December 8, 2025 • 8 mins
BREWERS HELPING VETS WITH BEER The Aurora City Brew Club (AC/BC) is a group of homebrewers who make beer for their own enjoyment. Last year they brewed a special batch of beer to support the Veterans Community Project and they are doing it again this year.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Keeping with a way to do something nice for veterans.
I'd like to welcome my next guest.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
To the show.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Tim Macho and Terry McCauley are with the wait. Let
me make sure I get this right. It's ACBC, which
is the Aurora City Brew Club.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, guys, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Good So, first of all, tell me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
A little bit about the Aurora City Brew Club. What's
that all about?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Goo ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, it's just a like minded bunch of guys that
I enjoyed brewing beer, fellowship, being together, hanging out. We've
been active since twenty fourteen. Oh and we started with
about fourteen people and.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now what are you up to? You to good sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We had a meeting yesterday which was very fun, very cool.
We had thirty four people from thirty four members.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Fantastic. So you've grown just a little bit. Yeah, Now
let me ask you. Last year we spoke about this
and you guys decided that you were going to do
a beer for mass production because I'm guessing you guys
just are kind of sitting around drinking your own, you know,
testing each other's out. That's my vision of an Aurora
(01:14):
City Brew club meeting, like you guys are like, hey
try this, No you try this, No, you try this?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is that kind of what goes on?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, pretty much everyone can bring their home brews and
everyone gets a little couple ounces sample of whatever you've
brewed in the last few months or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So how did the idea come about that you were
going to bring this to a commercial location and share
some beer to better better you know, to benefit veterans.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What was that?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
So our club we worked with the VCP, the Veterans
Community Project the last few years. We've done some auctions
and proceeds going to help them out. We're actually going
to have a really big ordeal next year in May
where we're going to threw another beer and have an auction.
(02:04):
So this is kind of a kickoff to that. We
decided as a club what beer to do. Our beer
that we've been working on for six years now that
we've finally tweaked just the way we want it has
won three gold medals this year in homebrew competitions. It's
won two best of shows. So as a club, we
all kind of decided to go ahead with that beer
and work with two of the Bury's in town. Bent
(02:26):
Barley and Launchpad to do a collaboration and threw this beer,
release it this weekend and have proceeds go to help
out the Veterans Community Project.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
The Veterans Community Project, and I totally put the wrong
veterans organization on the block, and I just fixed it.
Is a really cool I knew what we were talking about.
I just put the wrong name down for their thing
started by a guy with a mission who wanted to
provide safe housing for veterans and get them out of
homelessness and provide a community where veterans could live around
(02:57):
other veterans who may be sharing the same struggle, to
create that same sense of camaraderie that they had in
the military. So this is a very worthy organization. Tell
me about the beer itself now. In your email to me,
you said, Mandy, this is one of those hoppy beers
that you.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Don't like, but I like a strong ale.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It's the IPAs that tastes like grass clippings that I
don't like. So where are we on the grass clippings stage?
Like scale? Are we one to ten? No grass clippings ten?
I emptied out the lawnmower and made beer. Where are
we in this.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Beer, would you say six maybe?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And it's it's still it's still got fairly a fair
amount of hops in it, but the malts offset that.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Okay, it's kind of a it's all a balance, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
You want to achieve a balance when you're developing in
a beer, and I think we've done pretty well on
doing that.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You guys said you've been working on this particular beer
for six years, but you also use the tell me
about the the barley and stuff the names of this stuff.
Was that intentional that you went out and sought ingredients
whose names would lend itself to a beer to support
veterans or was that accidental?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So about eight years ago, I started brewing, and I
wanted to make a Marine Corp beer, and I wanted
it kind of red colored to go along with the
blood stripe of the Marine Corps trousers. It started off
as an amber rail and then I kind of made
it an ipa the next year, and then I met
Terry at one of the homebrewer nights where we got
to share our beers, got to talking about the Marine
(04:30):
Corps and stuff, and found out we're both veterans, and
decided let's brew a beer together, and he came up with,
let's make it a little more multy and a little
more happy, and give it a little more alcohol percentage.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Let's make it so Mandy Connell might enjoy it. Is
that what actually happen is that the conversation'll let you guys,
tell me about the names of these.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Malts and hops though. This is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Sure, So one of the malts that we use is Victory,
So we just wanted to make sure what we're using
la kind of military themes. The hops are a warrior, chinook,
target and liberty, and sohow we made it all kind
of blend together and come out like a really good
tasting beer.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Now, what's the name of the beer for this year.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It's called the Devil Dog's Blood Stripe.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
That's fantastic. I mean, that's really really fantastic. And what
a tribute to your beloved Marine Corps. That is absolutely outstanding.
How can people now, how did you loop in Bent
Barley Brewery?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
How did they come to be.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
A part and did you take them the recipe and
say we want you to brew this beer?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
How did that process happen?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well a few years ago and like I think it
was in twenty three. I just got the notion from
a buddy of mine that to proposition Launchpad Brewery in
brewing a beer that had won a gold medal and
I think it was a silver metal I'm sorry, And
so he kind of liked that. Paul at Launchpad kind
(05:56):
of liked that idea, and so yeah, we shared the
rest and we brewed. And so Paul and Paul's friend
and fellow brewery it Ben Barley. They they communicate quite often,
and they came down and said, hey, let's let's brew
(06:16):
this beer for this project.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So the beer's being tapped on Saturday. They're thirteenth, Oh
the thirteenth, Okay, For some reason, I thought that was Saturday.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
What day is that? What day of the week is that?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
That's the Saturday?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, look at you, stop it. You're messing me up here.
So Saturday, the beer's being tapped. How can people come?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
How you know, I'm assuming the proceeds is it one
hundred percent or is it a part portion of the proceeds?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Not that really matters.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
It's to be one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yes, Oh that's excellent. How much beer do they have? Like,
how long is this run going to last.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
There's six barrels, but it's going to be split up
between four locations.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Lunch Pad has.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Two locations, one in Aurora, one in Bennett and ben
Bartley has two locations as well, one at Southlands Shopping
Mall and the other is in Spring Creek, Okay, off
of Orchard.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
All right, so people can go this weekend if they
really want to try the beer.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I definitely go this weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Six barrels isn't that much in the grand scheme of
beer brewing, and I'm assuming it's going to be reasonably
priced and delicious and every marine should want to go
and toast their beer to find out what it's about.
I'm going to try and make it to the Barley
and south Lands at some point this weekend just to
stop by and have this beer, and I will be
emailing you a full review, okay, So I will be
(07:44):
letting you know, Like sometimes my review will be why
would anyone drink this twice?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Like that's I'm just kidding. That's not what I think
about this beer, because I do like a strong ale.
So the fact that it's in the ale category instead
of the IPA category. You might be winning, guy, you
might be winning, but I'll tell you what you are
winning my appreciation. I'm sure you're winning the appreciation of
the Veterans Community Project. Last year you made what little
over sixteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, there was I think it was fifteen. And we've
done it for two years and we've brought in the
first year we made brought in sixteen thousand dollars for
Veterans Community projects. The second year was a little bit
last fifteen thousand.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
All right, So we're gonna see if we can get
it back up over that sixteen thousand dollars mark.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Guys, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
We've I Tim Machio, Terry McCauley, I really appreciate you
guys like taking something that you obviously love to do
and you have passion for and turning it into something
that's going to raise money for a phenomenal cause.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So hats off to you, guys.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I'll raise my beer to you when I have it,
and all the information is on our blog today about
where you can get the beer. Guys, thanks so much
for your time today.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Thank you so much.
Keeping with a way to do something nice for veterans.
I'd like to welcome my next guest.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
To the show.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Tim Macho and Terry McCauley are with the wait. Let
me make sure I get this right. It's ACBC, which
is the Aurora City Brew Club.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, guys, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Good So, first of all, tell me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
A little bit about the Aurora City Brew Club. What's
that all about?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Goo ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, it's just a like minded bunch of guys that
I enjoyed brewing beer, fellowship, being together, hanging out. We've
been active since twenty fourteen. Oh and we started with
about fourteen people and.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now what are you up to? You to good sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We had a meeting yesterday which was very fun, very cool.
We had thirty four people from thirty four members.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Fantastic. So you've grown just a little bit. Yeah, Now
let me ask you. Last year we spoke about this
and you guys decided that you were going to do
a beer for mass production because I'm guessing you guys
just are kind of sitting around drinking your own, you know,
testing each other's out. That's my vision of an Aurora
(01:14):
City Brew club meeting, like you guys are like, hey
try this, No you try this, No, you try this?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is that kind of what goes on?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, pretty much everyone can bring their home brews and
everyone gets a little couple ounces sample of whatever you've
brewed in the last few months or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So how did the idea come about that you were
going to bring this to a commercial location and share
some beer to better better you know, to benefit veterans.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What was that?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
So our club we worked with the VCP, the Veterans
Community Project the last few years. We've done some auctions
and proceeds going to help them out. We're actually going
to have a really big ordeal next year in May
where we're going to threw another beer and have an auction.
(02:04):
So this is kind of a kickoff to that. We
decided as a club what beer to do. Our beer
that we've been working on for six years now that
we've finally tweaked just the way we want it has
won three gold medals this year in homebrew competitions. It's
won two best of shows. So as a club, we
all kind of decided to go ahead with that beer
and work with two of the Bury's in town. Bent
(02:26):
Barley and Launchpad to do a collaboration and threw this beer,
release it this weekend and have proceeds go to help
out the Veterans Community Project.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
The Veterans Community Project, and I totally put the wrong
veterans organization on the block, and I just fixed it.
Is a really cool I knew what we were talking about.
I just put the wrong name down for their thing
started by a guy with a mission who wanted to
provide safe housing for veterans and get them out of
homelessness and provide a community where veterans could live around
(02:57):
other veterans who may be sharing the same struggle, to
create that same sense of camaraderie that they had in
the military. So this is a very worthy organization. Tell
me about the beer itself now. In your email to me,
you said, Mandy, this is one of those hoppy beers
that you.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Don't like, but I like a strong ale.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It's the IPAs that tastes like grass clippings that I
don't like. So where are we on the grass clippings stage?
Like scale? Are we one to ten? No grass clippings ten?
I emptied out the lawnmower and made beer. Where are
we in this.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Beer, would you say six maybe?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And it's it's still it's still got fairly a fair
amount of hops in it, but the malts offset that.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Okay, it's kind of a it's all a balance, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
You want to achieve a balance when you're developing in
a beer, and I think we've done pretty well on
doing that.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You guys said you've been working on this particular beer
for six years, but you also use the tell me
about the the barley and stuff the names of this stuff.
Was that intentional that you went out and sought ingredients
whose names would lend itself to a beer to support
veterans or was that accidental?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So about eight years ago, I started brewing, and I
wanted to make a Marine Corp beer, and I wanted
it kind of red colored to go along with the
blood stripe of the Marine Corps trousers. It started off
as an amber rail and then I kind of made
it an ipa the next year, and then I met
Terry at one of the homebrewer nights where we got
to share our beers, got to talking about the Marine
(04:30):
Corps and stuff, and found out we're both veterans, and
decided let's brew a beer together, and he came up with,
let's make it a little more multy and a little
more happy, and give it a little more alcohol percentage.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Let's make it so Mandy Connell might enjoy it. Is
that what actually happen is that the conversation'll let you guys,
tell me about the names of these.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Malts and hops though. This is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Sure, So one of the malts that we use is Victory,
So we just wanted to make sure what we're using
la kind of military themes. The hops are a warrior, chinook,
target and liberty, and sohow we made it all kind
of blend together and come out like a really good
tasting beer.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Now, what's the name of the beer for this year.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It's called the Devil Dog's Blood Stripe.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
That's fantastic. I mean, that's really really fantastic. And what
a tribute to your beloved Marine Corps. That is absolutely outstanding.
How can people now, how did you loop in Bent
Barley Brewery?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
How did they come to be.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
A part and did you take them the recipe and
say we want you to brew this beer?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
How did that process happen?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well a few years ago and like I think it
was in twenty three. I just got the notion from
a buddy of mine that to proposition Launchpad Brewery in
brewing a beer that had won a gold medal and
I think it was a silver metal I'm sorry, And
so he kind of liked that. Paul at Launchpad kind
(05:56):
of liked that idea, and so yeah, we shared the
rest and we brewed. And so Paul and Paul's friend
and fellow brewery it Ben Barley. They they communicate quite often,
and they came down and said, hey, let's let's brew
(06:16):
this beer for this project.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So the beer's being tapped on Saturday. They're thirteenth, Oh
the thirteenth, Okay, For some reason, I thought that was Saturday.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
What day is that? What day of the week is that?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
That's the Saturday?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, look at you, stop it. You're messing me up here.
So Saturday, the beer's being tapped. How can people come?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
How you know, I'm assuming the proceeds is it one
hundred percent or is it a part portion of the proceeds?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Not that really matters.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
It's to be one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yes, Oh that's excellent. How much beer do they have? Like,
how long is this run going to last.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
There's six barrels, but it's going to be split up
between four locations.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Lunch Pad has.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Two locations, one in Aurora, one in Bennett and ben
Bartley has two locations as well, one at Southlands Shopping
Mall and the other is in Spring Creek, Okay, off
of Orchard.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
All right, so people can go this weekend if they
really want to try the beer.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I definitely go this weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Six barrels isn't that much in the grand scheme of
beer brewing, and I'm assuming it's going to be reasonably
priced and delicious and every marine should want to go
and toast their beer to find out what it's about.
I'm going to try and make it to the Barley
and south Lands at some point this weekend just to
stop by and have this beer, and I will be
emailing you a full review, okay, So I will be
(07:44):
letting you know, Like sometimes my review will be why
would anyone drink this twice?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Like that's I'm just kidding. That's not what I think
about this beer, because I do like a strong ale.
So the fact that it's in the ale category instead
of the IPA category. You might be winning, guy, you
might be winning, but I'll tell you what you are
winning my appreciation. I'm sure you're winning the appreciation of
the Veterans Community Project. Last year you made what little
over sixteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, there was I think it was fifteen. And we've
done it for two years and we've brought in the
first year we made brought in sixteen thousand dollars for
Veterans Community projects. The second year was a little bit
last fifteen thousand.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
All right, So we're gonna see if we can get
it back up over that sixteen thousand dollars mark.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Guys, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
We've I Tim Machio, Terry McCauley, I really appreciate you
guys like taking something that you obviously love to do
and you have passion for and turning it into something
that's going to raise money for a phenomenal cause.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So hats off to you, guys.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I'll raise my beer to you when I have it,
and all the information is on our blog today about
where you can get the beer. Guys, thanks so much
for your time today.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Thank you so much.
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