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We’re blending two of our greatest joys: beer and cheese! We sit down with Laura from Boom Island Brewing and Christine from The Grater Good to talk about their beer and cheese pairing class... how it came to be, what makes their pairings click, why craft beer and artisan cheese are so perfect together, and how they are preparing for the November 7th class at Boom Island. Grab a pint and a chunk of cheese and join us for some laughs, learning, and maybe a few cheesy jokes!

EPISODE BEERS:
Que Pasa, Mexican Lager
Oktoberfest, Marzen
Light the Lamp, Hazy IPA
Dark Horse, Porter

LINKS:

• Boom Island Brewing
• The Grater Good
• Courtney’s Untappd
• Dan’s Untappd
• A One Pint Stand

 

Visit our website at https://thebreweryadventure.com or contact us by sending an email to [e-mail].

Be sure to subscribe to our Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thebreweryadventure!

Episode Transcript

Dan (00:04):
Oh, jeez march.
I suppose I'll have anotherwedge of that.
Blue there.

Courtney (00:10):
Welcome to the Brewery Adventure.
I'm Courtney.

Dan (00:13):
And I'm Dan.
We're here to dive into theworld of your local craft
brewery.

Courtney (00:17):
It's not just about the beer, it's about the vibe,
the people, and the storiesbehind every tap room.

Dan (00:21):
From small neighborhood spots to big bustling brew
houses, we'll bring you alongfor the ride.
So grab a pint and join us onthe brewery.
Cheers.

Courtney (00:30):
We're so behind on the clink.
Oh, there we go.
We got it.
Wait.
Oh, I didn't drink.

Dan (00:35):
Bad luck.

Courtney (00:36):
Okay.
Right?
That's our little, that's ourthing.
I thought that went well.

Dan (00:43):
I think that went well.

Courtney (00:44):
One try, that's all we're doing.
That felt like a first tryright now.
You guys, you guys witnessedit.
You saw it.
Saw it.
You are good luck.
Yeah.
We have some extra voices withus today, Dan.

Dan (00:52):
Yeah, that's fun.
I mean, I always have extravoices with me, but this is
another podcast for anothertime.

Courtney (01:00):
These are real voices.

Dan (01:01):
We spend eight hours in uh public high school.
There's lots of voices on theway home.
It's always some are nice andsome are not so nice.
Yeah, yeah.
It's good.
Yeah, it's fun to have guestson the show.
This is good.

Courtney (01:13):
These are you're like the first guests on the brewery
adventure.
Really?
Yeah, no pressure or anything.
Oh my goodness.
So you know, you're setting thebar.

Dan (01:20):
You did it right though.
You brought cheese and beer.
So that's that's the perfect.

Courtney (01:24):
Does it get better?

Laura (01:25):
It doesn't get better.
I mean, if that's all it takes,we can do this all the time.

Courtney (01:28):
Oh, okay.
We are here at Boom IslandBrewing in Minnetonka, and we
are with Laura, who is theevents manager and might have
some other titles and other hatsthat she she wears here.

Laura (01:40):
Oh, it's so many titles and so many hats.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eventually essentially, excuseme, the events manager is my
main title.
Yeah.
We got the main one.
Yeah.
I do a lot of other things too,of course, behind the scenes,
but that's who I am.

Christine (01:53):
And we have Christine, who is from The
Greater Good.
Yeah.
So I'm a full-time dairyfarmer.
And then I also have a littlecheese business on the side.
So I do cheese and charcuterieboards, cheese tasting classes,
and we just opened up a microcheese shop right on our farm,
just west of the Twin Citiesnear Waconia.
And I'm hoping to make my owncheese.
So 2030 is the goal.
We're sort of getting peopleused to what artisan cheese

(02:14):
looks like, tastes like, andcosts in the meantime.

Courtney (02:16):
And oh, I'm in already.

unknown (02:18):
Good.

Courtney (02:19):
So Dan and I came to a beer and cheese pairing event
here at Boom Island a coupleweeks ago.
It was absolutely amazing.
I I could sit here and talkabout it all night, all the
different kinds of cheeses thatwe had.
Again, as we mentioned on thelast episode, there was one
pairing that brought a tear tomy eye.
There were there were tearsshed.
It was a happy, happy moment.
But we wanted to talk with bothof you about how you do the

(02:43):
classes, how this comes tohappen.
How did you start doing theseclasses here?
Because I know that wasn't thefirst one that happened.
And we also have this plate ofcheese and all of these
delicious beers in front of usright now.
So there's gonna be somesampling that happens tonight,
too.

Christine (02:56):
Oh yeah.
I'm so nervous for eating on amicrophone.
I can't tell you.
So I'll try to pull back so wedon't get too many noises.
I don't want you guys to losefollowers because I'm smacking
on the microphone.

Courtney (03:06):
You know, there's there's four of us, so if
anybody does end up chewing infront of the microphone,
nobody's really gonna know whoit is.
So it it'll be like anonymouseating.
It's fine.

Laura (03:15):
Just announce yourself before you take a bite.

Courtney (03:18):
Christine.

Dan (03:19):
I'm gonna coming in hot.
What is that noise?

Courtney (03:24):
Okay, it could happen.
You could hear some chewing.
It's it's cheese.

Dan (03:28):
Also a chance to loop in the ASMR crowd.
That's a big faction of thelistening public.

Courtney (03:33):
A homie audience for us.

Dan (03:36):
For better or for worse.
They're gonna expect it.

Courtney (03:39):
I love it.
Well, we'll we'll try and keepit at a minimum, but it happens.
This is a food episode and abeer episode.

Christine (03:45):
Should we get started with one of the pairings right
away?
Can we do that?
Oh, yes.
Like to get our palates goingfor sure.

Laura (03:50):
Which one do you want to start with?

Christine (03:51):
I think we should just start with the the first
beer, right?
I mean the first I have thebelair first.

Laura (03:55):
You have the belair first.
So we're going with K Pasa,which is gonna be so as you're
looking at your flight boards,yes, your handle is like number
one.
So Capasa is gonna be numbertwo, the lightest beer.

Christine (04:06):
Sorry, I just jumped right into this, but sometimes
we get to all the likechit-chatting, and then it's
like we have a flight of beerand cheese sitting in front of
us.
We gotta get into this.
Yeah.
So I'm all for it.

Laura (04:14):
Otherwise, we're just trying to scramble later on to
like eat everything at once.
Um, so we're starting off withour Capasa Mexican lager.
Um, this is one of our mostpopular beers, also one of our
lightest beers that we carry atBoom Island.
Comes in at 4.7% ABV.
Really nice, uh, evenlybalanced, a little bit corn
based.
You get a tiny bit of sweetnesson there, but it finishes a

(04:35):
little bit my dry, if you will.
Really fun to pair with a lotof different things.
Easy one for really any meal,great for the summer, but also
works really well for the winterwithout weighing you down.

Christine (04:44):
And I want to talk quick too about, you know, for
people at home that are lookingto do their own cheese pairings
or beer pairings or whatever itmay be.
The first step is to take a sipof your beverage.
So in this case, we're doingbeer.
So go ahead and take a littlesip of that beer.
Really get your palate, youknow, used to that.
So as soon as you take a biteof that cheese, because of the
fattiness of the cheese, it'sgonna kind of coat your tongue
and it's gonna affect how theflavor of that beer is.

(05:05):
So you want to try that beer byitself first.
You know, I I love that.
This is like my new favoritebeer.
But this pasta is so very good.
And we're gonna start off withthe first cheese, too, which is
gonna be this long whitishtriangle with this orange on the
rind.
So that rind on the cheese islike the crust on a pizza.
It's the most outside part ofthe piece of the cheese.
It's still part of the cheese.

(05:26):
This cheese is called Bel Air,so it's made by Horde's Dairyman
Creamery.
So, us uh farm nerds out there,there's a big magazine called
Horde's Dairyman, and it's a biginformation magazine.
It's got all sorts of differenttopics from I mean, they do a
big judging contest in there.
They're really involved with alot of stuff that um we just had
World Dairy Expo last week,which is kind of a big deal.

(05:48):
It's a huge cow show, they havea lot to do with that.
And with their magazine, theyalso have a herd of Guernsey
cows.
So Guernseys are like the brownand white cows, not the ones
that look like deer.
Those are jerseys with a J.
The Guernseys are with a G, um,and they're kind of like I
always say like an orangecreamsicle color.
And they have it's calledgolden Guernsey milk.
So that milk is gonna tend tohave a little bit more keratin

(06:10):
in it, which makes it a littlebit like keratin.
Think about carrots.
It's gonna give it a little bitof that more orangey color, and
so sometimes the cheese gets alittle bit more of that orangey
hue as well.
And just the kinds of fats andproteins that they have in their
milk makes it really, reallygreat for cheese making.
So when you take a bite of thischeese, it is super ultra
creamy.
It's got a little bit of thislike buttery notes to it, it's

(06:31):
got some density to it.
That chew on it is really,really nice as well.
That texture of a cheese issuch an important part of it,
and then with the brightness andthe lightness of that K passa,
I think that combo is justawesome.
I was telling Laura earlierthat I was getting almost like
corn nut, like you know, cornnut set notes with that.
That crispiness of the beercomes in and it really just

(06:52):
cleans up your palate.
They say champagne is acheesemonger's best friend, so
cheese monger is somebody thatsells cheese.
Those bubbles do a really nicejob of cleaning up your palate
to kind of get rid of some ofthose little fatty particles
that stick in your mouth, Iguess, for lack of a better way
of saying it.
And so this combo, I think, isjust uh it's a really great
intro, a really great way to getinto it in the first place,

(07:13):
too.

Laura (07:13):
Yeah, it really balances between the beer and this
cheese.
Is it's one that we we hadstarted this cheese off, I don't
remember, when we were workingout our little pairings earlier,
even just before the podcast.
Kind of part of our process.
Anytime we're planning for oneof our classes together, we
schedule a day ahead of time toChristine brings in all the
cheeses that she wants to usefor the class that time, and
usually they're seasonal basedor just something fun and new

(07:35):
she found, or sometimes we'lleven just do all your favorites,
something like that.

Christine (07:38):
That literally was the theme of a class.
Christine's favorites.
It was my birthday.
Oh yeah.

Dan (07:44):
I mean, that would be the class I'd want to attend.

Laura (07:47):
It was a lot of fun.
So then we take you know theflavors of the cheese and think
about how it might pair bestwith certain beers.
We're not just grabbing all ofthe beers at once and tasting
all the way through, becausethere are certain flavors and
certain textures of not texturesof beers, but you know,
dryness, juiciness, you know,depth and stuff like that that
like obviously are not gonnawork with certain flavors of
cheese and certain, you know,mouthfeels.

(08:08):
But we kind of predict andchoose you know, two or three to
try with it.
Usually that is kind of theprocess that we repeat, and then
as soon as we find one thatjust they usually just end up
singing to us, honestly.
Like we just we'll we'll take abite of the cheese, we'll take
a a sip of the beer, and we'lljust look at each other like, oh
my god.

Courtney (08:24):
That's it, that's it, we got it.

Laura (08:26):
A one nailed it.

Courtney (08:28):
I think this is something I was super impressed
about when I I signed up for theclass before.
Dan signed up for the class,and then I was in here one night
talking to Casey, your husband,and he was mentioning how you
guys were gonna be gettingtogether to work out the
pairings before the class.
And for some reason in my head,I was thinking they're just
gonna like look at a list, adescription list of the beers
and be like, oh, that one hasnotes of this, so I think maybe

(08:49):
it'll be okay with this cheese.
But you guys sit down with thepairings and really work this
out before the class.

Christine (08:55):
I like joke that it's hard work that we have to eat
cheese and drink beer.
But sometimes they do throw usfor a loop.
Like every once in a whilewe'll have a cheese.
And sometimes it's like this isgood with about six different
beers because that's thebeautiful thing about being at a
brewery that you really love.
The whole lineup of beers isgood.
There's not a bad beer in thebunch, and every once in a while
we'll find a pairing that it'slike, oh, something in there is
not working, something isn't,but with the combo.

(09:18):
But I mean, for the most part,you know, we do actually it's a
really you'll just have to likehappen upon us one day while
we're doing it, and you can joinin because it's uh good to it's
a very thoughtful process.

Courtney (09:29):
It's not just to show up and we're putting random
cheese with random beer.
You guys really put work intothis and think it through.
It's awesome.

Laura (09:36):
Yeah, I mean that there's sometimes, you know, certain
pre-class meetings where ittakes us, I don't know, maybe 20
minutes to find all sixpairings, and it it just goes
fast because it I don't know, wegot lucky or just made really,
really conscious decisions.
I don't know.
And then other times it takesus like a good I don't know, the
longest has probably been likewhat an hour or so?

Christine (09:53):
Yeah, yeah.

Laura (09:54):
But half the time we're just having fun at the sample.

Christine (09:56):
I mean, the one time so we get little sample glasses
of the beers, and I mean theentire bar was full of little
beer glasses, like partiallyfull, and then I'm trying to
like organize them by like whatit looks like on the you know,
we just we our organizationsystem is it's like wait, which
one's this one again?
Okay, someone smell it, andthat's what it is.
So yeah, but it's it's reallyit's really pretty.

Laura (10:18):
Oh, we make such a mess, and then uh my poor staff has to
go wash all those glasses.
Luckily it's a dishwasher, butand I give them cheese, right?
I mean they're happy after me.

Dan (10:28):
Let's not feel too sorry, F.
Cheese is amazing.

Laura (10:31):
They love working those days because they don't know
when it's gonna happen.
And all of a sudden Christinewalks in and I'm I'm here and
they're like, Oh my god, is itcheese day?
Is it cheese day?
We're like, oh yes.
And we've got a lineup for you.

Dan (10:44):
So I think this the the pairing that we're we're
enjoying right now is is reallynice.
I like the difference.
The cheese is very creamy, likeyou mentioned, buttery.
What's the thought process whenit comes to trying to start?
Like what where where's yourwhere's your beginning point?
I think a lot of people whenthey associate pairing, they
think wine and cheese.
Beer is quite versatile becausethere are many different

(11:06):
flavors.
But what's like the 1.0 beerand cheese pairing?
What's where do you start?

Christine (11:12):
I mean, I think it comes down to three specific
points.
It would be the texture, theflavor, and the intensity.
And so for me, actually,intensity is usually where we
start off.
So this cheese, well, it's it'sa very mild cheese.
And so we actually did startoff.
I took a wine and spirits classin college, which it's a
Thursday night class, let metell you.
Oh, super top, super top class.

(11:34):
Um, we always had to sitthrough the lecture before we
got to the tasting part.
But it always made me laughbecause at the end of the
semester we had to do our ownlineup of of pairings together
or of like a curated menu of,you know, wine and food pairings
in that case.
So, like you said, wine.
You know, it was okay, you cando mild with mild, you can do
intense with intense, or you cando mild with intense.

(11:55):
It's like well, what otheroptions are there?
Yeah, I think we hit all of theoptions.
Typically with the beer, youknow, Laura and I very
consciously talked through thisas well that we tried this beer
with like the pumpkin pie umbeer that is also on tap.
You know, we tried it withthat, and it was um it was
overpowering.
You completely lost the cheesewithin the beer.
And then we've done vice versa.
We have a really strong cheesethat this beer, especially the

(12:17):
capasa, it's so crispy, it's somild, it's so I mean it's
perfect.
I love this beer.
Yes, light and bright, that'sperfect.
And so, you know, if you we didthis with a cheddar or actually
it was really good with theblue.
I did that was a that was areally good case of mild with
intense, but they complementedeach other perfectly.

Dan (12:35):
So I'd imagine like the effervescence of this would cut
through kind of like m maybe thethe fattiness of the blue, and
maybe it's did it accentuate thetang and funk of the blue
cheese?

Christine (12:46):
But like in a really good way, yeah, you know, like
it it it had that perfect, itrounded it out in what I think
is a really nice way.
It actually made the beer popas well, and I think that's our
goal is you know, what's gonnawe are we trying to make the
beer better?
Are we trying to make thecheese better?
Both.
Yeah, and our goal is both.
Our goal really is both.

Laura (13:02):
Yeah, I'm my favorite is when we find a pairing that I
mean you can have the ones thatcomplement each other really
well, and then you have the onesthat just blend, but then like
they'll they'll be separate whenyou're starting out with your
bite and your sip, and then theflavors in your mouth just blend
really well, but then theyseparate back again and bring
out the best of each other.
I think that's my favorite partis finding those pairings that

(13:24):
just all of a sudden commingleperfectly, but you don't lose
either of them at the end of theday.

Christine (13:28):
And I think you know, it it is important as you're
going through this, if you'retrying to do something like this
at home as well.
Trying it is an important partof it.
Like you were talking about,you know, do we sit down with a
list of here's all the flavorattributes?
I have done that and it hasfailed me spectacularly.
It's actually easier for me tosend a list of suggested wines
to like for a private in-homeclass to send a list of

(13:51):
suggested wines because theytend to have a little bit more
consistency.
I mean, okay, don't tell allthe winemakers that, right?
But I mean they do tend to havelike a little bit more of a
similar flavor attributes.
But if you have one IPA versusanother IP, I mean, you know,
there's a whole spectrum.
And I mean, you can talk maybea little bit more too about wine
has only so many things you canadd to it.

Laura (14:12):
Where beer.
Yeah, I mean your beer, you Imean, wine is you know, grapes
and water, and depending on whatelse you need to add to it.
I don't usually drink the winesfrom the grape stomps, but uh,
you know, to each their own.
No, but I mean with the beers,you're working with, you know,
your malts, your grains, youryour hops, even where the

(14:33):
brewery is located, the type ofwater that's being used makes a
massive difference with all theminerals because every
municipality has a differentmakeup in their waters, and so
that alone can make beersbetween two different breweries
across the city or across twocities, whatever, just taste so
so different with the same exactrecipe.
So those variations are reallyinteresting to take in.

Dan (14:53):
Kind of along those lines, what role does terroir play in
cheese?
I know that you mentioned theGuernsey cows, their milk has
like a keratene element to it.
Where does that come from?
Does that come from their diet,or is it depending on what part
of the farm they're on, they'reeating different things?
Yeah.

Christine (15:12):
That's a great question.
A lot of the things Laura justtalked about with beer, beer can
also have that terroir too,right?
So terroir means sense ofplace.
It's a French word, and it itmeans so much more than the
acidity of the soil or what kindof water it is, right?
It's so many more aspects of itthan that.
And when we're getting down tocheese, you know, one of the
first ingredients that's gonnamake a huge difference in it is

(15:33):
that milk.
And so this herd, um, thisspecific cheese we just tried is
what's called a farmsteadcheese, which means those
animals being milked are milkedright outside of that processing
facility.
And so you're getting thiswhole sense of you're getting
this terroir down to such aminimal region.
You know, it's just one herd ofcows, one farm, and this cheese
might taste different made atdifferent points of the year.

(15:54):
Again, depending on what thoseanimals are eating.
I like to quote um NapoleonDynamite and they have that
scene where they're trying thislittle like lineup of milks at
an FFA competition, and they getto the one and they're like,
oh, this cow got an onion patch,and that's like for real.
Yeah.
If you have wild onions in yourpasture, you're gonna have an
off flavor in your milk.
It's not gonna be an onionflavor, but it is going to be an

(16:17):
off flavor.
And so you need to, you know,pay attention to those kinds of
things as well.
And so as we continue to kindof spread, if you picture it
like a little dot on a map, aswe continue to zoom out on that,
we're gonna get even more, youknow, it's gonna be a little bit
less of that, you know,specific terroir, but still
regionally you're gonna stillhave that same sense of place
there.
Um, uh example that I haven'tgotten a cease and assist yet,

(16:39):
but I haven't done a lot ofbusinesses on the podcast
before.

Dan (16:43):
We have lawyers on retainer.
Happily represented by blahblah blah blah blah blah blah.
Got the reference.

Christine (16:50):
Uh well, I mean, and and as a as a high school
teacher, you obviously havelike, you know, right, the the
budgets there to have lawyers onretainer cheese.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dan (16:59):
Big, big, deep pockets of debt.
Pockets of debt.

Christine (17:04):
Anyway, back to the cheese.
And so what I had done that Idid a class for not that you
guys aren't intimidated to talkto about what cheese tastes
like, but it was a group ofprofessional tasters from a
larger corporation.
And I was like, so what do youthink this cheese tastes like?
Because I will take notes back.
But one of the ladies that wasthere used to work for Yoplay,
like Yoplay yogurt, and theyhave two plants in two different

(17:25):
parts of the country.
They were having a hard timegetting that plain yogurt to
taste the same at those twodifferent plants because they
were in two different parts ofthe country.
The cows, the average, youknow, the average gallon of milk
travels less than 200 milesfrom cow to creamery and back to
your grocery store shelves.
So milk in general truly is alocal product, no matter where
you're at, no matter whereyou're buying it.

(17:47):
And so they were having a hardtime though at these two
facilities getting that yogurtin this case to taste consistent
because two different parts ofthe country, you're able to grow
entirely different crops,you're able to feed entirely
different things.
Therefore, that milk is gonnataste different and that cheese
is gonna taste different too.
Kind of like Laura was talkingabout one more thing on that
terroir is that when creameriesmove facilities, they have a

(18:09):
very hard time gettingconsistency and flavor, and it
does come down to exactly likeyou were talking about the water
that they're using in theircheese make, all the way down to
there's a curated microflora inthe caves that um cheeses are
aged in, and that difference inmicroflora makes a huge
difference in what that finalproduct is gonna taste like.
So I don't think that'sanything to take for granted.

Dan (18:30):
I have a I have to ask a stupid question.
What does microflora mean?

Christine (18:34):
Oh, good question.
So during the classes, we talkabout the ingredients that go
into making cheese.
Then one of the ingredients ismold.
Mold, bacteria, and yeast, butfor the sake of a nice word to
listen to, we're gonna call itcultures.
I think that this um sourdoughboom has been huge for people to
understand that mold, bacteria,and yeast are not necessarily a
bad thing.
They're what's giving diversityto so many products that we're

(18:57):
eating these days.
I mean, the world wouldn't runthe same.
We wouldn't have good beer, wewouldn't have good cheese if we
didn't have cultures.
That you can either inoculatethe caves with a specific
culture that you wanted onthere, or like if it's a natural
cave, which there are some thatare in the US but more in other
countries, they have a naturalmicroflora already that's really

(19:17):
gonna give them that sense ofregionality too.

Courtney (19:19):
You say cheese cave, and I'm really thinking of a
hole in a hill that you'd liketo crawl into.
Pretty much.

Christine (19:26):
There are some, so like there's a cheese upright.

Dan (19:28):
I'm gonna show you about the safe room in my house.
You'll be you'll be wild.

Christine (19:33):
Um, there are some, so a lot of them are humidity
and temperature controlledcoolers these days.
Caves of Fairbow, Don ofFairbow, Minnesota.
That is literally caves duginto it's called St.
Peter's sandstone, which has anamazing ability for the
humidity and the moisture levelneeded to create this perfect
aging environment for cheeses.
So there are like actuallegitimate caves.

(19:53):
Yeah, there's actual legitcaves.
That makes me happy.
Can I do one more side tangent?
I usually bring a bell with.
I mean, I think we can talkabout this with beer too, but
it's the same kind of an idea.
How different styles of cheesesgot developed in the first
place was regionality.
So right now we're so luckythat we can make any kind of
cheese we want anywhere we want,basically, because we're able

(20:15):
to import different cultures.
The reason cheddar is calledcheddar is because it was made
in a town called cheddar, andthat was the kind of wild
bacteria that they had in theair that was able to bring in
that cultures that they neededto make that cheese.
You know, Brie was made in atown called Brie, that's where
that developed originally.
The cheese we just tried isactually it's what's called a

(20:36):
port salute style.
And so this used to be made bythe monks, and the monks were
the first people to be able tomake cheese with just the milk
from one milking, so it didn'tnaturally acidify during the
day, and they needed a way toadd more flavor so they would
wash the outside in either likea salt brine or beer or liquor
or whatever it may be, and thatdeveloped a whole different
flavor.
And so, this cheese is a nod tothat style of cheese making

(20:58):
that developed in a placebecause of a specific need.
They weren't lucky enough to beable, you know, they were they
needed to eat that.
That's what a lot of the foodsthat we eat that are these
beautifully fermented foods arefoods that were made to sustain
cultures.
We could travel with them, theywouldn't spoil on us either the
alcohol or the salt level orthe acidification of it allowed

(21:21):
people to survive through thingsthat they maybe otherwise
couldn't have survived through.
So, I mean, cheers to cheers toeating like the basics, right?
Fats, proteins, andcarbohydrates with our beers in
there.
We've got a perfectly balancedsmell ahead of us.

Dan (21:35):
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, cheese did help me get through
COVID.

Courtney (21:40):
Cheese is my everyday.

Laura (21:42):
I've already, even before I got to the brewery today, I'd
had three types of cheese.
Well, you're from Wisconsin.
That's fair.
That doesn't count.
I have a very, very robustcheese drawer in my refrigerator
at home.

Dan (21:53):
See the fact that you have a cheese drawer.
How do you not have a cheesedrawer?
Exactly.
No, I have a cheese drawer.
I don't trust people that don'thave cheese drawers.

Christine (22:02):
Isn't it like technically for vegetables?
Or I mean cheese is better thanit.

Dan (22:06):
No, in our fridge, it has a middle thing and it is like the
cheese drawer.
That's where I keep all thecheese.
Some meat, no vegetablesallowed.
There are vegetables in otherareas of my fridge, but that is
the cheese area.

Christine (22:19):
Should we do our next pairing, guys?
I'm getting hungry.

Courtney (22:22):
And also, here's a tip that Dan gave me when we went
to your class because he saw melike just eating away at the
first piece of cheese because itwas so great, and I kept eating
it, and he like nudged me andhe said, You're gonna want to
save some of that.
You're gonna want to save someof that and still sample it with
the other beers, even though itwasn't paired with them,
because it's still an experienceand it's still gonna change

(22:43):
flavors and do weird things.

Christine (22:44):
There are two very different streams of thought on
this.
You can save it, and I thinkthat's the that's the innovator,
that's the experimenter in you.
And the thing is that you willnotice as we get closer to the
end, if you come back to thatfirst cheese, it's gonna taste
like absolutely nothing.
Our taste buds are gonna get alittle bit tired throughout this
event.
I mean, it's definitely worthit to do.

(23:06):
I think that's what that's whyLaura and I try to start when we
do our pairings too.
We try to start with themildest one.
Like, I think this is gonna gowith something mild.
Sometimes it'll blow my palateright away, but we do have
little crackers here, littlemini toasts that are pretty
tasteless, but are a good littlepalate cleanser, too.

Laura (23:20):
So and then sometimes we get too excited about a new
cheese that you got in, and it'sso much flavor, and we're just
like, we need to jump into thisone right away.
Yeah, no, I'm like, okay, well,then all rules.
All butts are off, all rulesare out the window.

Christine (23:32):
That did happen with the pumpkin spice shov that
we're trying later on.
We did start with that onetoday.

Laura (23:37):
We went bold flavor right off the bat.
So there's no rules, that'swhat we're saying.
I like it.
Which cheese do you want to donext?
Let's do the Brie or LittleLucy Boo.
Little Lucy Boo.
So cute.
So that is gonna be with theOktoberfest, which is your third
glass, the coppery looking one.
Our Oktoberfest, honestly, Ithink it's not to sound, you
know, well, I'm gonna brag alittle bit.
No, brag.
To be honest.

(23:58):
If you listeners and friends athome and wherever you are, if
you don't come try ourOktoberfest when you're trying
all the other ones throughoutthe area, I will say you're
missing out.
Our brewers just, this is one,I mean, okay, they're really
good at all of our beers,really, but our Oktoberfest is a
work of art, in my opinion.
It's so much fun.
There's so much flavor, so manylevels to it that just come out

(24:20):
with each sip and each gulp,even depending on how you how
fast you're drinking it.
And it's it's just a reallyfun, awesome beer.
It's very friendly to drinkoverall.
It's coming in at 6.8%, so itis, you know, a little bit
higher than your standardlighter beers and stuff like
that.
It's not so high that you canonly have one and then start
thinking about your choices forthe rest of the day.
You can have a couple and it'susually still good.

(24:41):
Good choices are still good.

Dan (24:43):
And if you need a nap, there's plenty of open lawn for
the city.
You got so much grass out here.

Laura (24:47):
Yeah, nice grass.
You can take a nap.

Dan (24:49):
Might wake up uh spooning with a Guernsey cow and happy
Oktoberfest, how are you?

Laura (24:55):
We're a little M well city for that, I think.
So yeah, our Oktoberfest is aBavarian Marson.
Again, like I said, it's comingin at 6.8%.
It's got a beautiful caramelycoppery color.
Just a really pretty, prettybeer that follows up with an
awesome punch of flavor, butalso still very friendly to
drink.
It's it's super approachable.

Courtney (25:14):
It's been my go-to beer here.
Like I fight with myself when Icome in and I think your beer
tenders watch me do it.
Like, do I need the Oktoberfestor do I go with the pumpkin
pie?
Because they're both only herefor a short time.
I don't know what to do.

Laura (25:24):
Mix them.

Courtney (25:25):
Oh, Laura.

Laura (25:26):
Yeah.
It's so good.
It's so good.
You get you get your pumpkinpie.
What I would do is two-thirdsOktoberfest, one third pumpkin
pie.
So then the pumpkin isn't likeover overstating its presence.

Courtney (25:38):
I'm intrigued.
I know exactly what ishappening when we're done
recording today.

Laura (25:42):
It's so, so good.
Because you get that awesomeMars and caramely and all that,
and then you know the pumpkincomes through with the spices,
and it's just, oh, it's very,very fun.
I have another I have anotherblend later too that we could
talk about.
But another pumpkin blend thatlightens it up even more, which
I love this.

Christine (25:57):
I'll keep it a secret for now.
Um, I'm gonna introduce thenext cheese.
So the next one we're going isit's actually a Breeze or it's a
bloomy rind cheese.
So it's based off of a cheesefrom Redhead Creamery called
Little Lucy Brie.
And this is their Halloweenversion.
So you might notice that thecenter is bright orange, and
then there's a little bit of soif you look at it, there's a few
different parts to it.
There's the very center, whichis like you can tell the texture

(26:19):
is a little bit firmer, alittle bit more crumbly.
The closer we get to the rind,the more broken down that cheese
is gonna be.
So this is a naturally ripeningcheese, which means that the
longer the cheese, this cheeseages, the more it's gonna break
down.
So the best time to buy a likea naturally ripening cheese like
this is when you feel theoutside and it squishes a little
bit.
That's when you know you're infor a real treat.
Now we're recording beforeHalloween here, but I just

(26:41):
couldn't help but bring this onein because it's so fun.
Um, and so this cheese in abouttwo weeks is going to be
perfect.
It's gonna be just at thatright texture.
And so that outside part thatis a little broken down is gonna
have a little more intensity toit.
You can see there's a littlebit of darkness on the outside
as well.
So to continue on that vibe ofthe Halloween spookiness,

(27:01):
they've rubbed the outside ofthis cheese in ash.
And then there's a whiteculture, so white mold on the
outside.
That's gonna actually kind ofthat's kind of where the
breakdown starts of this cheese.
So you can try each part byitself, try all the parts
together.
And let me know your thoughtson the pairing here.
Everybody's just deep intothought eating.

Courtney (27:19):
That texture was not what I was expecting for some
reason.

Christine (27:21):
Was it more crumbly, denser, creamier?

Courtney (27:23):
It was more, is it was drier.

Christine (27:24):
And I think that part of this cheese, like I said, it
does still have some time toage yet.
This is just at roomtemperature.
With this pairing, I get morenutty notes out of this cheese
than I've ever gotten, which Ithink is so fun.
And I think the spices sit onthis super, super well too.

Laura (27:39):
I love the earthiness of it.
I love I don't like to eat thischeese in just like the
separate parts.
I need like the outside, theinside, the whole.
Like I just take a whole sliceright out of the entire thing
and get that earthiness, thecultures, the you know, the
flavors, the textures.
It's I love this cheese.
It's a it's really, really cuteas like a little ghost cheese.
It looks like a pumpkin iswearing like a ghost you know

(28:01):
sheet, and it's just like alittle round cheese ball kind
of.
So not only is it adorable, butI love the flavors of it
because it's it's super uniquein that way.
And for me with theOktoberfest, they just at first
it feels like an unlikelypairing, but for me it's one of
those blends that just likethey're super separate
beforehand.
You get them in your mouthtogether and they're just like
what up friends?
And then, but you don't losethe character of either of them,

(28:23):
which is really, really fun.
So you still continue to getthat earthiness, the creaminess,
but then also the awesomenessof the Oktoberfest stays.
It doesn't get lost with thissuper flavorful cheese.
It's a really fun one for me.

Christine (28:34):
And this is one that Laura and I did have to work a
little bit to get this pairingright.
And this actually happened, wehad poured the Oktoberfest for
something else, and then we cameback to it.
We just had, you know, a littlebit in the end of the glass.
It's like, you know, at acertain point in time, we just
start trying.
I do think one of the reallyfun things about tasting stuff
is the sensory memories thatcome with a certain taste.
So one time I had a reallysweet wine with a smoked gouda

(28:58):
that brought me right back to mygrandpa always used to make me
jam and summer sausage toasts inthe summer when he'd watch me.
And so, like, you know, at thefarm or whatever, right?
And so it was a very thatbrought me right back there.
This pairing right here, thisOktoberfest with all those sort
of it's not pumpkin pie spices,but it's still those same kind
of fall notes.
So I actually used to work atthis creamery.

(29:19):
So I have a degree in foodscience um from UW Stout.
And after I graduated, before Iwas able to come home and farm,
my parents said, no, don't comehome and farm, go do something
else for a while.
And so I went and I worked atRedhead Creamery, and so we
would bring home some cheeseevery once in a while.
Both of my roommates alsoworked at the creamery with me.
And my friend Paige, she hadfound a recipe for a pumpkin pie

(29:39):
brie.
And this is kind of a similarvibe to that.
So you take a brie wheel, youtop it with pumpkin pie filling,
and then you take pie crust andyou put it over the top,
sprinkle a little cinnamon sugaron top, and then you bake off
the rest of the pie as thelittle crackers.
Yeah.
It was, and then it gets allsuper ooey gooey melty in there.
It was really, really good.

Laura (30:00):
That was not fair.

Christine (30:02):
But that's the beauty of a pairing like this.
It can bring you right back toa certain place in time that I
just think is so special.
And that's one of the coolthings, too, that people don't
talk about all the time.
Food carries a lot ofsentimental and emotional value
as well.
And it's fun to kind of betransported back in time
sometimes too.

Laura (30:18):
Oh yeah.
I definitely get a lot ofmemories from various pairings
that we do.
And I will say though, even soyou had kind of asked earlier
about how like Christine and Igot started on, you know,
working together and developingclasses and stuff like that.
So I used to work for ShramVineyards and Shram Housebury
out in Waconia and Chaska.
When I had started over there,Christine had already, I think,
started doing classes anywaywith you know previous staff and

(30:41):
I kind of took that over.
And so we actually started offtogether doing wine pairings
with the cheeses.
And that was, of course, a lotof fun.
And even though like wines canbe a little bit more consistent,
you've got fewer theoreticallyingredients, of course, and
things that go into it and otherfactors, but we still surprised
ourselves with a really, reallygood pairings that were like,

(31:01):
Yes, this one sings to me.
And then there were other timesthat we were like, let's try it
with this.
Like, I think those two flavorscould actually work.
And it was just like, no.

Christine (31:10):
Like immediate, like, immediately no.
Immediately no.

Laura (31:15):
So yeah, when I came over to um Boom Island Brewing, then
of course I was like, okay,well, obviously we need to do
classes here.
And with our beers, they're soso good and have such great body
to every single one of them.
A lot of good depth, a lot offun flavors.
And they pair with so manydifferent types of foods and
flavorings and all that kind ofstuff.
And so of course I was like,um, well, beer, of course.
And uh cheese.

(31:36):
So we started up um our firstclass was back in what February,
I think?
Or yeah.

Christine (31:41):
Something like that.
Yeah, that's I think it'sright.
Was the chocolate cheese withthat first one too?

Laura (31:47):
I think so.
I think so, yeah.
So I mean that was our first,you know, beer and cheese
pairing and our our meetingbeforehand to plan out the
pairings and stuff.
Oh my gosh, I think we took uphalf of one of the main like
sides of the bar with all of ourlike lined up little beer
taster glasses, and we weretrying to keep track of all of
them and stuff.
And I mean, we've gotten alittle bit more efficient since

(32:07):
then, but we still know how tomake a really good mess out of
it.
Um that's half the fun.
Exactly, exactly.
And I purposely don't like wehave some of our like regular
class attendees now that willask, or the ones that haven't
been able to make it to a classbut really want to, but they
know that we do these likepre-planning meetings for the
pairings, and they'll ask, like,when's your next one?
When are you when are you guysmeeting next?

(32:27):
And I'm like, on the third ofnever gonna tell you.
Like otherwise we're gonna endup with you know five extra
people joining us, and which isfine.

Christine (32:36):
I mean, there's space, right?
We'll make space for them.
We did get a few attendeesafter that first class.
I was a little skepticalbecause they always think, like
you said, beer or wine andcheese, and they're like, beer
and cheese.
What do you mean?
I think we went around samplingout cheese that first one, and
we we filled it up.

Laura (32:52):
It worked really well, yeah.
So, and it helps when we, youknow, start a little bit later
in the afternoon versussometimes we'll do like earlier,
you know, one o'clock,whatever.
But we're not usually open yetat the brewery, which is keeps
things quiet.
We can stay organized, we don'thave to worry about you know
taking up too much space on thebar.
But it's it's definitely a lotof fun when people start coming
in for the business day and seewhat we're doing, and you know,

(33:13):
they get curious and then we getthem a little sample of cheese,
and we're like, all right, buttry it with this beer and then
try it with this beer.
And they're like, oh my gosh,okay, when's the class?
Let me okay, I'm gonna scan thecode, I'm gonna get signed up
right now.
We've gotta we gotta come andtry the rest of these.
So much fun.

Christine (33:25):
And I think the beauty of having it here too is
that sometimes the ticket pricesjust really they kind of
outpace themselves, and herewe're able to keep that ticket
price.
Yeah.
First, you know, six beers, sixcheeses, and really a good time
with I mean we're a lot of fun.
Like, I'm gonna say we're fun.
There's a comedy show betweenthe two of you.
Let's be honest.
Laura makes the best.
I'm usually a pun person.

(33:47):
I mean, the greater goodspelled G-R-A-T-E are like a
cheese grater, but Laura meetsme right there.
I do my best.

unknown (33:54):
It's wonderful.

Christine (33:55):
Now I'm gonna ask, did you guys try?
I know I told you not to, butdid anybody try this brie with
the capasa still?
No.

Dan (34:01):
I uh totally blew through my full pint of capasa and the
sample of capasa and my firstcheese because I was like, well,
I'm gonna try a different waynow, but um I I ruined it.

Christine (34:12):
I told you not to, and now you're like, well, here
I go.
It o this this cheeseoverpowered the capasa, is what
all I was gonna say with it iswe did try that pairing as well.

Laura (34:21):
Yeah, it's fun to compare those and just see like, okay,
well, I thought it could go wellwith, you know, capasa goes
with everything, but to reallyfind a true, like good pairing,
where we highlight the capaseye.
Yeah, we wanna we don't want tolose the beer and we don't want
to lose the cheese.
And so that's that's one thingthat happens often, actually, is
you know, certain beers willoverpower certain cheeses and
vice versa.
And again, that's where thatbalance comes back into play,

(34:43):
and that's what we're trying tofind each time.
Speaking of that, should we doanother one?
Yeah, we should.
Okay, so we're gonna do lightthe lamp next, which is your
lighter one on the end.
So this actually is a seasonalbeer for us.
It is a hazy IPA.
We have another hazy onyear-round.
Um, it was Finn's Fog.
We redid that recipe, and it'snow popular demand.
I think it is a better beerthan even before.

(35:04):
Huge kudos to the originalrecipe and the people that made
that one.
The popular demand came in andit's more of a classic hazy IPA.
I wouldn't call it necessarilydry, but it is drier than a
juicy hazy, of course.
Now, light the lampspecifically, and if you come in
and you see like the artworkfor it, you know, the beer sign,
and we have a sweatshirtactually for it.
And on the especially the canart, when you pick up a crawler

(35:25):
of it, it is designed to kind offollow the Minnesota wild
hockey schedule.
So I think their first likeseasonal game is this week,
right?
And so we released Light theLamp for this season last
Thursday so that people couldkind of get into it and really
start enjoying this gorgeous,hazy, juicy IPA that's just so
much fun and so much goodflavor.
It does come out at 7% ABV, soyou know, around the Actor Fest,

(35:49):
but you still want to pay alittle bit of attention compared
to, you know, drinking KPassas, which again are a little
bit less than that.
This is this is one of myfavorite, favorite seasonal IPAs
that we put out.
It's just so much fun, andpeople are asking about it all
year long.
Anytime it's not on our menuposted, they're asking like
when's it next coming back?
Even if it like just went offlike the week before, they're
like, when's it coming back forthe season?

(36:09):
We're like, well, you gottagive it a couple months.
Like we have we have otherbeers to put on still.

unknown (36:14):
I love it.

Laura (36:14):
We got stuff to try.
So this one, this one's a lotof fun.
And this is actually when Ipoured myself a pint before we
started recording, I pouredmyself a light the lamp because
everyone else did K Pas, Ibelieve, right?
Yeah.
And I was like, no, I gotta go,I gotta go with a lamp.
It's too much fun.
It's so good.

Christine (36:29):
So that's what we're gonna that's what we're doing
next.
Yep.
And the cheese we're gonna dothis one is kind of America's
sweetheart of cheddars rightnow.
It's these little crumbles youguys have.
This is called Prairie Breezecheddar.
Now, you guys did have this atthe last class we did, but we do
not have the beer anymore thatthis cheese was with.
And this is a case of matchingintensity, but in a very unique
way.
So, this cheese, it's acrumbly, crystally cheddar.

(36:50):
You guys might notice it hadthese little crystal spots in
it.
Uh, and those are calledterosine crystals.
They're a little protein or alittle amino acid that, as that
cheese is aging, as thosecultures were doing their job
and breaking down those fats andproteins, there's a little
chemical reaction that happenedthere and it formed this little
crystal as a byproduct of that.
So, this cheese is aged for atleast nine months, made at
Milton Creamery out of Milton,Iowa.

(37:10):
So they sourced from farmswithin about a 30-mile radius of
their creamery.
And they're actually aMennonite run creamery, and a
lot of the farms that theysource from are Mennonite and
Amish run farms.
So a little bit, you know, moreold school, and their styles
are a little bit more old schoolwith that.
But this cheddar, so if youhave like a British cheddar, it
tends to be a little bit not assweet as the American cheddars

(37:31):
are.
We love we have a sweet tooth,and this cheese I think plays
perfectly into that.
You can get some of those kindof like canned pineapple notes,
and that was when Laura waslike, Should we try it with
light of the lamp?
And then she's like, It's alittle fruitier, you know, than
some of the other.
Because we had tried this withIPAs the last time too, because
usually I like this cheese withan IPA, and we had some some not
great pairings.

Laura (37:49):
Yeah, it just didn't really well enough.
No this, honestly, the light ofthe lamp, the sweetness in it,
the fruitiness, just reallyhelps bring out those extra
flavors.
And I love it with the texture.
I think the texture of thecheese works really, really well
with the mouthfeel of the ofthis beer.
A lot of fun.
When we paired it for the lastclass that you guys were at, we
did it with our dark horseporter, but it was the flavored

(38:10):
one called Man of War, and thatwas the um chocolate coconut
version, which was very, veryfun.
We actually, as Christine said,we had a really hard time
during that pairing meetingfinding one that worked for this
cheese that just you know, fromour menu that we hadn't already
paired with something else.

Christine (38:26):
And things were good with it, but nothing was I mean,
this cheese is excellent.
Like this is really anexcellent cheese, and we didn't
want to do a disservice to iteither.

Laura (38:33):
This is literally one of my favorite cheeses.
Like every time I see you at amarket or you know, you bring it
in for a class, I have to getmyself a good square too.
It's just such a fun, funcheese.
And I always love cheddars andI love unique cheddars too.
And this one is just excellent.
It's just cheese excellence, ifyou will, like embodied.

Courtney (38:49):
It was this paring last time that made me cry.
Was it?
Yes, it was uh it was thatcheddar with the the man of war
porter.

Christine (38:55):
Did you have pina colada vibes with that coconut
and the pineapple?
No, I'm just like overthinkingthat.

Laura (39:01):
I think there was a lot more chocolate in that porter
than there was coconut, I think.

Christine (39:05):
This cheese with a crunch bar is also amazing.
Oh and a heath bar, thoselittle caramely bits in there.
So I mean, I'm guessing.
I don't know.

Laura (39:19):
Not my red I know officially or anything, but no,
this one's really funny.
What do you think of it withlight the lamp as opposed to the
portable?

Courtney (39:26):
It's such a different beer than last week.
She's not crying.
I'm not I'm not crying.

Laura (39:30):
I don't expect you to.
That's well, you can hold it inthis time, that's fine.

Courtney (39:34):
It was a moment.
But like also how much it'sstill really, really good.
It's totally different.
Uh-huh.
It makes everything tastetotally different.

Laura (39:42):
No, I would hold on to, I mean, we got a good we got a
good couple chunks of this one.
And I I don't remember ifbefore we came over here, if I
did try it with the regular darkhorse, because that's gonna be
our final beer for this um thisround.
But hold on to a chunk of thatso that when we move on to the
next beer, that see see whatthat difference feels like.

Christine (39:59):
I did not try that.
I don't remember if I did.
No, I know I didn't because Ithought that um dark horse was
amazing, so I drank the wholething.

Laura (40:06):
That's true.
No, that's right.
I didn't try to get it.
Because we started we startedup strawberry.
I got rid of those glassesbecause we were done with it.
We had it, we had our pairingand it's gonna be a lot of fun.
But no, we didn't.
That's so funny.
Now I gotta fail you guys.
Now I gotta, now I gotta dothat.

Christine (40:18):
And and I will say, Laura and I do we we will do
that sometimes during classes.
If we're we're in between andwe're like, well, things are
really good, really different.
We didn't at this class youguys were at, but in the past we
have been like, okay, hold onto a little bit of this beer
because we're gonna try it withtwo different things.
Yeah.
And I want you to pick, youknow.
That's that's also the beautyof pairing, and that it's so
subjective.
So just because we thinksomething tastes good together

(40:40):
does not necessarily mean thatit's gonna be your favorite
thing either.

Courtney (40:43):
How often do you guys disagree on a pairings?
Like one of you thinks thisshould really go here and this
one should go here.

Christine (40:48):
I don't think we have.
I really don't think we have todo it.

Laura (40:50):
It doesn't matter.
We'll have like slightlyslightly different, like, oh, I
think this is kind of good, butI'm getting a weird flavor and
that's usually when we do two.
Yeah, that's when we do two, orjust like, okay, well, this one
could work, this one couldwork.
Let's keep finding, you know,let's keep working, and we could
always come back to this onebecause it does work, but it
might not just be like ourperfect match.

Christine (41:09):
And I think that's more what it is.
It just means we need toinvestigate further.

Laura (41:12):
So no, I but we've never we've never like outright
disagreed about any of our likestandoff fights like no, it has
to be this way.
Well, I think we have such likesimilar palettes to that it m
that helps a ton that like wehave very similar preferences of
tastes and how we you knowinterpret those flavors and
stuff.
Yeah.

Christine (41:30):
You guys want to do the last one?
This one's really funny.
Dan, what did you think of thatpairing?

Dan (41:34):
I thought it was really good.
When I first smelled the beer,if you wouldn't have told me, if
like if you blindfolded me andhad me smell it, I would have
guessed it was a West Coastbecause it had like a lot of
grassy, earthy aromas.
It does.
And when you said hazy, I waslike, wait, that doesn't make
sense.
And then I tried it, and you'reright, it does pull out a lot
of the fruit flavors becausethere must be I mean the cheese

(41:55):
is not necessarily uh it's notdry, but it's like No, it dries
your mouth.

Christine (42:00):
I would agree.
It's it's so a cheddar tends tobe a little bit higher in
acidity than like when we havethat Belair, that's like a
pretty close to neutral pH onthat cheese.
Okay.
And then whereas this prairie'scheddar, so what a cheddar is
doing is you're holding a cheeseat a specific acidity, and so
it does have more of thatpunchiness, which is gonna just
draw your mouth out.
So you're you're totally on onpoint there.

Dan (42:21):
And I think it did bring out more of the juiciness, but
the beer on its own isn't when Ithink hazy, I think like I
think ripe mango, I thinktangerine, I think, you know,
supreme of a really perfectnavel orange.
That turned this beer into likea hybrid East Coast, West Coast
beer, which was kind of fun.

Laura (42:39):
Yeah, it brings out a lot more of the a lot more of like
the lighter citruses, right?
So a little more lemony, youmight get a little more melon in
there versus tangerine orsomething like that.
Yep.
Which is really, really funabout this beer is I mean,
there's so many layers to itthat you know, pairing it with
any number of things is gonnagive you a whole new palette to
work with, right?
And that's I think that'sthat's what's so dang fun about

(43:00):
you know our whole process.

Dan (43:01):
I think that's the most Minnesotan thing that's ever
been said on this.

Laura (43:04):
It's so much fun, you guys.

Dan (43:07):
Oh yeah, I do love the cheese.
Holy moly.

Christine (43:11):
I mean, we can't disagree about nothing today,
guys.
Right.

Dan (43:15):
I mean, I liked them all.

Christine (43:16):
You know, you get a good cheese and they get a good
beer, and there's just nothingbetter.

Dan (43:20):
Oh, geez, Marge.
I suppose I'll have anotherwedge of that uh that blue
there.
It's sure it's spooky.

Laura (43:28):
Spooky cheese then.

Dan (43:30):
Oh, yeah.
Scared the bacheas out of meagain.

Laura (43:34):
Was it the be cheeses or the but cheeses?

Dan (43:37):
The bachees.

Laura (43:38):
The ba cheeses.

Christine (43:39):
I'm cutting you guys off.

Laura (43:41):
It's too much.

Dan (43:43):
We're gonna wind up in the punitentiary.
Oh my god.

Laura (43:47):
Oh no.
Oh, is it just getting worse?
Or better?

Courtney (43:50):
I mean better.
It's getting better.
It's better.

Laura (43:53):
Yeah.
Anyway, to keep things moving.
Um, speaking of dark horse,that is our fourth beer that
we're trying this afternoon.
Again, this is our classic darkhorse.
This is a standard porter.
It honestly, the reason it'snamed Dark Horse is based on
like dark horse of a race,right?
Like thoroughbred racing.
Your dark horse is the one thatyou don't expect to win, but

(44:14):
it's awesome.
Right.
So it's just a classic porter.
This one in particular, I thinkthis year has a little bit more
smoke than normal, but it'sjust like the hintiest hint and
it comes out more.
I just when I we were talkingabout how we had done the
prairie breeze with thechocolate coconut version of it.
That was really, really fun.
And then I did try it in themeantime just now, the prairie

(44:34):
breeze cheddar with the darkhorse standard.
And that was reallyinteresting.
It brought out so much smoke init for me personally that it
was it was almost surprisingbecause this beer doesn't
naturally have much smoke to itat all.
And if you if you just try itlike without anything else, it's
just a beautiful, well-balancedorder.
Just delicious.
And this this is a really funone because you think of darker
beers, and oftentimes you'rethinking, like, oh, the darker I

(44:54):
go, the higher the ABV.
If it's a deeper flavor, I'mgonna get, you know, more
alcohol in it.
This comes in at 5.2.
Like it's so, so friendly andeasy to drink, and it is
honestly one of the perfect,like simple, straightforward
winter beers that can it's lightenough still in the mouthfeel
that you can drink it all yearround.
Very, very fun.

Courtney (45:11):
I'm happy to drink it all year round.

Laura (45:12):
Yeah, it's very good.

Dan (45:13):
The iteration of this beer that we had at the September
cheese tasting with the coconutand the chocolate.
Yeah.
I like that, but this is likefor me, it's very hard to find
kind of a straightforward porteror stout that doesn't have some
sort of adjunct or additionalsweetness to it.
I really like this because itin its simplicity is kind of
perfect.

Laura (45:32):
Right, and I this one is so much fun because it it is a
we'll call it simple, but likeevery sip you take, you might
notice a smoke on one of them.
You might notice a nutty, youmight notice the chocolate
finish.
It has so many layers to itthat all just blend really,
really nicely.
And you can pair a ton of stuffwith it because of all those
different flavor notes that youcan draw out with certain, you

(45:54):
know, cheeses, certain desserts,certain, I don't know, pizza, I
don't whatever.
Then it's gonna be good with somuch stuff because it it offers
such a wide range of flavorswithin this just beautifully
balanced beer.

Christine (46:06):
And I think the beauty of it too is it's not too
bitter.
So I don't know if anybody elselost their I got COVID in 21.
I lost my sense of smell, whichwas the scariest thing for
someone that does what I do.
So I completely lost my senseof taste.
I do remember, I know this iswe're talking about food and
beer here.
I do remember the exact momentthat I was like, I can smell
something again.
And it was when I was scrapingmanure paddles in the barn.

(46:27):
And I was like, this is astrong enough scent that it was
bringing me back.
But it was good sensorytraining.
Oh yeah.
Um, but after I lost my senseof smell, though, I mean in
taste, I came back reallysensitive to bitter.
That was something that reallyhit me hard to notice.
It was a long time to get backinto like even coffee.
I love black coffee.
And what I like about thisbeer, it doesn't give me that

(46:47):
bitterness.
It gives me coffee, but not atthat bite or that dryness that
it's not too acidic.
No, no, it's that that likebitterness to it that I don't I
don't get that.
It's like very smooth still,which I like.
Um, did you try it with theprairie breeze, guys?
I did, and it was so good.
It was so good.
It was so good.
Yeah, so so good.

Dan (47:05):
Yeah, that was really good.

Laura (47:06):
Missed opportunity, but well, compared to what we have
with it though.

Christine (47:10):
Yeah.
So that is your like thecoffee, the creamer in your
coffee is the prairie breezewith that.
And then go ahead and try itnow.
So the last cheese we have is apumpkin spice chev.
So this is made by LeclairCreamer out of Malone,
Wisconsin.
This is a um, this is a goat'smilk cheese that does have that
pumpkin, pumpkin spice.
I mean, it is the season flavorwith that.

Dan (47:29):
And then This is so good.
The cheese is so good.
This pumpkin, I love anythingpumpkin.
Unapologetically, love pumpkin.
I know a lot of peoplelistening to this are craft beer
people, and they're like, eh,pumpkin beer is not my thing.
Well, you're all wrong.
All 97% of you are wrong.
This is so good.

Christine (47:47):
Yeah.
Now give it give yourself alittle sip of that beer with
that, too, because it it's likewe were talking about Midwestern
desserts before.
Now, would you like me to makesome coffee for your pumpkin
pie?
Because that's what's happeningright here.
It is just this like greatcreaminess with it.
It brings out a whole creamylevel of the beer.
Good lord, that the killthirsty reduce.

Dan (48:08):
Is it holy crap.

Christine (48:13):
Now we so you can see why we didn't do it the prairie
breeze because this was I mean,we tried this.
Oh god.

Laura (48:19):
We've started with we started off with pumpkin pie,
which is our award-winning beer.
Our pumpkin pie autumn ale is apumpkin spice, just beautiful
amber ale.
I talk about it all the time onthe podcast.
It um just to refresheveryone's memories, for those
of you that have or have notlistened to the podcast before
or are not familiar with ourbeer, but our pumpkin pie

(48:40):
actually won best in show in theentire 450 plus beers that were
submitted to the MinnesotaBrewers Craft Brewers Guild
competition back in February,March.
April.
April.
This spring.
Spring.
Somewhere in there.
I'm trying to think of when itwas.
Yeah.
And it won, you know, in itscategory, of course, but then it
won best in show too.
And that was just mind-blowingto us.

(49:01):
That I mean, we know it's agood beer.
We know it's so delicious andbeautifully balanced.
It is dessert in a beer, and itis so good.
It does not work very well withthis cheese because it's too
much rich with too much rich.
It overpowers themselves,honestly.

Christine (49:16):
And you it brought out this acidity in the beer
that's not there.
Yeah, it's not there, and thecheese shouldn't bring it out.
It was wild that it didn'twork.

Laura (49:23):
Yeah, and that's where some of those, like, where we
get into some of these pairingsthat were like, well, this
should work with this, and thenyou get into the actual pairing
and you're like, oh, something'scoming out that's just not this
banner.

Christine (49:33):
Sometimes it's the aftertaste too.
Like you have to give it asecond.
Yeah.
Because how it sits in yourmouth is a huge part of the
process as well.

Laura (49:40):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
We sits in my mouth verynicely.
This finishes so nice.
And that's that's our goal isfor you to like, when you're
done, you know, swallowing.

unknown (49:50):
Okay.

Laura (49:54):
When um so women is Oh Lord's gonna win.
What noise am I gonna choosein?
That is like an order.
Sorry.
Um, okay, so after both thebeer and the cheese have passed
through your mouth, um, inorder.
Oh no.
Anyway, the after, you know,the the progression afterwards,

(50:19):
you want to have it lingering ina good way.
Right.
And these, that's that's ourgoal is to start off great,
middle needs to blend nicely,and then you have a really nice
aftertaste throughout the restof it.

Christine (50:29):
So that you want more.
Yeah.
I mean, you want to takeanother bite and you want to
have another.

Laura (50:32):
And that's I know that that happens when my mouth
starts watering because I I wantmore cheese and I want more
beer, and I want those twotogether specifically.
And this just between the thepumpkin chev and the dark horse
porter, holy moly.
Like these just pair so sowell.
And the pumpkin pie autumn alejust didn't didn't provide that
as much.

Christine (50:51):
It was already there, and it didn't already be.

Laura (50:53):
Yeah, there wasn't really any blending to do of flavors
because both flavors were Imean, you get a little bit of
like cheesecakey almost creamcheesy with and the cheese, and
so that provides a little bitmore of savory and creaminess
that the beer doesn't, you know,have duh its beer.
But the the combination of thetwo just wasn't there, whereas
then we were like, okay, well,let's try it with the dark
horse, and this is just a reallyfun berry.

Christine (51:15):
Well, and I think if we would have had the version
that you the man of war that youguys had with all the coconut
and all the extras in it, Idon't think it would have done
as well.

Dan (51:22):
No, that would have been too much.
I think I this like that beeris just the regular version goes
so well, and I think one of thethings that people don't
understand about certain thingsis when they see a dark beer,
they just assume heavy, but it'slight.
Goat cheese is light.
Yes, it has a big flavor, butit's very light.
Kind of like you were talkingearlier, pairing light with
light when you think abouttexture.

(51:44):
I think that's why it works.

Christine (51:45):
Well, and I think part of this is I have a
tendency to picture a dark beerlike this with almost a syrupy
texture.
Right.
And I do think that the cheese,the creaminess of that cheese,
I think gives this beer body.
I don't know how else to saythat, right?
Like I know it makes this beerseem to be a big thing.
Well, the beer's really dry onits own.

Dan (52:03):
I mean, it's a it's a roasty beer.
Like a porter is a roastystyle.
You know, we've ba becomeconditioned because if you've
been into craft beer for thelast five to seven years, most
places are dumping all sorts ofadjuncts into their stout, and
they're kind of bastardizing thestyle.
A pastry stout has a place forsure.

(52:24):
Yeah.
But I think they've become sowidespread that it's like now
people just for the same reasonwhy people crave a West Coast
IPA now, is because you can'tfind them anymore.
And now it's kind of thependulum is swinging back a bit.
I think there should be roomfor both.
Like you should have, hey, youwant an adjunct stout, we've got
that.
But we also have thistraditional, like a dryer stout

(52:45):
or a porter, which is kind oflike the best of both worlds in
my opinion, to go with somethingthat's not as heavy that can
like really kind of complementit or as opposed to if we drank
this with a pastry stout, thatwould just like stomp all over
the pumpkin goes.

Laura (52:59):
Absolutely.
And I think I love when you canlike basically you're getting
back to basics, right?
Yep.
You've got your we've got astraightforward hazy IPA, we've
got a straightforward West CoastIPA, we've got a
straightforward Mexican lager, ablonde, a porter that isn't
it's just telling you, hey, I'mhere.
It's it's me.
This is me.
I'm not wearing a costume, I'mnot wearing a ton of extra
flavors.
We tried that, we did somerotating, you know, throughout

(53:21):
the summer and stuff, and thatwas a lot, a lot of fun.
But they were great.
And they're so good.
They were so so good.
As soon as I heard that our,you know, just the regular dark
horse was back on, I was like,yes.
Just that classic.
You let the beer speak foritself.

Dan (53:34):
That's the beer I want to drink every day.
You know, the man war is likesomething I'll have like once in
a blue moon, but like give me aroasty porter, five and a half
percent.

Laura (53:43):
Yeah, back to the bigger.
Absolutely.
Bring it, bring it right onback.
Give me this straightforwardporter that just, you know, it
holds its own.
It doesn't need any more.

Christine (53:51):
Well, I think that's one of the things my boyfriend
and I were talking about thatwe're like, I wish this place
was like 10 minutes from ourhouse because it I'm a little
bit further out.
But it's because you can tryevery one of these beers is one
that I want to come back to.
Like I tend to navigate to theCape Pasa because I can't find
that.
Anytime I come here, that'swhat I tend to start off with at
least or finish with.
I don't know.
It always tends to be in myrotation somewhere, but over

(54:14):
overall, it's all beers that arejust like very well balanced,
and I think that's a huge partof it.

Courtney (54:20):
Here's the problem when you do live that close,
because I clocked it today, itwas seven minutes for me to get
here.
Oh that is convenient.
The problem is when you comein, you have so many great
options to pick from.
It's paralyzing.
Yeah, absolutely paralyzing.

Laura (54:34):
Decision fatigue, yeah.
I want them all.
It happens to me all the time,and of course, I'm here nearly
every day.
And I'm like, I want a beer,but then I stand in front of the
taps like, but what do I want?
Yeah.
Like and again, I I do want togive a huge shout out to our
brew team because they are justso exceptionally talented with
years and years in the industry,and they have very particular

(54:57):
standards for the beers thatthey put out.
They won't put a bad beer out.
You know, they had a batch lastyear, I'll say, that, you know,
it was a little questionable.
And they were like, nope,that's this is not the quality
that we are gonna put out.
This is it, it didn't fermentquite right, and it wasn't the
it wasn't the quality of beerthat we hold ourselves to, and
that's I think that's a huge,you know, we're we're okay with

(55:18):
not putting a beer out.
We're okay with, you know, notusing a batch if it's not gonna
be something that we're proudof, like genuinely.
And so I think between all ofthem, their their palates and
their their noses for the beersare just so fine-tuned.
Even I'm always a positiveperson, like I try to be a very
positive person and give I letthem know, like, if there's a
weird flavor to it, I'll I'lltry and say it in a nice way,

(55:39):
and they're like, stop beingnice.
Stop like stop being nice, justbe straightforward.
I'm like, all right, well, thisis weird.

Courtney (55:47):
Oh, that's interesting.

Laura (55:48):
That's interesting.
There's an interesting flavorthat's coming through on the
back end, and they're like,Yeah, no, we noticed it too to
say it.

Dan (55:54):
That reminds me of a time I was eating spaghetti and uh I
bit down in a tin can.
Is that supposed to be in thein the is that one of the notes
you were looking for?

Christine (56:04):
We were looking for a luminum of the.

Dan (56:10):
No, just kidding.
And that's those are the beersyou dump, the sad, the sad
beers.
You know.

Laura (56:15):
I will say, like, most of the time if I'm making a
comment like that, it's becausewe're working out like a
particular like balance offlavors that we are adding
because of a special beer thatwe're making.
It's not the beer itself thatis off.
It's usually like, I feel likeit just needs like a little more
vanilla or something, you know,something that's you know, a
combination of flavors that justneeds to like have the tiniest

(56:36):
little tweak to it to reallybalance it out and bring out
that true flavor that we'relooking for, which is really
fun.

Christine (56:41):
What did we do with the push-up one the last time?
The push-up beer.
Oh, what did we pair that with?
Um was that with our group?
No, it wasn't.

Laura (56:48):
It was a couple times ago, and I just keep it was
before we released it.
Yeah, it was before we actuallyreleased it.
From the tap.
It was yeah, it was from thebright tank.
I pulled out pictures from thebright tank before it was
kegged.
So the push-up is another, it'sa hazy IPA with orange and
vanilla in it.
It's essentially a creamsicle,but in beer form, or like you're

(57:09):
chasing after the ice creamtruck and getting those push
pops, the orange ones.
Yeah.
And then you turned it into abeer, and that is this beer, and
it's oh my gosh, it's sodelicious.
It is like the ultimatum ofsummer.

Christine (57:20):
We uh did it with the triple cream brie.
Because I think it was like icecream, like it was literally
like literally like a black.

Laura (57:26):
Like we made like an orange float, yeah, right?
Like it was like a ripperfloat, but with like orange
cream.
Yeah, oh my gosh, that was somuch fun.
And it was fun for people toget that like preview before
like we weren't releasing it foranother at least few days, if
not like a week or so.
And so, yeah, they got freshfrom the bright tank, and that
was really fun.
It was a bummer that some ofthem couldn't actually take it
home right away, but then it,you know, they got to come back.

(57:48):
They got to come back, they gotto take controls, you know.

Dan (57:51):
Exactly.
Oh yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It was intentional.
It was intentional.
All you want.

Laura (57:59):
So, yeah, it is it did come back on a few weeks ago.
We had um saved a few kegsbecause it was on at CHS Field
over the summer for the St.
Paul Saints, along with K Pasa,and we were holding a couple of
kegs hostage just in case theyneeded to order more.
You know, the it there was acouple rainouts and stuff, so we
ended up getting the keep thosekegs and we put it back on.
And so people have continued toenjoy it with the warm weather

(58:22):
that we had recently, and evenstill in the cold weather, it's
still so like it's cozy, butalso fresh and just like
refreshing, but like nostalgia.

Courtney (58:30):
That exactly like what she was saying.
It takes you back to adifferent place, makes you think
of different things.

Dan (58:36):
So I've got a I've got a question now.
People are gonna hear this, andit's getting colder out.
Not everybody loves a place,sorry, on the weekends.
So if somebody wants to do abeer and cheese pairing at home,
what's the recommended numberof cheeses?
And so we've got these nicelittle toasted breads as palate
cleansers.
What are some of the otheraccoutrements that people should

(58:56):
have if they're gonna have somefriends over and try to pair
some cheese with some beer?

Christine (59:00):
I think the first step is come and get some
crowlers because I think that'syour best way, especially if
you're having some friends over.
Maybe you don't need a fullglass of the beer, but you can
pour yourself a little sample ofit, and there's hopefully
there's enough left at the endthat somebody that that was
their beer, they get to comeback and have a full, like, you
know, a bigger pour of that.
And then obviously, you know,you can come and pick up your
cheeses.
This is a time when I'm gonnareally encourage you to talk to

(59:23):
your cheesemongers.
So when I worked at RedheadCreamery, I did a lot of demos
in store, kind of demoing outtheir cheeses, and I got to meet
all of these such cool peoplethat work behind those cheese
counters.
And actually, one of mycheesemonger friends, she just
texted me the other day andshe's like, Okay, I saw you're
doing a Halloween treats andcheese pairing class.
She's like, the lemon chev withnerds will blow your mind.

(59:47):
Oh what?
This sounds amazing.
There we go.
Yes, it's anyway.
So, but talk to that personbehind the counter because they
likely have experience.
At least they can get you fourdifferent styles of cheese.
I mean, today we had a port.
Loose styles.
We had a washed rind, we had abloomy rind, we had an aged
cheese, and we had a freshcheese.
So get yourself a coupledifferent styles of that.
Um, you know, you can getyourself some nuts and some

(01:00:09):
dried fruit.
That's gonna pretty much gowell all around.
They're pretty, that's a prettyforgiving side on there.
I like a little pepper jellyand a little honey on there too.
Um, a little jam is fine too.
Whatever you have in thecupboard.
You know, if you start buyingall the things, all of a sudden
you're gonna have spent like waymore than you want to.

Dan (01:00:26):
It's like you're you start to like talk about palate
fatigue.

Christine (01:00:29):
If you got 78 things on your board and you're
thinking, I mean, and I myrecommendation if you're going
to do this at home with yourfriends or whatever, or even
just by yourself, because likelet's be honest, that's what I
do every time I try cheeses.
It's like, okay.
Get yourself a nice neutralcracker.
So don't get like a if you'reif you're going for a cheese
board that you're serving withfriends, serving to friends, you

(01:00:50):
know, you know, then you canget more of an herb cracker or
something a little more fruityand flavorful.
But if you're doing it just fortasting purposes, get yourself
a nice neutral cracker.
Um, I have these little minitoasts that are great.
We used pretzel crackersearlier, and those are really
good because they give a littlesaltiness, but the cheese is
already salty.
It's great with that anyway.
Triskets are good.

(01:01:10):
I'm tempted to why did I wantto say chicken and a biscuit?

Laura (01:01:13):
Ooh.

Christine (01:01:13):
Well, like how good that would be so flavorful.
Imagine that Bel Air, thatfirst cheese with a chicken and
a biscuit and pique pasta.
I think that talk about creamon cream on cream.
Yeah, no, so good.

Dan (01:01:26):
My first thought when I bit into that, it was like I would
put this in a juicy Lucy.
Ooh.
Like that would just beperfect.

Laura (01:01:32):
Yeah, it would just melt so nice in there.
Where's one of our burgertrucks when we need them?
But you can always get theirpizzas, which I do.
Oh, yeah.
Pizzas are looking for.
Somebody ordered a pizza.
I know it smells so good.
Like and I love I love thatthose pizzas are they're fresh.
They're not frozen pizzas likeyou normally get in tap rooms.
Our pizzas are delivered freshtwice a week, and it is the

(01:01:52):
freshest ingredients from alocal, yeah, uh, like lunch
cafe, um, classic, authenticItalian chef that's making them.
He visits his family in Italyevery single year.
Oh like it is real deal, alllike from scratch stuff.
It's so good.

Courtney (01:02:07):
The next class here, the next beer and cheese
appearing class here.
When is it?

Laura (01:02:11):
We've got that going on on Friday, November 7th.
Tickets are live right now.
I last I looked, we've alreadysold a few, and the space is
limited.
So you can find those ticketson our website through our
events calendar.
Just go to boomislandbrewing.com and click on I
think it's just eventscalendars, honestly.
But is what it's called, butyou can't miss it.

Dan (01:02:30):
How'd you come up with the name?

Laura (01:02:32):
You know, we really, really thought about that long
and hard and just went, youknow, just like the store the
porter and stuff.
We just went straight forwardfor it.
You just scroll down or you cansearch for it too.
There's a search bar in there,just you know, search for like
cheese or something like that,and that'll pop up.
And um tickets are again, likeChristine said, the tickets are
really reasonably priced foreverything that you get, the
experience that you get.
And of course, Christine and Iare hilarious.

(01:02:52):
We are hilarious.
Yeah, they're only 45 bucks forsix beers.
You get the nearly full fiveounces of each of those, plus
your six cheeses, and they'reall artisan cheeses, and she
always brings extra blocks andstuff that you can buy to take
home too.
So if you are wanting to do anat-home pairing, especially for
the holidays or something, cometo one of the classes because
then you already have yourpairings, they're all lined up

(01:03:15):
for you.
We did the tough work, you justhave to take the stuff home and
go impress your friends andfamily because you can grab our
growlers to go, you can get fullglass growlers if you want.
We've got really cute designson them.
Our newer logo is on those newones, so that's really fun.
But that way you can pour outsamples, but then you have
enough for people to enjoy likefull glasses later, too.
So honestly, that's like theeasiest way to actually host

(01:03:37):
your own tasting at home is cometo one of the classes and then
take home your favorites.
Or all of them.
You could do all of them, butusually.
Sometimes we use like a nitroor something.
Yeah, sometimes we're not quiteas accessible.

Christine (01:03:48):
Sorry.
But it just it just pairs.
That makes it even morespecial.
It does.

Laura (01:03:52):
It just paired so well last time.
Yeah, so honestly, that's mybiggest tip for doing your own
at-home stuff is attend one ofthe classes, and then you have
we did the hard work, you justtake it home.

Christine (01:04:02):
And we do classes about every other month.
We take we slow it down alittle bit in the summer just
because everybody's so busy andwe're both busy too.
You know, we don't haveanything on the calendar yet for
2026, but I know we will,right?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.

Courtney (01:04:16):
Sure, yeah, we will.

Christine (01:04:18):
You know it, you bad shot.

Courtney (01:04:20):
I will say I I did take one of every cheese home
with me last time.
Yes, you did.
I did, I think.
I did.
Yeah.
And it the problem is they'resitting in my refrigerator, and
I see them every time I open thedoor, and I think, I need like
a special occasion.
No, just enjoy them.
Just bust them open.
Yeah.

Dan (01:04:35):
A special occasion is the day ended in a Y.
Oh.
That's the special occasion.

Christine (01:04:40):
I think that's the hard part, though, is like we do
get these special foods andthese special cheeses and
special beers or whatever, andwe're like, when am I gonna
drink this?
Like, when's a good day?
Like, I want it to beimportant.
Sometimes just a Tuesday is agood day.

Courtney (01:04:51):
Just a Tuesday.
Treat yourself.
Guess what I'm doing nextTuesday?

Christine (01:04:55):
Are you opening cheese?

Courtney (01:04:57):
Tuesday's gonna be cheese day.
Yes.
Love that.
Love that.
Christine, where can peoplefind you if they want more
information about Greater Good?

Christine (01:05:03):
Yeah, so they can follow me um on Facebook or
Instagram.
So it's the Greater Good M N,and that's greater spelled
G-R-A-T-E-R, like a cheesegrader.
Or you can um check out mywebsite too.
So again, thegreatergoodmn.com.
And so um obviously I want youguys to come to this class
because it's very fun, but I dohave all sorts of other classes
too, or if you know, whatever.
Um I like to come here though.

(01:05:24):
Laura's giving me a lot ofthings.

Laura (01:05:25):
It's a lot of hair against me.
No, I love that you host allthese different classes.
Yeah.
Because it really, I mean, likenot everyone is into beer,
right?
And so to have the opportunityto try cheeses with mocktails,
even, or candy bars for aroundthe Halloween and stuff.
Um, wines, and I think do youdo like uh did I see a coffee?

Christine (01:05:45):
I've done coffee, I've done hot chocolate, I've
done what was the other thing.
I did one time we did a mom andme or a kid, kids and me class,
and it was for parents to bringtheir kids to.
I did like fruit snacks,goldfish, like I think of veggie
straws, all sorts of wild stuffin there too.
So I mean I try to beaccessible and try to find a
place for everyone.

Dan (01:06:04):
So what's a what's a good cheese to pair with bourbon?

Christine (01:06:07):
With bourbon?
Yeah.
If I had to pick from whatwe're just trying right now,
there's mmm.
Honestly, all four of thesewould offer such a unique
experience.
My first thought was that BelAir because a bourbon is gonna
be so sharp on that first.
And you want something that allthose flavors can really sing
on.
Yeah.
And so that Bel Air with thatfattiness and that creaminess.
I'm only one of like threecheese shops in Minnesota that

(01:06:28):
carries cheese from hordes.
So that's kind of fun as well.
Like, that's not one you canfind a lot of places.
But I do think that prairiebreeze would be interesting
because I think about that.
There's creaminess, there'sthat crunchiness, but then
there's all those other flavornotes in there too.
So this is a time where, like,I literally encourage you just
to go and experiment foryourself, too, because uh it's
hard to know until you try ittogether.

Dan (01:06:46):
I think I'm gonna go on a bourbon uh cheese side quest.

Christine (01:06:49):
I'll I'll report back how that goes.
I do have a distillery class,so I'll see you there.
It's next week.
Love, love.
I have a few of my uh my cheesefans that have been to so many
classes.
Follow you around.
They follow me around.
They are, they're my cheesegroupies, but like they are
Megan.
I like I love Megan.

(01:07:11):
So she has been to literally 12classes, I think.
Because she's like the fun partis I get to go to all these
places that I maybe never wouldhave been before.
Yeah.
So there's people that havelike, they're like, this is my
first time at Boom, and they'relike, I'm coming back because
they like the atmosphere, theylike the vibe, they like the
beer.
So it's a fun way to get tofind your next favorite spot,
too.

Courtney (01:07:28):
Is there like a punch card for going to all these
different classes?
No punch.
I know I really like it.

Dan (01:07:35):
Where's your punch?
Oh, hold on.
Hey, hey, well, there it is.

Christine (01:07:40):
Thank you.
Yeah, no, and I do have newsweatshirts coming out that are
gonna say the greater goodschool of cheese.
So fun.
There, so it's it's like lookslike well, I was trying to
decide.
So I went to a state school andthis sweatshirt looks more like
a Harvard sweatshirt, but Ididn't choose a state school
sweatshirt this time, but itlooks it's a pretty bougie
looking sweatshirt.

Laura (01:08:00):
So really cute.

Courtney (01:08:01):
Very love it.
Well, November 7th, I knowwhere I'm gonna be.
I'm gonna be back at Boom.
I hope you're coming.
I'm gonna drag you with.
We're coming back.
We'll both be here.

Dan (01:08:09):
So yeah, you don't have to twist my arm hard to get me to
enjoy some beer and cheese andsome laughs.

Christine (01:08:14):
So that's oh yeah, that's great.

Dan (01:08:17):
It's time well spent.

Christine (01:08:18):
I have to go home and milk cows, so at some point in
time we do have to end this yearbecause I'm gonna be able to
hear them for me pretty soon.

Laura (01:08:24):
We have initials games starting at 6 30 every
Wednesday.
I don't know what time it isright now, but Sue's already
setting up for it.

Christine (01:08:30):
So is this our Minnesota nice way of being
like, oh, I get to go home.
It's time to go home.
I suppose.

Dan (01:08:36):
Now let's put in our jackets and stand over there for
30 minutes before we actuallygo out to the parking lot.

Christine (01:08:41):
No, I'm actually gonna go up there and buy a
couple beers to take home.
So see, we're doing it.
We're doing it.

Courtney (01:08:45):
We're doing it.
That's gonna be a wrap for ushere at Boom Island.
Again, that class is November7th.
Tickets are available at BoomIsland Brewing.com.
Google just it just fills inthe money for me when I put it
in there.
It just pops up.
Go get there.
November 7th will be the next,the next tasting class.
We'll be here.
It'll be fun.
I have I have more cheese thatI need to eat right now.

Dan (01:09:06):
Yeah, that's a good problem to have.
I had no self-control today.

Courtney (01:09:09):
No, you thought you were done.

Dan (01:09:11):
I was looking forward to this all day long.

Courtney (01:09:14):
Dan, where can people find you?

Dan (01:09:15):
You can find a one pint stand on Instagram, Facebook,
Blue Sky, Mastodon.
Just search up a one pintstand.
If you want to read my writtencontent, you can go to a
onepintstand.com that haspodcast episodes, beer events,
all sorts of fun stuff that youcan keep tabs on.

Courtney (01:09:33):
And again, the brewery adventure is on Instagram, and
our website isthebreweryadventure.com.
Um, make sure you put in T H Ein the front because otherwise
you're gonna be on a differentadventure and it won't be with
us.

Dan (01:09:43):
And how sad would that be?

Courtney (01:09:45):
How sad would that be babies?
Extremely sad.
Extremely sad.
So that is a wrap for us here.
We will see you next time onthe brewery adventure.
Thank you both for being hereso much.
This was so much fun.
Thanks for having us.
So fun.
Cheese, beer, laughs.

Christine (01:10:00):
It was very gouda.
So gouda.

unknown (01:10:03):
Oh yeah.

Laura (01:10:04):
I wouldn't have twisted it for the world.
Oh my god.
She's been saving these up.

Christine (01:10:12):
I amuse myself.
I only get cheddar from here.

Laura (01:10:18):
I'm gonna need you to debris it back in a little bit.
I couldn't monster myself to dothat.
Like over the obvious.
I can help it.

Christine (01:10:30):
It's just such a great opportunity.

Laura (01:10:33):
We gotta edit there, right?