The Okayest Beer in America

Today we've got the best beer around. A new gross origin story, some major beer shrinkage, and 26 facts for binge drinking in 2026. Let's go. Welcome in everybody. It's the craft beer Republic. Thanks for drinking. Thanks for joining. I am Greg and all the way from the Fresh Coast. That's big guy flex. What's up big fella? Here I am hanging out excited

for today. I'm excited. It's been a minute. I did some some drinking over the weekend. I had a few beers. Yeah it's been a while but I did. I had a few beers. Probably something we should do a little bit more on the, you know. On our craft beer show. Yes. We should have more craft beers. We do stuff. Yeah, we do. We fucks around. We dabble. Yeah. We'll dabble in here and there. Shout out to our top listening city last week. And that was Los Angeles. Oh hey what's up? I love L.A. city, love the angels. Exactly that.

All right, before we get too deep into anything, two things. First, follow us at Craft Beer Republic and at Flex Beer. And of course, between craft beer.com 85538 beer 2337. We do have a voicemail today. That's very exciting. I love a voicemail. I'm excited. But before we get there, let's get to what flex is drinking over there. In a world where craft beer is king, a world where muscles are bigger than growlers, only one tongue can guide us. One man, one tongue, one tongue.

In this world we must find out what is flex drinking? How to get my glasses set straight on my nose. There. Yeah. You don't want to fuck around? No. Yeah. I never fuck around or something. Anyways, today I am drinking because they got me on the goddamn cannot. Oh Drecker brewing. It's been a bit. Sometimes they. They really get me. And they. They do me dirty. Most times, you know, they do a pretty decent job.

So today I'm drinking Emotional support, Demon India Pale Ale. And here I am showing you that wonderful lovely. Cannot. Classic Drecker. It is just super duper classic bright pink, bright blue, some yellows in there on that black and gray background. They just do such a phenomenal job with this. This is a 7.2% ABV. And I love their billing, their their ingredients on the label. That's one of my favorite things

about Drecker. Yes, they got the two row spelt malted oats, malted wheat, Azacca and Simcoe Criollo, and then their house IPA yeast, relatively new. Let's see. Oh, I think they actually have a date on the can here. Nope. That's a lie. It says my life is hell without my SD. 9:33 a.m. Florida. Okay, so all right. But untapped says it's got 171 check ins. So that's why I'm assuming it's

pretty new. Not a lot of check ins, but it's got the cumulative rating of a 404. You know, none of my friends have checked it in. Believe it or not, I still have friends on untapped and. I still get tagged by people. I do too, and tagged and cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, untapped reads. Caught in your feels. Same emotional support. Demon is a hazy IPA packed with Azacca and Simcoe cryo hops, flinging your taste buds onto a flavor roller coaster of overripe cantaloupe, mango, high chew gum,

and candied pineapple. It's extremely specific. It won't fix your problems, but it will sit with you while you ignore them. Nice. Yeah. And I kind of liked the name of this, you know, being somebody that supports mental health and people bettering themselves through mental health, as I have myself. Right. So that's also what kind of got me here. So and none of the, you know, sappy shit here without.

Further there's room for sappiness. Ado. Let's stick the old nose buds in here. Here we go. By the way, that's a gorgeous looking beer. Perfect. It is. It is wonderful. And I get a lot of the candied pineapple on the nose. Like a ton of it. A little bit of that cantaloupe on the back end. Yeah, not too much mango there. Just a lot of that candied pineapple. So then I guess we'll warm up the old tongue. Jobby here. Oh, here we go. Oh, it tastes exactly as it smells like. Follows complete suit.

A lot of that candied pineapple. Mild, overripe cantaloupe, as it says. I'm just gonna call it cantaloupe because I'm not a dick. The mango hi-chew. I mean, there, maybe there's mango in there. Maybe there's not. Maybe there's not. But it kind of does have like that when you drink like a or a drink, when you chew a fruity flavored gum and you kind of get that, that really sugary flavor. Yeah, it's kind of got that on the way back end. So maybe that's what they're getting at. I've been spurned by Drecker before. I'm telling you right now,

not spurned here. Oh. This was a this was a delightful purchase. Sometimes it's easy to fall back on Drecker sort of hype and go. They put out good stuff. That's a cute can, I will, I'll get it. And that's kind of what I was going for here. Yeah. And then I did buy a single can. My local shop totally redid their single cans and they were all new from shit. They got in like the last two weeks. Oh, fantastic. So yes, I was very happy. It was very difficult for me to choose in that sense. But I did what you did or what

you said. I said, hey, Drecker. Usually pretty solid, right? Great can usually phenomenal beer. And this was only 375 for a single can. Not bad. No, at 7.2%. I mean, that's drecker. That's pretty solid. Yeah. You know, it's funny you bring up beer prices and whatnot. Scott sent over an article the other day. Thank you, Scott. About beer prices. And we talked about like 1980s, six pack prices. He sent one over.

That was 1960s, six pack prices. Was he born then? He was like 57. I yeah, I think he was just qualifying for AARP. Okay. In the 60s. He's been retired since, you know. Like 1857. I'm sorry. Oh. Anyways, a six pack of beer in the 60s cost between $1.70 and $1.92 at its peak. This is the average price. And of course, beer back then was, you know, Budweiser and that type of shit. Maybe some Schlitz. Yeah. That I'll take six Schlitz.

They know more. Yeah. But when ingested, when adjusted for inflation, that same six pack at $1.70 in today's dollars would be $19. Oh. So adjusted for inflation, beer is actually cheaper nowadays because the average six pack between 10 and $13. Of course. Craft beer. But, you know, still apples to apples. I guess I haven't looked at like a six pack price recently. Yeah. I mean, I don't really often see a six pack of, you know, Budweiser. It's usually like a 12 or a case or

a, you know, something like that. Also not looking at those prices cause I don't. No, no, no, but like, even like lining Google's around here. It's a decent enough beer. You just want to get a six pack. You're looking for like a patio kind of night. Yeah. And I think they're around like 99849 for Oleni. Yeah, for a six pack of lions or something. Not bad. Yeah, yeah. Not bad at all. Yeah I do you do any. Well you said you did. But do you do any liney drinking over the weekend. Any any good beers to report.

So I've been I did not drink any lines. I've been really craving summer shandygaff lately. Okay. I think I just haven't had it in a while. Yeah. And the guy at work said he had some while just kind of doing some yard work a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, man, I can't stop thinking about it ever since. So I am gonna plan to do a little lining drinking eventually, but we went out to the local brew pub for dinner. We've kind of been shying away from this place because the food and the service and then.

Going downhill. The price. I mean, they've been downhill since the pandemic. Oh, sure. So it's one of those places that we like try every year cause we're like, maybe. You got good memories of it, but. Exactly. It's like. Nostalgic for how. Good they used to be. So we're like, you know what? It's like a fucking 75 degree day out. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was a great dick weather. Actually it was. Yeah. It feels like a dick. Weather, weather. I did go to the bathroom and I was like, okay, flex. Okay. But anyway. How's it hanging?

So we went and we everybody, you know, my wife was really skeptical on it too, because especially when we got there, she was not into anything that they had on the menu. So she just went with a defaulted cheese pizza. Oh, so boring. Right. And I got a Nashville hot sandwich. And what got me on the sandwich was they had jalapeno slaw on it. They never had the jalapeno slaw on it. So that really reeled me in. And I got their Beach Bod IPA. Okay.

And it was just like, it was like a 6.2, 6.6, something like that kind of lighter, hazy. The beer was fantastic. I couldn't have been happier about it. And the food? It looked like when my wife got her cheese pizza, it was like a gourmet cheese pizza. Oh, it looked like hand-tossed crust. Like nice crust. Big. It was like thinner. But then once it got to the actual crust, it was like, nice and big and fluffy. Did a little bit. And the cheese tasted like.

I'm sure it was just regular mozzarella, but like the cheese even tasted really good. So she was like floored by the pizza. And then I was just floored mentally because she was having a good time. Right? Like this is great. All around. My food could taste like cardboard. Who cares? My kids gobbled up everything they had. My sandwich was delicious. The jalapeno slaw was nice. So such a great additive to that sandwich. And fries were good. The beer was good, service was good. It was. We left and we looked at each

other like we have another option. Like, yeah, we have another. Option. So that was exciting. Nice. And then we went out to dinner again and I was like, daddy's feeling a beer. Yeah, right. Don't really do it too much anymore. I looked at the beer menu and there was just not a lot on there. I think the best thing was like Spotted Cow. Anybody not Wisconsin right now. I was like, why didn't you order that? Amen. You know, there's reasons. Yeah. But it's. Not that good people.

Or they said they had four rotating taps on the menu. And the guy said one was like Kona big wave, which well, and then he said one was Yuengling, Michelob Ultra, which I thought was funny that there was a rotating tab and he couldn't remember the last one. I said, you know what? Oh. Give me a Yuengling. I haven't had one since. Jeez, Disney World was what, 2024? Maybe. Probably. I ordered it at, like, the diner place where they do, like all the old school TV shit

in there. Oh, yeah. It's like. Yeah, you know, I get a Yuengling. Yeah. Daddy's wanting a lager. And they brought it in a frosted glass, which, again, I thought was hilarious because. The worst thing you can do to your beer. Right? It doesn't get much worse than that. And I had it, and I took a sip and I just thought to myself, that's just okay. The most okayest beer of all time. And I think I texted you and I said. You did. Add another Yuengling. And again, it just it is the most

all right beer in the entire world. It is the Okayest beer. I have the text right now. It was went out to dinner tonight and ordered one Yuengling literally the most. All right. Beer on the face of the planet. And I said, no one wins mediocrity like Yuengling does. And that is a 100% true fact how people get so up in arms about this beer and I get they're like the oldest brewery or whatever it is that they claim. Yeah. Is it oldest craft brewery or oldest brewery? Oldest continually operating craft brewery in the US,

even though they're not really craft anymore. I don't get it. Yeah, I did like one of your follow ups later was I did have a good beer last Friday though. Spoiler alert it wasn't Yuengling. It was not. That was the beach spot I told you about. That was the. Beach. Oh. So good. Yeah, yeah. Look, Yuengling is kind of like an 805. Like it's never going to be offensive, but it's never going to be the best beer on the menu. And if you're looking for a lager, like you can trust it, right? You know. Right. But it's never gonna impress you. And that's exactly how I felt

with like, I don't know, I think my thought was when I had it on tap in Disney, I'm like, how often are people ordering beers in this restaurant? Maybe more than I thought, probably in Disney. And then I thought, I don't know, it's Disney. So their lines would be pretty clean, I would hope. Yeah. But you never know. So I'm like, okay, this bar is very busy bar. It was like a pub and grill kind of thing. Like, okay, I'll give it a try. And it was just yeah, it was just very well, I don't know. Yeah. And talk about quality control.

Like I had it a year ago when I was in Florida. Have I talked about my Florida trip and how horrible it was? I'm not quite sure. Like for four weeks straight? Yeah. Maybe a time or two. But I had a Yingling out of a can. So it's, you know, as it's supposed to be in terms of, you know, packaging and all that stuff. And, and yeah, it was just pretty fucking. All right. Yeah. It's just it is super. Okay. Yeah. It wasn't mad about it, but certainly wasn't putting it on tapped, I'll tell you that. Yeah. Do not do that. No it's not worth it. No. No. And then another beer I had was

Hot butcher for the world. I bought one of their Italian pilsners. Oh, okay. It was a gold medal winner. And like 2025 or 26 even maybe this year with something, I don't know, but it's got not a gold. The bronze. I apologize. It's got a bronze medal on the untapped. But it was an Italian pilsner. It had the the size hops and the zipper size hops. Duh duh. It was called double size and it was super good. Nice. Super crisp. It sounds crispy.

Yeah. It said what did it say? It said sweet cereal notes, candied lemon and then faint floral. And I would say it just hit about all of those nice. And it was very, very wonderful. Crisp, light drinking beer. Pleasant. Yeah. It was, it was great. Yeah. We, we did a little barbecue action at the house over the weekend and interim Brian Devin, interim Brian came over talked a lot about dicks. Oh that I'm not shocked. Yeah. We even talked about dicks.com.

If you haven't been there lately, nothing's changed. But you should still go there. I had a couple other friends over to and Brian brought over. He subscribes to the lazy dog, the restaurant they have like a beer club. I don't know what lazy dog is, but. Okay, it's semi nationwide, but not like full on nationwide. You know, it's BJ's esque, but they don't do their beers. Yeah. They don't do their beers in-house. They they partner with Melvin. I don't think BJ's does either. They do. They, they make their own beers.

At least I think they still do though. Yeah. It's their own, their own shit. Oh okay. Yeah. And so they use Melvin for lazy dogs in-house beers. So you know, you're getting some quality out of it. Except they usually like over fruit the shit out of them. And I, you know, it's, it's, it's meant to appeal to the masses. And by masses, I mean like 19 year old chicks, but generally, I don't like a lazy dog beer. He brought one over for me specifically because it had POG in it. And I went, oh, you brought me a POG beer. And he goes, yeah, it's a hazy. And I went, oh, fruited hazy.

You know what? I tried that bad boy. Not bad at all. I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not gonna lie. I passed up on a fruited hazy for the show. Yeah, I normally would too. Like when he said, oh, I brought it just for you. And I thought, oh, thanks, man. And then I saw it was a fruited hazy and now he's gonna listen to this. But I was like, oh, inside I'm like, oh, I gotta drink this fruited IPA, God damn it. It was actually pretty. Not bad at all. I, I enjoyed my drinking experience. Well that's awesome. What a, what a nice surprise. Pleasant surprise. You know, the, the key was it wasn't super fruity. It was like a hint of fruit. Okay.

And like Firestone did a whole fruited series with their mind haze. And let me tell you fucking awful. Just straight up fruit juice plus a little bit of a hazy IPA. Yeah. And I that's just not what I'm here for. This was it was light in the fruit department and, and a decent, hazy, you know, base. And it was actually a pleasant drinking experience. And the day before I had found my favorite beer from Casa Agria. R.I.P was Oxnard. There hazy pale ale and I was

cleaning out some shit and I found a rando four pack. No way sitting in my kegerator the night before and I was like, oh, it's not older than a total wine beer. And I looked at the date. It's not. It was about two years old. Jesus. But you know, it stayed cold the entire time. It wasn't sitting on a hot shelf. So did you crack it? Cracked one open. Not fresh, but not the worst. Drinkable, drinkable. Okay. So shared one of those with Brian too. I'm sure he appreciated that. I know he liked Casa. Yeah. All right,

here's the good news about Casa. So for anybody around my hood, Ventura County, Casa Agria one of the best breweries around, they they sort of folded their head brewer slash owner and assistant brewer got hired at a brewery called Rincon, which, if we're being quite honest, their beer was pretty mid at best. Rincon Rincon RINCON. It's a. Beach. Okay, okay. Rincon beach is in Ventura. And so this is Rincon Brewing. They close shop.

They got hired at Rincon. First of all, Rincon Beer has gotten significantly better. Once they took over, Brian and I went and had lunch at the brewery. And great food and good food. Not like right home good, but good food. And the beer was much better. And they're allowing him to brew a couple of the Casa recipes on their system. No kidding. And put them up as Casa Beers. So we were drinking the shit out of some Casa Beers at Rincon. It was amazing. That's actually like crazy amazing. It's crazy amazing. And honestly, if you think about it,

it's smart because Casa had the name, they had the following. So people that beer nerds of Ventura County are gonna come to Rincon looking for Casa Beers that they miss. I know I am. Damn. Yeah, daddy was a little hard. What a great marketing ploy for Rincon. Yeah. Super smart. So they got a great brewer and they got a great brand with it. And now their beer is better. That's just they on the up and up look out for Rincon. Yeah. So now I'm excited to go back. We did lunch there a couple of

weeks ago, maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago. And how close are they to you? Not that close. I happen to be in the city of Ventura for some jury duty. And also, as we know, interim Brian is a lawyer. So we were in the same building at the same time. That's right. And hey, want to do a little lunch? You pu. He said, yeah. If that was the case, I would wish I would get jury duty. All right. So he pulled out the the old business card and called it a tax write off. And we had a few beers and goddamn lawyers. I, we sat down to eat and I said,

here we gotta talk about one work related thing. Let me ask you a lawyer question. And he goes, okay. And I asked him and he answers, all right. Perfect. It's a write off. Damn it. Oh good times. So love me some interim, Brian. All right. Question for you, flex. What's up? Would you drink a beer made with whale testicles? Hold on. That were smoked in sheep poop. Oh. You had me at whale testicles.

I always do. The first thoughts I crossed my mind was. I wonder how big whale testicles are. Almost as big as mine. They're like bowling balls. They like beach balls. I guess it probably depends on the type of whale, I guess. But I feel like all whales are pretty large. That is true. But oh my God, each testicle weighs around 1,100 pounds. Come on. Oh my God, whales are rocking like 2,000 pounds of balls. Oh my. What type of whale is this?

Google, you have blown my mind. Gotta be a blue whale. It's gotta be. Doesn't say, but holy shit. Would be ironic if it was a sperm whale. Nah. Somebody had to. That's why they pay us the big bucks. Anyways, this is a real beer. Back in 2015, an Icelandic brewery called. Oh no. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, I nailed it. Suck it. Iceland. I released a smoked ale called God damn it. I'm out on the smoked ale. Yeah, have have RHVALUR.

How do you go from an H to a v? That doesn't work. Kevlar two. Number two for traditional mid-winter festival celebrating Icelandic food history. And apparently somebody looked at the normal smoked beer and thought, not nearly Icelandic enough. So they took fit o fin whale testicles, cured them, smoked them over dried sheep dung, and then added them to the brewing process. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Is this making your tap list?

I'm gonna pass on this beer. Yeah, I think that's a little much for me. I wonder how long it takes to cure a whale ball. I just think about when you're trying to thaw meat in the microwave, and it asks you how many pounds you're putting in there. So ridiculous. So can I type in 2000? Apparently they have really big microwaves in Iceland. Oh, man.

Oh, shit. Well, they have Viking appliances, so. I feel like you would need, like, a a crane. Just smoke these things. One crane per ball. I mean, Jesus. Oh, man. What are they smoking it in? Like a man made like a handmade fire. Like a campfire. At the very least. Like, Holy shit. Like a brush burn or something. Jeez. Yeah. It's a wildfire to smoke their whale balls. Oh dear.

I say import a lot of whale balls to California. Oh, it's wildfire season. Hey, we gotta get our crop. A whale testicles in there, stat! Time to get smoking. Oh, man. Yeah, man, that's why it smells so bad when there's a fire here a few weeks ago. Dirty whale taint. You smell that? Yeah, it kind of smells like burnt whale balls. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's it. A little extra salty. Gross. Oh, dear. All right. We should probably move on for

the ball talk. We got a voicemail from our buddy Brian. Okay. He's following up on our total wine complaints. Fuck you. Total ion. Hello. No one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone. Hey, Greg. Hey, Brian from Madison, listening to the latest episode about how much total wine sucks. And I'm going to have to partially agree with you. Not necessarily total wine, but on how they leave their beers out on the shelf.

A little peek behind the curtain here. Being a distributor for beer and being a beer sales rep for craft breweries, what will happen is we'll sell something in total wine buys. It, leaves it on a shelf. Hopefully everybody buys it. If it's this and it doesn't sell, they would have to ask me to take it back and then I would have to get. Basically, I would lose money on it if I took it back. So if I sold it in, I would lose money if I had to take it back. So it's kind of on the beer reps

to do their job to get the stanky ass old beer off the shelf. But they don't want to because then they're going to take a hit. But now, on the other side of me running a liquor store, which I have done, and if I have beer that's on my shelf for five years, I'm not buying another goddamn thing from those reps until they get rid of that old fucking beer. So it's a little bit of a catch 22. That's kind of how it works. That's why you're seeing so much old crap, is because they're hoping people will just buy it.

Maybe the beer rep, you know, sweeten the deal. But hey, I'll give you a little discount here or I'll give you some free swag if I don't have to take this stuff back and, you know, kind of work with them that way. So it's a little bit of a little bit of both, a little bit of the rep, a little bit of total. So that's it. You guys have a good one. Talk to you later. Makes sense. Also has this guy had every job on the planet. I mean he's did like beer sales for years. Yeah. Ran a liquor store and.

No, I think he meant he ran a liquor store by, like, he was the. Rep. For the liquor store. That's what I'm assuming. Good insight. That's about what I expected. I figured there was some sort of give and take on it, but I. I would think that even the beer rep who stands to lose a little bit of money on that would want to keep it at least semi-fresh like not five years old so that people would actually buy the fucking beer. I mean, I think what the stores have to do is have a better way out of the beer. Clearance it out a little sooner.

Yeah. I don't know if they're allowed to. I guess that's a question for. A little bit of a better price. They are. I know. Yeah. Total wine does have like a clearance section. I wonder if they're allowed to just do it without asking if they have to get permission first or. That would be interesting. That would be something for Brian to let us know. But yeah, I know there's a grocery store chain around here. It's like employee owned or whatever. Like it's, it's, I can't say small time because their stores are huge and great and make a lot of money, but they actually, if they're

long on alcohol or if they're, they got out of date beers, they will put like $3 on a fucking four pack. And they'll fill it up in a shopping cart and they'll just be like, please buy this. Buy it. So it's out of here so we don't have to throw it away. And they're at least getting a little bit of money from. It, right? Maybe they break even or lose a little bit, but not too much. Yeah. Yeah. But like they do it. I mean, they do it on bottles of liquor. They do it on anything in the liquor department that they're just long on or that's old. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, liquor stores and total wine just

have to be better at doing it. Yeah. One thing I saw back in the day, Trader Joe's by my old place. This was years ago. You know, seven, eight, nine years ago, they would take beers that were, you know, coding, put them in a brown paper bag and price it for like, I don't know, three, four bucks for the bag. And all you would know was that you're guaranteed six beers. And I forget what it is. I think like at least two of them were like craft, like good craft, not okay.

Not like Blue moon craft, you know? And the other four might be fucking garbage. They might be Trader Jose's, they might be, you know, whatever. And honestly, that was a lot of fun and pretty low investment to, to try some mystery beers. I do like the mystery beer concept. Yeah, it's like four bucks, three, four bucks and you get what you get. But we promise there'll be 1 or 2 good ones in there. I like that. Yeah. That's fun. That's super solid concept. Come on, total wine. Get some fucking brown bags. Yeah, somebody. Do it up.

Brian, thanks for calling. Good information. Feel free to answer other questions. 5538 beer. I do have another funny thing to bring up with Brian. Also, my buddy Tim brought it up to me as well. Was it the last show? I think it was when I said that Wisconsin doesn't have Badgers. Oh, were you wrong. I was wrong. Apparently Wisconsin is. I don't know if they're plentiful badgers. Lousy with badgers. But Brian sent me like the. like the map of where they live

and their, their habitats are. And he said, hey, man, I guess it must get kind of confusing, you know, being that 90% of the country is populated by badgers. But I swear, I swear, I swear, growing up in school, they had said that badgers were not in Wisconsin. Okay, I don't know if they're in Wisconsin, but I did just Google. Why is Wisconsin the Badger State and Google? AI says Wisconsin is known as the Badger State because of the early

19th century lead miners words, who burrowed into the earth to find minerals and survive the harsh winters. They cosigned me on that part, okay? Because that is that. Part. Is accurate. That is what I did say. They cosigned me on that. But both of these gentlemen texted me, which I thought was hilarious and said basically like, what are you stupid? Yeah. Clearly, there are badgers in Wisconsin. I've never actually seen outside of a zoo, a badger in Wisconsin.

So I don't believe that they're here. But apparently they are. Google backs that up as well. I said, are there a lot of badgers in Wisconsin? Yes. Badgers are surprisingly abundant and widespread throughout Wisconsin. But but they are incredibly elusive. Yeah. Ain't never seen one. Yeah. They don't exist. I sold yeah, I believe you know badgers in Wisconsin. Yeah. But also Minnesota. Thanks for listening everybody that love it. We like feedback. It means you're listening. I love the feedback. And even Brian was talking to me

about a beer that he got from a brewery that I shy away from because I know their beers aren't very great, but I told him once October rolls around, I said, this certain brewery makes a really good. Yeah. And his response, I, I said Octoberfest, I called it an Octoberfest. And he responded in all caps. And it made me so fucking happy. That's awesome. Yes.

So Brian, thanks for listening, Tim. Thanks, Brian. Thanks for listening as well, you guys. Love you guys. Yeah. Love it. Love the feedback. Thank you guys for proving that you're listening even if it means we're stupid. Anyways, do you mind if I take a little sip over here? Yeah. No, I thought you looked a little thirsty. Parched. Calls to the bullpen for beer. Yeah, buddy. This is one of the ones I picked up from Total Wine that wasn't

canned five years ago. That was relatively fresh. Well. That's good. Yeah. There was two. There was the the Malibu that I had last week. And then there's this one and this is Kern River Brewing Church with lots of use in the church. I love it, yes. With an okay sign. 7.6%. It's a West Coast IPA mosaic, Citra and Amarillo. That is the description. God damn do I love that. 3.9 out of 7700 ratings.

Pretty good amount of ratings. Fucking respectable 3.9 there on the can actually says excuse me. Church is a saying we use out on the river for something truly sublime. For example, kayaking over that waterfall was church, this wonderfully balanced IPA with mosaic Citra Amarillo hops probably won't absolve you of all your sins or even any of them, but we still hope you enjoy it. Remember, church is where you find it. Find yours today.

I think this is funny because about 3 or 4 years ago, and I started trying to bring tight back. You know, because things are tight. Tight. My sister in law's husband, it. He would do the okay sign when I said and he would go tight. Yeah. So the fact that they say church and use that, I think that is lovely and wonderful. And they've had this beer around. I mean, at least a decade, this beer has been around forever.

I realize I hadn't had it on the show, and it was one of the few cans I could find that was brewed this year. And at Total Wine this year, I'm I'm not joking. So I was like, you know what? I haven't visited Kern River in a while. Let's get it on the schnoz. Pretty dinky like light, dank. It's a shit ton of lacing on that glass. Holy balls. It's nothing but lace. Holy whale testicles. That's a lot of testicles. It's a lot of lacing. Yeah. Little dink, little fruity on the nose. Let's see what the tongue driver says. really follows suit.

It's light. I mean, you can see the body of it. It's extremely clear. It's like a more I'd call it a modern West coast. I would say so, especially with the color. It's not that coppery like Amaury type. It is. Yeah, a little bit. I think part of that is my very yellow lighting above me. Okay. It's very light. It's very clear, effervescent, if you will, and a little dank, a little fruit, more citrusy, but really easy to drink. 7.6% pretty well hidden. I got one of these.

And you know, I'm a Hayes whore, so I don't know if I want four, but I think a two pack would have been sublime. I do like the idea of a two pack. I wish I've literally never seen one before. I wish breweries would do two packs. The only two packs I've ever seen are at my local liquor store, and it's when they get big stouts in big stouts or porters that are like 10 to 12%, and they will cut the four pack in half and do two packs, which I think is awesome. ABV is way too big. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, but if there was a huge ABV like

that, do you want four of them? No, I don't know. Maybe somebody does, but. I love. The two pack idea. Yeah. Me too. Love it. A little news before we wrap things up. Regional craft brewing is still shrinking, but there are signs of improvement. New data from the Brewers Association shows regional craft breweries are still facing challenges, but there are signs that conditions may be improving. A regional craft brewery is generally defined as an independent craft brewer, producing more than 15,000 barrels of beer per year, typically with distribution

across multiple states. That makes me think like Firestone, that type of brewer. Okay. Yeah, that's like lakefront brewing here there. Yeah. Big regional craft brewery. Like I imagine like Sierra Nevada is probably too big to be regional, but I think Firestone and probably lakefront are regional. What's the step up from regional? I don't know, National. I guess I could have looked that up. Hey, do you think Sierra Nevada's national. They might be. I mean, pale ale is fucking everywhere. It's everywhere. So I'm just saying. Okay. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Among regional breweries ranked

outside the top 50 by production volume, 55% reported production declines in 2025, which, while sounds depressing, is slightly better than 2024, where 57% reported production declines. Meanwhile, 37% reported growth and 8% were flat year over year. So like, you know, not a huge U-turn, but hopefully the beginning of something for breweries. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I think like, and like stuff was I think Steph was talking about it one of the last episodes we had her on that she thinks, you know,

we were talking about the, the prime of craft beer and how it's kind of been on the decline since like 2022. Right. And how we're kind of like projecting like another upward, you know, incline on this Positive incline in the craft beer industry. So yeah, maybe it's a step step towards that. Hope so. Ebbs and flows everybody. Some sad news. Atrevida Beer Company announces final por Atrevida Beer Co in Colorado Springs will close on June 28th after eight years in business.

Founder Jess Fierro first gained recognition as a home brewer after winning Beer Land, the brewing competition series created by Golden Road Brewing founder Meg Gill. A year later, she and her husband Rick opened Atrevida, which became Colorado's first Latina owned craft brewery. In announcing the closure, the brewery said Atrevida was about more than beer, pointing to its nonprofit partnerships, cultural education, events and commitment to creating a welcoming environment for the community. If the name sounds familiar, it's because the Fierro's gained

national attention in 2022, when Rich Fierro helped stop the gunman during a mass shooting at an LGBTQ plus nightclub in Colorado Springs that same year. Brew named after one of its rising stars. Yeah, he was the dude that took down the gunman. Yeah, I remember that. We did that story. Yeah. And I remember Chu bought some of their swag for like, they sold. I tried to and it was, it was totally sold out. Yeah. That's right. It sold out super quick. Yeah. Yeah. And it took him like a year to catch up with it. And we were in Colorado Springs

last summer and we tried to go, but they had some weird, like they were closed. Like the two days we were in town, they were closed like Monday, Tuesday or something like that. And so we didn't get to make it. And that's too bad. But sad times. Sorry to hear that. That is terrible. Everyone's favorite brewery owner, former BrewDog owner James Watt, has a new brewery and he's offering free equity. Wait wait wait wait. More like James Watt. There you go. Got him. BrewDog co-founder James Watt is

launching a new beer brand called Second Best. He's offering, right. He's offering a sizable ownership stake to former BrewDog investors. Watt announced the venture on LinkedIn and said up to 19.3% of the company will be allocated to former equity for punks investors. The crowdfunding backers, who helped fund BrewDog between 22,009 and 2021 and also got fucked in their sale to Tilray. Those investors were largely left out when BrewDog was sold to Tilray earlier this year. Oops! According to Hoy, eligible investors

can claim the same ownership percentage in second best that they once held in BrewDog free of charge. Watt says there are no catches, no cash required, and that those shares will rank alongside his own equity in the new company. We shall see about that. Yeah, not the best guy to back or take deals from or. Right. Yeah, exactly. Okay. We'll end it on this one. I could not pass this story up, mainly because the headline got me so good from Iowa City. Man arrested for drunk driving at

cemetery. Again. Again. Damn it. Dustin Snyder is charged with operating while under the influence, harassment and assault on persons in certain occupations. Very specific. According to a criminal complaint, Snyder was driven a pickup truck Thursday afternoon at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Muscatine on Muscatine Avenue when he backed the truck into a tree. The complaint says when Snyder was located, he showed signs of intoxication.

A test found Snyder's BAC was above zero eight, the legal limit. Of course, police say while Snyder was being processed, he threatened to kill an officer by slitting his throat. He also threatened to sexually assault the officer and stated the officer better feel threatened. Oh. Police say Snyder also kicked a desk, pushing it into the thigh of a uniformed officer, causing swelling to their leg. Jesus Christ. Apparently, this is not the first time Snyder has been arrested for driving drunk. At Memory Gardens Cemetery in April 2025, a mere a year ago,

Snyder arrested for OWI while he was seen driving an excavator on the public roadway. In that case, police say Snyder admitted to drinking. Court records show Snyder pled guilty in that case. Oh man. Not a reputable fella. Probably not. Probably don't want to, you know, loan that guy cash or anything. No, probably don't even want to like, call him or text him or anything. Or know him. Yeah. Just. Yeah, pass him by. Yeah.

That's it. Oh, man. He's driving drunk at the cemetery again. That is freaking wild. Yeah. Must be boring out there in Iowa City. You know, just a lot of corn. Yeah. It's true. You can ferment corn. That's why he's so drunk. He probably does. Yeah, probably. It's probably his hobby. Bathtub gin or something. All right, let's get out of here. Thank you all for corn. Gin. Corn gin. Yeah. I hear a banjo whenever we talk about it. Thank you all for listening.

Thanks for hanging out with us. A big hello to Vanessa. Hey, Vanessa. Follow us on the socials at Craft Beer Republic at Flex Me beer underscores in between 800 and 5 five three beer Edumacate us. I think that's craft.com. I think that's it. I hope everyone out there is church and I hope they're staying hydrated. And on that note. Good night everybody.