were we hadhonestly we were we had the beer
on the bar on this side of thebar for a whole year and we just
gave samples away for free Iremember those early days when
this bar was right there ourlicensing was like wouldn't come
(09:49):
through and I'm like why is itnot coming through oh I'm so
sorry I lost your licenses I'mlike sorry your paperwork I got
can you send me it um it's intriplicate blue ink only um and
they don't know how easy theygot these it was so easy if you
do it all digital and it's likedone it's like back then it was
(10:09):
like yeah like you saidtriplicate blue if you did
something I sent stuff and blackthey said ones that were making
beer it was like Traffic Jam andSnug was making beer Michigan
Brewing I think was making beerwas motor city just opened okay
right here yes Franklin Streetas well I think downtown oh yeah
you remember that I rememberFranklin Street Brewing Company
(10:31):
yeah um yeah there was um not alot you know Atwater was just
open they were just gettingstarted yeah they were you know
a great help we learned a lotfrom those guys when they first
opened and Tom Morosi yeah hewas a great awesome from Germany
they're brewing there was a goodfriend of ours a lot of tight
fruit and break but you guysstayed with it and you continue
(10:52):
to put your own spin on yourbrews and everything nobody was
making high gravity anythingthat was the thing it's the the
strong beers no and that'sthat's what we that's what I
really for Drake is highgravity.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
Okay I got no idea what the heck is high gravity.
SPEAKER_02 (11:12):
So it's high anxiety like I just think no anxiety
inspiration is when we firststarted like two years in and we
were already trying to to goafter fun specialty big beers it
just didn't exist i mean one ofthe first ones is like having uh
expedition stout from from thatwas one of the few things you
(11:32):
could get in Michigan at allthat opened the door to what
high gravity was it really butbut but Belgian beers were the
other big inspiration bringingCorsandon Brown was like one of
them yeah couldn't you brought aRussian imperial stout to
Punchky Day one year and peoplewere falling over because they
didn't know how to drink it.
We didn't have eight ounce cupsfor that stuff that was yeah
(11:53):
that was a long time ago heywe'll get to you later we'll get
to you later pal yeah so yeahRussian Imperial stout to punch
day in the morning yeah whowould have thought that right
that was my introduction to ahigh gravity well that was was
that the creme brulee Java styleprobably was Russian imperial
style okay so yeah we're exactlysaying don't sell it in cups
(12:15):
more than 10 ounces we gottastart deciding to go on an epic
trip a couple years into beingopen we said can we really do
this and get it because wewanted to have our Oktoberfest
party right when we were tryingto leave for a trip to Europe
with my parents and Brett andhis ex-wife and it was like boom
we all went over there and itwas amazing we ended up going to
(12:36):
Belgium for uh this grand uhbeer uh beer tour breweries and
when we did that we we learnedall about high alcohol brewing
Belgian styles and the biggestthing we learned is like
everything even the respect isthat even at a super high
alcohol beer it has to havequaffability so it's got to be
drinkable even if it's that 1415 that's high gravity yeah like
(13:02):
chame blue label aged for fouror five years in a pub nothing
nothing like sellers that wedrink now which is not so much
drinkability but we drink thoseto share and enjoy you know I'm
saying but but what we learnedin Belgium is like oh you should
be able to drink a whole pint ofthis strong beer well that's the
(13:24):
the optional word for yeahshould well that's where they
where they get the the term uhdevilishly strong over the doval
with like duval yeah because itit'll bite you in the ass if you
don't watch what you're doingbecause it's it's sure it's
strong but it drinks very smoothbut you don't notice it until
you stand up true right totallywe we kind of tried following we
(13:48):
do love we love very strongbeers I mean you know the fourth
dementia old ale or 4D as wecall it now it's not just
because it's high alcohol it'sbecause if after you start
brewing these things and seeingwhat happens is you make the the
yeast work harder you end upgetting more complexities and it
drinks like even more complexthan red wines we found after a
(14:12):
while because you get thismulti-dimensional characteristic
as it warms up that you getdifferent characteristics coming
off of it and it's just anamazing amazing thing to to make
so so distillery distilleriesbreweries i we mentioned a bunch
that kicked off kind of aroundwhen you did uh not everybody's
had the longevity you've had sowhat do you owe to your
(14:35):
longevity to what do you what'swhat's keeping you what's keep
what what is keeping your dooropen august is yeah well I mean
you guys have some signaturehigh end beer like your triple
your double rice IPA is a eightand a half no nine and a half
percent double IPA which drinkslike a six percent IPA get a
(14:58):
couple samples of very quaffyears ahead trip no how about
the new mosaic we made a limitededition mosaic only which is
fine okay really tasty um maybemore fruity than um the regular
and so let me go uh secure acouple samples of that i i
happen to know someone here sothe use of rice okay so maybe uh
(15:20):
we could talk about the use ofrice that's something that we
really learned in Belgium so youuse the use of rice and we would
not rice so much but adjunctsadjuncts so when we we like we
went to we read about all thebooks and everything about going
to Belgium they use Belgiancandy sugar to make all the
great Belgian beers Belgiandouble triple you know we went
(15:41):
there no no well this is what wereally do learned some stuff
from the Belgians you know andthen like man I was like how do
you make this beer so crisp anddelicious and it wasn't candy
sugar it was the use of rice ohokay it's interesting and that
was it was very very interestingand like okay Anneheiser Busch
(16:03):
is the only people that use riceand rice I was gonna mention
Budweiser but I'm like I'm notgonna go that we don't want to
talk about it but I was likeokay so why do you guys use it?
And I'm like oh really they toldus outright oh makes the beer
much drier you can drink more ofit and it's it's like uh yeah
it's crisp it's crisp crisp allright but you're like crisp but
(16:25):
Brett's first experiments weredoing a a light domestic beer
like the classic American yeahand I started brewing it all the
time and we said you know backin the day when we were making
our IPAs it's like what waswinning all the awards uh in the
categories for IPA andeverything judges become based
(16:47):
upon what they know so a lot ofthe judges that were out there
back then for GABF and WorldBeer Cup were guys that were uh
used to having West Coast IPAsthat's when west coast IPA first
came around and it was a drycrisp I call it like a naked
style beer that actually hadcrisp and dry and said let all
the hops through show throughunlike having your two hearted
(17:10):
which you know I love a lotwhere you chew on it when you
you chew on it a little bit morebut it has some caramel malt has
some backbone and body to itthese are a little bit
different.
So that's what was actuallywinning the awards and we said
well you know and we were withour buddy Dan Rogers and we were
scratching our head what thehell's going on we went around
tasting all the winners a coupleyears prior and then we figured
it out oh I can see what thejudges are looking for we said I
(17:32):
get it I see what they want Isee what's so nice about it's
letting the hop shine through sowe decided well what can we do
different to put our own twistand signature on it and from
making that classic American alewith the dryness we know how
easy it was to give it aChristmas and high alcohol to it
as well and like what Brett wassaying about Belgium and that as
(17:54):
well but it was a lot of thingswent together.
SPEAKER_03 (17:57):
So just use just use the adjunct yeah you you
increase the alcohol content umand we throw a lot of hops at it
and that's what how the drip itcame to be it was essentially
like hey we can make we can makethis beer crisp just like the
judges want sure at the JAVFthey you know they want it very
(18:19):
light and how do you how do youmake uh a nine percent beer look
light and golden right right youknow and that's that's and it's
like the rice doesn't contributea lot of flavor just the
crispness right okay and thatmakes the hops shine through so
that's how the drip of it cameto be um it was essentially a
variation on the classicAmerican filter let's like let's
(18:42):
not cut it with any water allright you know let's add it's
all the hops that we love andwe've gone through so many
different varieties of hops andlike which ones taste you know
for bitterness the the the thebeta to alpha acid ratios you
know what what do we like youlike the citrusiness um yeah
(19:03):
there's a bigger back then a lotof these hops are just coming
into play what we started doingis like simco hops was a was a
brand new hop back then and ithad this huge mango papaya
characteristic to it and this isthe mosaic so this is a mosaic
okay i i i have a really goodmemory when i smell something
(19:27):
and this really is reminiscentof and if it's okay if i say
what it is you are with thatwell it's made with mosaic hops
so okay tell me what you thinkof it it smells like an M43 okay
so does m43 have mosaics see ican't remember but i just just
on the we don't do a lot of beershows we don't we don't do a lot
of beer right they've you know alot of places have gone a lot of
(19:51):
the new hybrid hops have a lotof these high fruit note
characteristics too even thoughthey're different hops a lot of
citrus a lot of now like a greatjuicy citrus character
grapefruit to them depending onand we had some of the first
ones we dealt with was amarillosimco even old school columbus
even had some goodcharacteristics columbus hops
(20:13):
good i mean co silly was my beerhere was always kind of staple
too and everybody knowscentennial you know man that's
the most popular IPA but youdrink this and say this is nine
and a half percent this is nineand a half percent this is nine
and a half percent and it drinkslike a you know a six percent
beer yeah and it's a schoolnight and it's a school night
(20:36):
for you yeah you know the that'sso quaffable yeah I love I love
the word very drinkable yeahthat is uh that really sits well
that's really good it's almostgot because of its viscosity
because it it is it's it is thatstrong you know but it's still
(21:00):
um it coats the tongue it has alittle creaminess but it
finishes really dry it's so it'ssitting so nicely you know it's
you know it's a funny story isthat back in the day they were
trying to the BrewersAssociation was trying to come
up with what makes a craftdefine what makes a craft
brewery a craft brewery and oneof the things they said is they
(21:20):
they're they're throwing aroundthe different ideas and one of
the things they want to do isput out there that adjuncts at
the time would be something ohwell all the they're using corn
syrup and they're using rice andthey're using corn and and then
you say wait a second if youtake away that from us it's like
that there again you're you'reactually well that was the year
(21:42):
the year that you're holding usinto something it's not true.
SPEAKER_04 (21:45):
And they want and yeah and they had to back off on
that they had to change thedefinition of craft beer because
oh if you used an adjunct youknow rice or corn in it oh
you're disqualified well theyhad to redefine it only if you
use it to enhance the beverageokay so yeah we use a lot of
rice in this you know 30 rice ina drip up okay you know wow
(22:07):
double rice yeah double ricesingle rice would be like 15
right you buy out of a can thisis doesn't taste like too hard
it doesn't taste like hop slamit's not that that IPA there but
hop slam is a double IPA as wellright but it doesn't have the
sharp drinks to so sweet like ahop slam this drinks like a
(22:28):
regular IPA that's what definesus as so different really you
said something earlier you saidyou made you make the uh the
yeast work harder define thathow do how do you guys make the
yeast work harder with Belgianbeers and a better example for
us would be like our fourthdimensional old ale when we
actually make it work under a aunder higher viscosity
(22:52):
environment okay stressconditions the stress stress
conditions stress it brings outmore esters you stress the yeast
sometimes it like flavors comeout more okay in the stress
condition is it a heat atemperature not necessarily
sometimes so you get a newstress you bring all the yeast
ex girlfriends around so theyget stressed out green apple we
don't want green apple so youbring all the yeast ex
(23:14):
girlfriends around and then ifthey get all stress girl you
threaten her they just like heythey get all stressed out of the
wind yeah it's like what is wehave to add a lot a lot more uh
yeast I'll count to it toactually make it happen so that
it can attenuate which is youknow make it dry enough for the
drinkability of the whole thingbut what if you want the
fruitiness to happen how do youyou you stress it a little bit
(23:38):
stress it out a little bit it'seasy to do under a high you want
the plum characters the figureunder a high gravity density
like dehydrated how do youstress it do you like put Fox
News on in the brew housecontrol and oxygen levels and we
we we don't want to discloseexactly how we do that secrets
(24:02):
okay you guys like bourbon Itake it oh yeah so you know you
you a lot of happy there's alittle ex oxygenation going on
you know not a lot through thatbourbon barrel but do you have
an old ale on tap right now ordo you only have it in the
bottles at the moment um yeahthat's I don't think I would no
no we don't have it at this timebut that's a model you've got we
got a bottle of bottles we havea bottle the the old ale's come
(24:25):
out uh pretty solstice youhaven't had old ale no way
unless they hand up a break sowe're like the definition of the
style for old ale okay okay wewon the award like a bunch of
times so they put us as like heyyou want to try an old ale you
got to get a coonin there's thisfun book out there that show I
think we have it in the backcorner still but the uh they
(24:47):
they make this definition mapwhere they have all the circles
and they show the uh definitivethe styles and then they show
which breweries produce it andthen the beer and fourth
dimension old ale is is one ofthem for the old ale category so
love that it's great that beerthat's like one of my favey
faves right yeah that's one ofour variants right there of it
(25:11):
that's the gingerbread for oldale gingerbread man okay so
that's a a variant of the fourthdementia so that's kind of
popular in in craft beer is onceyou've got a nice signature beer
that you've been doing for anumber of years is come up with
a neat variant yeah of itbecause you've got such a
following for it and they wantto say oh my gosh I can't wait
to see what that tastes likewith you know the gingerbread
(25:34):
man in it so who doesn't likegingerbread so this is aged for
a year what is it aged in whattype of is it age in a barrel
those are mainly heaven hillbarrels maybe some old
Fitzgerald um that's what wemainly buy all right um we have
some blatons um aging um moreheaven hills we've got uh will
(25:56):
it um so when you go to sourceyour barrels you know do you go
on your own wants to send usbarrels heaven hills have
actually played us really wellwe've got the best results from
heaven hill honestly okay umwhat we found is like that the
longer that the bourbon's beenaged in it yeah the less you're
(26:20):
gonna get in your beer oh okayso it's not it's like if it's a
if it's above like eight yearsin the barrel right then you've
already took all the goodnessand it went into the bourbon
like there's nothing more sexysaying that you have a Pappy Van
Winkle barrel right but honestlyPappy Van Winkle's been so
mellowed out and so perfectlycaramelized yeah you're gonna
(26:40):
get some but you're gonna getthe bourbon exactly the big bull
nuances you're gonna get whatonly has so many wood sugar
they've already extracted somuch out of it yeah wow okay
yeah that does that does soundnot necessarily a good thing
like really old barrels thestave ain't doing what it's
supposed to be doing for thebeer no because it's spent yeah
(27:01):
well that's got a that's got adecided nose on it you got that
ginger one yeah so this is thethe gingerbread barrel aged
older gingerbread mangingerbread had this oh wow i'm
pretty sure you've had it yeahi'm pretty sure i have too i've
had most everything they usuallyrelease these at their solstice
party which happens to always beon like my birthday December
(27:21):
21st oh yeah so when they'reserving it in glasses like this
they hand it to me in pintsthat's my birthday so I've done
a chimper kit some of the stuffI drank it's his birthday and
he's got his driver I alwayshave a driver usually my
brother's taking care of mealways a fun time that is a
tasty treat gentleman now thisis something that you you do get
you can judge this like you do abourbon yeah with all the
(27:42):
different flavors you get it's atasty treat fellas thank you yes
you guys are bourbon guys do youI can feel it I don't want to
ask you do you have a favoritebourbon or so we we we all do we
all do we have our dailydrinking likes what they like
right so you know mine Brad Ialways drink I always drink it
(28:05):
at cadu it's my favorite bourbonno wild turkey that's just wrong
yeah it's wild turkey rye rightyeah yeah yeah the one I so you
know we're talking about rye youknow are ryes really much more
spicy and hotter than regularbourbon not hotter but there's
(28:26):
uh but rye is not bourbonanyways rye whiskey is rye
whiskey there's more of a spicethere's a spice to it on a rye
not temperature wise it's just aa spice of warmth that that a
rye will catch you with so rightwhen we use rye you know in beer
it's very very similar to wheatyou know it really is it adds
extra creaminess to it um I Ireally like the rye but it comes
(28:51):
out so different in the spirityeah really it's its own animal
it really is its own animal yesI mean you look at when you when
you grind it out it's so tinyit's like it's it's different
altogether and it does itproduces a different flavor
altogether I I'm upset with youfor talking shit about my wild
turkey you know you've beenthrough this with me wild
(29:13):
turkey's product wild turkey nowfor a penalty like we did
something early on early on thatwas a penalty shot now I mean
their rare breed line they're101 eight year aged they they
just had their 75th anniversarybottle this is good stuff
compared to what you're payingfor everything else right now so
I'm gonna say I'm gonna stopdefending wild turkey all right
(29:34):
well it's a great if you everget get the tour the tour is
awesome I got a I found my oldturkey call I got from there
should have brought it out forthe show tell us about your wild
turkey experience that was justan amazing uh this is a this is
a kid show just an amazing tourthat's all huge I mean the place
(29:56):
is mammoth everything about ityou know the tanks were just
SPEAKER_02 (30:00):
Wide as this room, that's it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03 (30:02):
Did they make more than just wild turkey?
SPEAKER_02 (30:05):
There, do you remember?
That's all we were doing.
SPEAKER_03 (30:07):
We just had uh like two of those huge when we went
to Buffalo Trace like a couplemonths ago, and there were so
many brands that were allconsolidated.
It's like really, it's like Iwas like, How many brands do you
guys really make out of here?
Just four and free mash recipes,and it's like only you know what
comes out of the top of the RickHouse, one of the bottom of the
(30:30):
house.
SPEAKER_04 (30:32):
Cazerac owns all of it, all of it, right?
I'll grab a bottle of Cesarecrye.
I love Cesarek, all right.
That's good.
SPEAKER_03 (30:40):
Eagle Rare.
I mean, black eagle rare isgood.
I don't think it's bang for thebuck.
It's all about what who whodecides on what tastes it's on
allocation.
Let's like let's blend thisbarrel with that barrel.
Oh, I don't like that one asmuch.
Let's move it to a lower brand.
SPEAKER_04 (30:58):
Thank you for bringing that up because do you
guys blend some beers togetherto come up with a beer that you
like?
We always blend.
SPEAKER_03 (31:03):
We always blend all our bourbon stuff together,
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:06):
All our bourbon stuff.
That's the only way you get theright characteristics you're
looking for for the stuff, justlike with with burbons.
I totally understand it with thebeers as well.
Because though, look what you'redoing, you're using barrels that
were left over from the bourbon.
So the characteristics from thatare the same thing that are
going on with that as well.
SPEAKER_03 (31:24):
Don't buy a bourbon barrel that's like aged over
nine years, it's just worthless.
Like there's no flavor left init.
SPEAKER_04 (31:32):
I hate to interrupt that.
Is this the uh cocaine in thepoker podcast?
No, it is not.
No, that's that's in the nextroom.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
Oh boy.
So, how much of your week isspent uh brewing?
How much how much time are yougonna spend it every week?
SPEAKER_02 (31:54):
Usually three to four days out of the week.
Yeah, the rest of the time.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Every day is cleaning, every day is clean.
SPEAKER_03 (32:01):
Every day is uh three three or four days a week.
SPEAKER_02 (32:05):
And depending on what we're doing.
Sometimes we're like when we rundrip because we make so much
drippa, we're doing uh two tothree batches a day.
All right, and that's the doublerice IPA.
So we can run more batchescycle, yeah, is what we can do.
SPEAKER_03 (32:23):
As much as we love the bourbon barrel aged
everything, and like what reallybrings in the bill, the bills.
SPEAKER_00 (32:29):
The drip.
You need yeah, that's what youwant.
How much, how many, how much areyou making uh every six months?
SPEAKER_03 (32:35):
2200 gallons is not or 2200 barrels.
A barrel is 31 gallons, sothat's not that much.
We don't make much, we're verysmall, still small.
SPEAKER_02 (32:45):
So we're still looking for a Clinton Township
to to do a big expansion withit.
Uh, we've been working on it foralmost a decade over there, but
uh, you're not quite a microbrewery, you're a little bit
you're a craft brewer.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
Would you uh definition that's a great
question?
I think that that definition'schanged a bunch of times.
Yeah, I think it has too.
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
Yeah, where would you put yourself on that scale?
SPEAKER_04 (33:07):
We're definitely a micro, yeah, because they're not
owned by another guy doing theircraft stuff.
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03 (33:13):
We've never sold out like almost everyone else in the
state.
SPEAKER_02 (33:17):
But you know, it's everybody's their prerogative,
they want to go and make money,you know.
SPEAKER_03 (33:23):
All the bigger ones have all sold out.
SPEAKER_02 (33:25):
You haven't taken the we are the last independent,
you know, one that distributes,but maybe along maybe um the
only who else is yeah, a lot ofthem are taking checks, even
even the guys that aren'tdirectly taking checks for it,
you know.
I think who's the closest one,who's the largest one we have
right now is uh well it there'sthe in dev guys, and there's the
(33:48):
bunch of who owns Modella?
SPEAKER_03 (33:49):
Then they just buy a bunch of places too, Australia's
and all those guys.
I don't know, I can't keep upwith it.
It really is hard to keep up.
SPEAKER_02 (33:57):
So well, the marijuana industry just
purchased a bunch of them.
SPEAKER_03 (34:01):
That's right.
Yeah, so uh is owned by India,right?
No, no, they're the ones thatthe Canadians that that grow
weed.
So okay, it's changed.
SPEAKER_02 (34:14):
You never know who's you know gonna buy brewing is
owned by um I was thinking ofyeah, by Monster, really yeah,
so monster beverage they made aton of money during the uh
during COVID.
Yeah, I think they just didn'tknow what to do with all the
money they had, so they startedinvesting in fun things.
SPEAKER_03 (34:31):
So what's going on with bourbon right now, guys?
I mean, is it uh you know,there's a you got when I was
down there a couple weeks ago, Iheard like one of the Cooper
Riches, um, like the whole shiftwas canceled on making bourbon
barrels.
SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
What's going on with the bourbon?
There's like big peaks andvalleys, right?
Because bourbon is super popularand it stays popular for a
while, but then it starts tokind of peter off a little bit
for a few years, and then it'llslowly start to come back
because things are continuing toage.
SPEAKER_03 (35:01):
Um, and then when they come out with something
new, it's good.
A lot of people bought a ton ofbourbon from like COVID until
now, and like their cellar andtheir house is full.
Yeah, and they just uh they'relike, I need to start drinking
my bourbon.
Their wives don't want to givemoney on something they're not
drinking, yeah.
SPEAKER_06 (35:20):
Right?
SPEAKER_00 (35:21):
So I I crack, I crack a like I well.
I bought I bought so much.
I'm trying to get to them, butI'm not I'm not I'm like saving
it.
People collect, I don't collect.
SPEAKER_03 (35:32):
How much how much bourbon do you have at your
house?
SPEAKER_00 (35:35):
That's a great question.
SPEAKER_03 (35:36):
Be honestly, do you do you know how much?
No, I do not do you have an idealike how many cases you have.
SPEAKER_00 (35:41):
No, it's not well, because there's six in a case,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
I probably have is there six or twelve in a case?
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
See, well, it depends on the case.
A lot of bourbon barrels havesix.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (35:58):
Okay, I didn't know that.
But I probably should have knownthat.
SPEAKER_00 (36:01):
But I might have 50 bottles around the house.
SPEAKER_03 (36:04):
Well, that's not that bad.
No, no, no, I'm not crazy,crazy, crazy.
How about you?
What do you what do you what doyou think you got?
SPEAKER_01 (36:10):
Five five hundred five bottles.
That's it, so you can drink itall.
I I drink, I I don't buy tosave, I buy to consume and
share.
Yeah, because bourbon reallydoesn't age on the shelf at all.
SPEAKER_03 (36:25):
Once it's out of the barrel, it really doesn't age
anymore, right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:28):
It only oxidizes right.
I I have a bottle of Colonel H.
Taylor, uh EJ Taylor that I justgot last weekend.
Oh, that's lovely.
And I'm savoring that.
I'm gonna hang on to that, I'mgonna savor it.
What do you think for thetailor?
Uh it was like a buck.
SPEAKER_04 (36:42):
That's that square bottle.
SPEAKER_01 (36:44):
Yes, that's that actually comes in this comes in
the cylinder tube.
Yeah, um, so I got a bottle ofthat, and then I have a bottle
of um oh, what is it?
Four roses, small batch.
It's you know, that's beencracked, and then I got uh uh
four rangers that's down in thebasement that's just kind of
waiting to be consumed that myfather gave me a while back.
So, and then there's about thismuch left to whistle pick.
(37:04):
So I just kind of savor and justhang on to it.
SPEAKER_00 (37:06):
You know, well, there's a lot of people that
have a lot of bottles out there.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, and I get stufffor the show, and we'll do
something, and I'll be like, Oh,cool.
And then I'll take it home andI'll have it.
It'll be like, okay, cool.
That's why you have 50 bottles.
It's kind of on the shelf.
And when I have friends comeover, it's like they're like,
You got this?
I'm like, I haven't.
That's good.
I don't care, you know.
(37:26):
It's it's fair, it's fair game,it's everything's fair game.
So yeah, I'm not collectingthem, you know.
It's just I there's so muchstuff I haven't gotten around to
drink.
SPEAKER_04 (37:34):
And the ones that I have at home are barrel picks
from my friends.
I have a barrel pick from uh theCharlotte Boy, a barrel pick uh
buffalo trace, which is great.
I have the barrel pick OldForester from Butter Rum, which
is like 130, something crazy,some super high barrel.
So that one's gonna be there fora minute.
I have a bottle of 1792 smallbash that I just finished, which
(37:55):
was delicious.
A nice little sip of watchingsports.
And those are and I got like abottle of Crown Royal, like some
standard stuff.
Sure.
And uh, you know, I do haveaccess to some uh regular
Buffalo trays from now and then.
Uh comes from uh you know, Igrab a couple airline bottles
here and there from the store ifyou don't store.
You said from the store, fromthe store store, but yeah, and
(38:16):
then but our my the bourbon thatI drink regularly is usually at
our studio, yeah.
It's at your studio, and then wehave good stuff in there, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (38:23):
You know, we we'll go into daddy's closet in the
studio and we'll have somethingthat that you'll you know, ego
rare or not eagle rare, but wildturkey is in there.
We got a makers in there aswell, you know, and old forester
will pop in there every once ina while.
SPEAKER_04 (38:36):
The only time we ever did a beer was when I
brought some uh goose islandbeer league while we were doing
one of our bourbon tasting.
That's right.
So it's a nice heavy end.
SPEAKER_01 (38:45):
Yeah, yeah.
We like to we we like to tryanything.
We we want to put our for lackof a better term, fellas.
Sorry, we want to put our lipson something that's going to
entice us to want to consume itmore, and that's what we're
looking for.
Like what this gingerbread band,I want to consume more.
It's a big beer.
SPEAKER_00 (39:04):
So you guys have a process.
What's your favorite part of theprocess of brewing?
Is it the drinking?
SPEAKER_01 (39:10):
Drinking or the drinking part of it.
SPEAKER_03 (39:14):
It is we love the brewing part of it a lot.
Um, yeah.
Is it the experiment?
SPEAKER_01 (39:22):
Is it experimentation?
Is I was gonna say we do loveexperimentation.
SPEAKER_02 (39:25):
We have, I mean, I think it shows we've done
thousands through the years ofdifferent beers.
SPEAKER_00 (39:30):
It's like how many different expressions are are on
the board here and coming out ofthe taps at any one time.
SPEAKER_02 (39:37):
A lot of 20, what do we have?
25?
25?
It might be more than that.
We actually added some smalltaps on the side, but we've done
some other fun stuff too.
Other than that, like we we gotinto making uh cider, yeah, in
the last few years.
Cheers on that.
That that was this right here.
And the side, we've actually wonsome really good awards for it.
(39:58):
So we've we've done really good.
What cider was it?
The Great Lakes Cider, GreatLakes Cider competition.
We've we've won uh best in classuh for the the parry last year.
SPEAKER_03 (40:08):
Yeah, so we source our juice like you know, it's
like but it goes and shows thatwe have a hundred years.
SPEAKER_02 (40:14):
The juice is one thing.
Whoever can, if you know how toferment stuff properly and use a
particular yeast and and manageit, that's that's what we do.
SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
You can't say which, can you?
What's that?
What yeast?
You can't say which yeast canyou?
No, I won't tell you the yeaston it.
SPEAKER_04 (40:29):
No, I won't, because that yeast is very fresh.
SPEAKER_03 (40:32):
So you may notice the uh I'll tell you it's not
sulfury, okay, super, superclean.
It is clean, very sharp.
SPEAKER_04 (40:39):
Love it, very sharp.
SPEAKER_03 (40:40):
Yeah, and it's not too sweet either.
SPEAKER_02 (40:42):
The judges say it has a candied fruit aroma to it.
SPEAKER_00 (40:44):
They all that's one thing that's kind of crazy.
My wife, she loves the ciders,but not the sweets.
It's like yeah, you know, she'sit's like the wood chuck and the
woodpecker, they're all just waytoo sweet.
You know, she's got to have thestrong bow, you know.
SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
It's the I think the drinkability is like, oh, you
have to have a certain amount ofdryness, and the acidity is not
too high either.
Right.
So if you have it too too highin acid, it just hurts your gut.
Yeah, you know, it's like, howmuch or shoes can you drink?
It's like cider is like the samething.
SPEAKER_04 (41:16):
So the listener may notice the ambient noise is
kicked up here in the uh uh inthe chat room where uh the KGB
Brute Club is about to kick offtheir uh their little meeting,
and after their meeting, we'regonna sit down with some of
those guys and talk about thehobby.
So uh, right now, you two, we'regonna try something else in the
downtime.
What do you recommend we open upand try while these guys are
(41:37):
talking about their uh theirhobby over here?
SPEAKER_02 (41:39):
Talking about icebach, maybe or a great idea.
SPEAKER_00 (41:43):
What is icebach?
What is icebach?
And what it's beer-flavoredbeer.
Didn't he invent the bomb?
SPEAKER_03 (41:48):
No, no, different.
SPEAKER_00 (41:51):
That's different.
SPEAKER_03 (41:53):
A different kind of bomb.
SPEAKER_02 (41:55):
Another fun thing too is our sake.
But um bomb.
I don't know if we have any sakeleft on draft or not right now.
You guys ever had sake before?
Sparkling sake.
That's sparkling sake.
That's like this this stuff ishigh octane, too.
So it is beer.
SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
All right, you know, every day.
It is a it is a school night.
Presently it's a school night.
SPEAKER_04 (42:17):
We're taxing.
So uh Eric, thank you.
Brett, thank you guys for beinghere.
Appreciate you hosting us.
And uh, we're gonna stickaround.
We're gonna try some of thesehomebrews these guys are making
and get a whole nother level ofeducation from some of those
folks.
Uh these guys, I guess this iswhere I do the like and
subscribe in uh all the podcastplaces.
Uh, dear leader, would you liketo bring us out?
(42:39):
That was it.
SPEAKER_00 (42:40):
It's uh all the podcast, all the podcast places.
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Gentlemen, thank you for having us into your home
here.
This is gorgeous.
Appreciate you.
Cheers.
Thanks so much.
Matt over there is AugustKitchlag.
Uh, that's Matt Fox.
Jamie Flanagan.
You're so handsome.
You're so handsome.
SPEAKER_00 (42:56):
Thank you.
I needed that.
All right, we'll see y'all nexttime.
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