Four Brewers | Craft Beer And Homebrew Podcast

Season 2, Episode 25 – This week we’re at the ever-so-awesome Urge Gastropub in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego. This week, we’re still in San Diego, California at our third stop, Urge American Gastropub. This show is a bit of a deviation from our normal shows in that Urge isn’t a brewery, but rather an awesome beer-geeky pub and restaurant.  Anna, Hidden Barrel Peche, and Cable Car Ale Urge [bURGEr] Gastropub was founded in 2010 by owner and proprietor Grant Tondro and Zak Higson. Grant comes from a family of restaurant owners, and is a huge beer geek. Urge boasts 51 taps of craft beer, and an insane bottle list that even the geekiest beer geek would drool over. We kick off the show with a beer that’s pretty much impossible to get in Southern California, Anna from Hill Farmstead Brewery. Urge is a restaurant after all, so naturally we’re gonna have some food on the show. Grant whipped up an awesome spread for us that included a few different burgers and some beer cheese fries. It’s all awesome stuff–Urge is no jo

Season 2, Episode 24 – This week, we’re visiting one of the many breweries along the Hop Highway, Belching Beaver Brewery in Vista, CA. Belching Beaver is one of many breweries along the legendary Hop Highway in San Diego, California, which is home to many other notable breweries like Stone Brewing Co., Port Brewing Company, Toolbox Brewing Company, and Iron Fist Brewing Co.. Opening just three years ago, they’ve already set themselves apart with their unique takes on classic styles. They really skyrocketed in popularity with the release of their delicious Peanut Butter Milk Stout.  Belching Beaver Brewery Beers (Rabid Beaver Rye IPA not pictured) During the course of the episode, we sample six different beers from the brewery, and discuss them with Belching Beaver brewer, Sean Laidlaw. Sean started in the beer industry at Mission Brewery after returning from a stint at Sierra Nevada Beer Camp, which is also where he met our own Greg Nagel. After working at Mission Brewery for just over a year as an assistant

Season 2, Episode 23 – This week, we’re discussing beer cellaring with the legendary “Dr. Bill” Sysak at his home in Escondido, California. This week’s blog post was provided by Yvonne England [John’s super-rad girlfriend]. You’re welcome. [Bracketed commentary supplied by John Holzer.] This week, we go see Dr. Bill Sysak, the Craft Beer Ambassador for Stone Brewing Co.. He “handles the beverage philosophy” for Stone. We’re pretty sure he made that shit up, but it’s cool [He didn’t make it up]. He’s Dr. Bill. He can get away with it. He’s been around the craft beer world for a while, so he’s a great resource on all things beer. He’s known for cellaring (dudes, he’s been doing this for over three decades), so that’s why we went to his cellar.  “Dr. Bill” Sysak We start the show with a 2012 Double Bastard Ale by Stone Brewing Co. As John eloquently notes, this beer cellars well, transforming into a beautiful beast filled with cameral and winter fruit loveliness [John didn’t say that].  Stone Brewing Co. – Doubl

Season 2, Episode 22 – This week, we’re drinking the final six beers from the Ultimate Box Set, Tracks 7-12. We’re flipping the record to side B this week and sampling Tracks 7-12 from The Lost Abbey Ultimate Box Set. Be sure to check out part one where we sampled Tracks 1-6 because they were pretty killer brews. We’ve gone full Satanist at this point, mostly due to the hellish theme of the box set beer names, and of course, the alcohol. Just a reminder: The “Bonus Track”, Track #13 (Message in a Bottle), will be a Patreon-only episode, exclusively for our Patreoneers on Patreon. If you’re not a supporter, maybe consider supporting 4B on Patreon? The Lost Abbey Ultimate Box Set Here are Tracks 7-12:• Track #7: The Devil Inside• Track #8: Number of the Beast• Track #9: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door• Track #10: Bat Out of Hell• Track #11: The Devil Went Down to Georgia• Track #12: Heaven and Hell Overall, we LOVED Tracks 6 and 12, but this was truly an awesome compilation of beers. Cheers to everyone at The Lost Ab

Season 2, Episode 21 – This week, we crack open The Lost Abbey Ultimate Box Set and sample Tracks 1-6. This week we’re [stage] diving into what is quite possibly one of the most sought after items in the world of craft beer, The Lost Abbey Ultimate Box Set. There have been talks to open this box set on the show since the beginning of Four Brewers, and now we are finally delivering with this two part Box-Set-blowout-bonanza. Given the intensity and quantity of the 13 beers in the set, we decided to split the Box Set between two episodes. This episode is focusing on “Tracks” 1-6, and next week’s will feature the final six Tracks, 7-12. The “Bonus Track”, Track #13, will be a Patreon-only episode, exclusively for our Patreoneers on Patreon. If you’re not a supporter, maybe consider supporting 4B on Patreon? The Lost Abbey Ultimate Box Set If you’re unfamiliar with The Ultimate Box Set, it’s essentially 13 beers that were blended and bottled in 2012 by The Lost Abbey. Each beer was inspired by different a rock &a

Season 2, Episode 20 – This week on the show, we’re back in the studio in classic Four Brewers style, drinking homebrew, craft brew, reading beer reviews, and blind tasting. BOOM! We kick off the show with a beer that’s has been 6 months in the making, John and Matt’sbrettanomyces-conditioned saison. You may recall a similar beer from episode 27 of season 1, their grisette-style saison. This is essentially the same beer, but with some corn sugar added at the end of the boil to dry out the beer a little more. This beer was fermented with Matt’s super-secret saison yeast. Ten gallons of this beer was made, and five gallons was keg-conditioned with ECY34, the “Dirty Dozen” brettanomyces yeast from East Coast Yeast. Matt and John are quite happy with how this beer turned out, and everyone agrees that it’s a winner. Monkish Brewing Co. – Rara Avis Next up is a very special beer provided to us by Brian White of Monkish Brewing Co., Rara Avis. This beer was made specifically for The Rare Beer Club, and was also serv

Season 2, Episode 19 – This week, we’re going full-throttle with the beer-geekdom and drinking beers with Brad Daniels at his awesome home brewery, Peace Brewing, the third of our three stops at three Orange County breweries. This week, we’re at one of the coolest homebreweries in southern California, Bradley Daniels‘ Peace Brewing in Anaheim. While his place isn’t an actual “craft brewery”, his home is legendary in the Orange County beer world, and we thought it appropriate to feature his brewery/bar/man-cave in this, the last stop of our Orange County brewery tour. Peace Brewing We kick the show off with a blonde ale that Brad has brewed 12 times so far. This recipe was actually written by our very own Matt Becker when he worked at O’Shea’s Brewing back in the day. The beer was a hit with Brad’s friends, so he continued to brew it. Brad’s home is quite beautiful and he hosts many events that cater to a broad range of people, so having a beer that’s approachable and easy drinking is ideal. This beer is perfe

Season 2, Episode 18 – This week we’re on location at Barley Forge Brewing Co. in Costa Mesa, California, the second of our three stops at three Orange County breweries. The second of our three brewery tour is Barley Forge Brewing Co. in Costa Mesa, California. Opening just six months ago, Barley Forge is already well on their way to becoming one of Orange County’s best craft breweries with a variety of beers ranging from the super-hoppy, to rich and exotic. Owner, Greg Nylen and Head of Brewing Operations, Kevin Buckley join us to talk about the brewery with a spread of Barley Forge’s outstanding brews. Barley Forge Brewing Co. We kick off the show with a Dortmunder-stlye lager from Barley Forge named Grandpa Tractor. This 5.0% ABV euro-style lager is made with Northern Brewer hops and was designed by Greg and Kevin to pair with Asian foods. It’s light, clean and refreshing, and translates well in bottle format, which we try along side the draft version.  Before we head into the IPA and stout beers, we take

Season 2, Episode 17 – This week we’re on location at Noble Ale Works in Anaheim, California, the first of our three stops at three Orange County breweries. We’re back with another round of on-location episodes and this time, we’re focusing on the Orange County beer scene. The OC is very much up and coming, in terms of the excellent beers that are being produced, with breweries sprouting up all over the place from Brea to San Clemente. Brad Kominek (left) and Evan Price (right) Noble Ale Works is the first stop on our Session #16 road trip, and we’re hanging out with head brewer Evan Price, and lead brewer Brad Kominek. We start off with a porter served on cask that’s very near and dear to Evan’s heart, Porter Exporter. Evan and Brad recently returned from a trip to England where they visited many English pubs and breweries. The trip inspired them to get more into traditional English beer styles as well as cask ale. Noble has been serving cask beer for quite a while now, but this trip to England really inspir

Season 2, Episode 16 - We’re going back to the homebrew this week with beers from John and Greg. Also, Hite. We’re going back a couple episodes into the past with this show as we pregame for the now released Saison Showdown. We kick off the show with a brettanomyces version of Greg’s saison from episode 9 of season 2 that was fermented with brett trois yeast. Wicked Weed and…Hite… Next, we’re drinking a beer muled by Mr. Carlos Granillo, Wicked Weed Brewing’s TakéTaké Saison. North Carolina’s Wicked Weed Brewing is somewhat new to the craft beer scene and they’re already making waves with their well-crafted beers and recent success at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival. Next up is a very special beer brewed by John and Carlos, Big G’s BBQ Smoked Porter. This beer clocks in at a very low 5.0% ABV, which technically disqualifies it from the porter category, so think of it as a “session smoked porter”. Five percent of the grain bill was smoked for three hours in Carlos’ smoker, and it sat on the top rack abov

Season 2, Episode 15 - The Elite 8 of The Saison Showdown, and the reveal of the big winner. We’re back with part 2 of The Saison Showdown and we’re pretty excited to announce the winner, which – SPOILER ALERT – is after the photo. We were all really happy with the results, and really taken back by how some of the beers did in the competition. The Saison Showdown Just to recap, in order of the combined average rankings of both Rate Beer and Beer Advocate, the beers we tasted on the show are as follows: · Anchorage Brewing Company – Love Buzz· Boulevard Brewing Co. – Saison-Brett· Brasserie Fantôme – Saison· Logsdon Farmhouse Ales – Seizoen Bretta· Brasserie Dupont – Avec Les Bons Voeux· Brasserie Dupont – Saison Dupont· Boulevard Brewing Co. – Tank 7· Grassroots Brewing – Arctic Saison· Brewery Ommegang – Hennepin· The Bruery – Saison Rue· Prairie Artisan Ales – Prairie Ale· Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project – Surette· The Lost Abbey – Carnevale· Firestone Walker Brewing Company – Opal· Monkish Brewing Co. –

Season 2, Episode 14 - Here it is, folks! Part 1 of The Four Brewers Saison Showdown! Hey everybody! We’re back with another showdown of whalez and whatnot, but this time, it’s a style of ale known as saison! We chose 16 saisons from around the world (that we could acquire), and ranked them in order of the average rankings of Rate Beer and Beer Advocate combined. Who will be the big winner? Well, if you really want to know, like, RIGHT NOW, you can listen to the first minute of the show where we tell you what the randomly served beers were, which will allow you to know which beers we were talking about as they were randomly served to us, you can check out the scoring sheet we used for the showdown, or you can checkout the episode 14 show outline. If you want to wait until part 2, which will be released next week, then skip the first minute of the show and ignore everything else we just mentioned. It’s up to you, dawg! The Saison Showdown Saison is a very diverse style of beer, and it’s a pretty old style as w

Season 2, Episode 13 - This week, we’re drinking some pretty rad sours while John gets serious about bottle dates. Welcome to the fourth show, that is, the fourth show of session 14 of Four Brewers. In case you’re unfamiliar with how we record shows, we get together every three weeks and record three shows in a four hour session, which we broadcast live on Google Hangouts and our YouTube channel. The shows are then edited in post-production and released weekly. Due to scheduling conflicts, we had to record four episodes during our last session (that’s a lot of beer…). This leads us to this week’s episode. The discussions get a little heated and a bit off the rails, and our deepest inner beer geeks come out to play. Now that you know what you’re in for, let’s dive in! Here Gose Nothin’ We start off with a beer thats new to all of us that was provided by Temecula’s [self-proclaimed] Beer Ambassador, Mr. John Ryti, Destihl Brewery’s Here Gose Nothin’. The best way to describe this beer is clean, refreshing, and

Season 2, Episode 12 - This week’s show is live from the one and only Firkfest, in Anaheim, California. The day is upon us. The time has come. Firkfest is here! Undoubtedly, you’ve heard our cute little ads before each show for Greg’s annual festival in celebration of cask ale, and for good reason–it’s a rad event. Cask ale is a style of beer that is easily overlooked and somewhat misunderstood. Is it a beer that is flat, warm, and flavorless? Is it a beer with a bunch of stuff thrown into it to make the base beer taste different? On this week’s show, we hope to provide some clarity on the topic. Yes, traditional cask ale is generally served at a certain temperature and conditioned with yeast inside the cask to attain a certain volume of carbonation, but at the same time there’s also an offshoot that incorporates firkins of beer, flavored with other ingredients to give beer inside of it a different flavor, aroma, and overall experience.      This week, we are live from Firkfest 2015. This was a different kin

Season 2, Episode 11 - This week’s show is all about our new favorite brewery from Alaska, Anchorage Brewing Company. This week it’s all about Anchorage Brewing Company. They’ve taken the beer world by storm as of late with their tasty brettanomyces saisons, IPAs, and tripels. Anchorage has a very unique take on beer that can be quite inspirational to homebrewers. The first beer up (03:05) is Galaxy, a white IPA made with Galaxy hops, corriander, kumquats, and peppercorns. The beer is fermented with wit yeast in French oak, dry hopped with another dose of Galaxy hops, and then bottle conditioned with brettanomyces and wine yeast. Damn. There’s a bit of a debate on the show as to whether or not this beer should be classified as an IPA. Anchorage Brewing Company Beers Next up (13:37) is The Tide and Its Takers. This was Matt’s second beer ever from Anchorage brewing, Love Buzz being the first. This beer is based around the tripel style, and has notes of oak, pineapple, funk and fruit. It isn’t nearly as bitter

Season 2, Episode 10 - This week, we’re geeking out to AleSmith and Mikkeller radness. A couple episodes ago when we did the blind bourbon barrel-aged stout tasting, we got some feedback pertaining to why we didn’t include any of the barrel-aged variants of AleSmith Brewing Company’s Speedway Stout. The reason is that Speedway Stout itself is a coffee stout, and the barrel-aged variants of Speedway have flavorings added to them in addition to coffee. We wanted to keep the stout tasting as pure as possible by excluding any beers with flavoring and/or aroma additives (by the way, we heard you, internet…they’re NOT called “adjuncts”…), hence the reason Speedway Stout was excluded. Mikkeller and AleSmith Beers BUT…since we were accused of erroneously “snubbing” AleSmith, we decided to dedicate an ENTIRE SHOW this awesome beer and brewery. You want the Speedway Stout? Well, now you’re gonna get it. In addition to AleSmith beers, we thought it was appropriate to include another brewery known for making imperial sto

Season 2, Episode 9 - This week, we’re going back to the hops with homebrew from Nagel and hoppy radness from Noble Ale Works, Alpine Brewing, and Societe Brewing Company. Now that we’re all fully recovered from last week’s epic stout tasting, we’re back with a homebrew from Greg, and some beers from some of SoCal’s best breweries: Noble Ale Works, Alpine Beer Company, and Societe Brewing Company. We kick the show off with a unique homebrew from Greg that’s kind of saison, and kind of a pilsner. Weird, right? The beer was intended to be a saison, and technically speaking, it is. It was brewed with Belgian pilsner and rye malts, and fermented with White Labs WLP568 Saison yeast. What makes this beer different was the utilization of whole leaf Saaz hops. The beer was bittered with Nelson Sauvin in the boil, while the Saaz hops were used in a custom hopback made by Greg. The Saaz come through so much in this beer that it’s reminiscent of a Czech pilsner. All in all, it’s a tasty, easy drinking beer and an exampl

Season 2, Episode 8 - This week on the show, part two of our epic blind bourbon barrel-aged stout tasting, with the final rankings and results. The time has arrived! We’re drinking the final five beers of our blind tasting, adding up the scores, and announcing the big winners. Just to recap, here are the beers we’re tasting: · Firestone Walker Brewing Co. – Parabola, 2014· Goose Island Beer Co. – Bourbon County Brand Stout, 2014· Hangar 24 Craft Brewery – Pugachev’s Cobra, 2014· The Bruery – Black Tuesday, 2014· Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. – Bourbon Barrel-Aged Narwhal, 2014· Dark Horse Brewing Company – Bourbon Barrel-Aged Plead The 5th, 2014· Bell’s Brewery – Black Note Stout, 2014· Bottle Logic Brewing – Darkstar November, 2014· Avery Brewing Company – Uncle Jacob’s Stout, 2012 SPOILER ALERT: The results of the tasting are listed below, after the photo. All of our individual scores were pretty close to one another, and that could simply be coincidence, or the result of us discussing these beers as a group. E

Season 2, Episode 7 - The time has come. The moment has arrived. This week is part one of our epic blind tasting of bourbon barrel-aged stouts from across the United States. We’ve been hyping these episodes for a few weeks now, and they have finally arrived. Here’s the premise of these shows: Episode 7 (part 1) is going to be the introduction of the blind tasting, and why the beers were selected. We’re going to drink four of the nine beers, and rate them according to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and then a final overall rating. Episode 8 (part 2) will feature the final five beers and the results of the blind tasting will be revealed. But, let’s take a step back and briefly discuss how this came about. The Blind Bourbon Barrel-Aged Stout Bout Back when Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCBS henceforth in this post) was released in 2014, beer geeks on the internet went apeshit trying to find this beer. Our friends on social media posted pictures of this beer being purchased by the case, and B

Season 2, Episode 6 - We’re starting early for this show, eleven in the morning to be exact, and were taking it easy and ramping up to the bourbon barrel-aged blind tasting with session beers from around the world. It’s all about pacing yourself and easing in. That’s what we’re doing this week. Our blind tasting, bourbon barrel-aged stout series is happening next week, so we decided to do a little beer tour and sample some session-able beers from around the world. We had a really early start for this recording session, so it seemed appropriate.  First up is a classic English bitter from Fuller's called London Pride. This beer is a really great starter due to it’s caramel, malty flavor that’s balanced with just the right amount of bitterness. It isn’t too harsh, and really wakes up the palate. Next up is a beer on the other side of the spectrum, Lost Coast Brewery’s Sharkinator white IPA. Described simply as a dry hopped version of Lost Coast’s Great White witbier, the hop aroma of this beer is very much in-yo