Four Brewers | Craft Beer And Homebrew Podcast

Season 2, Episode 5 - We’re back in the South Bay at our final stop of our on-location recording session, El Segundo Brewing Co., with special guest and Certified Cicerone, Thomas Kelley. El Segundo Brewing Co. (@ESBCbrews), located in the city of its namesake, has quickly gained recognition as one Southern California’s best IPA breweries in the last few years. After opening its doors in May of 2011, brewer Rob Croxall and self-titled “Rain Maker” Thomas Kelly, set their sights on making great beers, one style at a time. This logic was partially due to their limited access to some of the more popular hops, such as Citra and Mosaic, as well as Rob’s limited experience as a professional brewer. Rob had some solid recipes from his days of homebrewing, and eventually, they secured the ingredients and the experience they needed to make the beers that would eventually make them stand out in a heavily competitive Southern California craft beer market.  El Segundo Brewing Co. We kick the show off with a delicious pal

Season 2, Episode 4 - This week, we’re on location at Monkish Brewing in Torrance, California with owner, president and brewer Henry Nguyen and Monkish “Evangelist,” Brian White. The second stop on our South Bay/L.A. beer tour, Monkish Brewing Co. has quickly become a brewery in Southern California that has set themselves away from the pack, brewing nothing but Belgian-style inspired beers. We start the show with two beers that have a history with one another, Crux and Oblate. The latter beer was the first to be brewed at Monkish, even though Crux was technically supposed to be the first beer made, but the result was Oblate. They are similar beers but differ in malts and adjusts.  Monkish Brewing Co. – Sunset Beer The next beer was a collaboration made with Sunset Beer Company, named Sunset Beer. In the early days of Monkish, Henry was brewing at night and delivering beer during the day. He established relationships with many of shops, and Sunset Beer Company was one of them. This “hipster” beer as Henry call

Season 2, Episode 3 - Four Brewers is on the road! Our first stop in this three episode series devoted to Los Angeles beer is Smog City Brewing Co., in Torrance, California. This week, we’re trying our hand at remote shows, and exploring the LA beer scene. The first stop on the tour is at Smog City Brewing Co., located in Torrance, California. Jonathan Porter and Chris Walowski sat down with us three hours before the release of their bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout named Infinite Wishes, to talk about the brewery and share some tasty brews and interesting stories. Sabre-Toothed Squirrel Labels The first beer, which was served up at a bright and early nine o’clock in the morning, was their “hoppy amber” ale named Sabre-Toothed Squirrel. This beer is made with Falconer’s Flight hops, and could almost be described as “Arrogant Bastard light” in terms of the way the hops and amber malt qualities interact with each another. This sabre-toothed squirrel definitely has some bite… (See what I did there?) Next up is

Season 2, Episode 2 - This week, we’re altering our palates and sacrificing some great beers in the process, all in the name of fun! This week, we’re altering our palates, be it for good or bad, to experience what’s like to taste different styles of beer after eating “Miracle Berries”. Miracle Berries are known for their ability to basically make things that are bitter taste sweet, and things that are sour to tastes even sweeter than if it were bitter. They come from West Africa, and Jason and Greggot some as part of Cards Against Humanity’s “12 Days of Holiday Bullshit” promotion. Flavor Trippin’… (Blood Orange Gose not pictured) Without giving too much away in the blog post, the results were quite interesting. Johnwas not a fan of this little experiment going into it, simply because he thought it was a waste of time and (great) beer. But we all know that John can be a bit of a party-pooper at times…  Miracle Berry Pamphlet from CAH We try a variety of different beers from sour, to bitter, to big and rich. H

Season 2, Episode 1 - Happy New Year! This week, we’re kicking off Season 2 of the podcast with a whopper of a show, mostly dedicated to homebrew, and Daniel Cady joins us for another go-around. We kick off the show with another Saison collaboration brew from John and Matt named Raincross Saison. Everyone enjoys it, more or less, but there isn’t much enthusiasm, and we do our best to completely pick it apart. John talks about his plan to condition it with the East Coast Yeast ECY34 brettanomyces blend, so we’ll surely revisit it in the future. Nagelbrew! Next up, we have a tasty stovetop home brewed roggenbier named Rye Oh My! from Señor Nagel. Brewed as a quick, kitchen-sink beer for his holiday guests, everyone on the show enjoyed its easy drinking and bready yeast complexities. Greg also brought along a hoppy (reddish) IPA homebrew named Burning Ugly Christmas Sweaters that was…a bit…off…um… Finally from Greg, we revisit his Rye Saison that he fermented with the White Labs American Farmhouse Blend. We all

Season 1, Episode 31 - This week, head brewer at Twisted Manzanita Ales & Spirits, Daniel Cady, joins us live in the studio. Twisted Manzanita Ales & Spirits, formally known as Manzanita Brewing Company, has only been around for a few years but they’re making some spectacular brews. This week on the show their head brewery, Daniel Cady, joins us to share some of their best. First on deck is an India pale lager named Tinfoil Hat that they brewed in conjunction with San Diego Brewing Company. The unique thing about this IPL is the use of an Alt-Bier yeast, instead of standard Lager yeast. The yeast character really shines through, and the citrusy aspect of the hops really work well. This isn’t a grassy hop bomb, but its balance is quite refreshing.  Twisted Manzanita Ales & Spirits Next up is Twisted Manzanita’s delicious chocolate mint stout named Enlightenmint. Clocking in around 8% ABV, and finishing it’s fermentation at around 7° Plato, this beer is like drinking chocolate ice cream. It’s really

Season 1, Episode 30 - Happy holidays, everyone! This week, it’s all about the holiday brews. Damn, these last few months have gone by fast! It’s already that magical time of year when you stress out over the perfect gifts to give your friends and family, freak out at your Uncle’s twisted viewpoints on the latest controversial news topics, watch grandpa fall asleep at 4:30pm, and crack open your favorite holiday brews. This week, John Ryti and Tim “Showtime” Ryan join us for the last time in 2014, and we’re opening some…wait for it…holiday brews!  Ken Schmidt / Iron Fist Brewing Company Collaboration We kick the show off with a beer that’s not necessarily a holiday beer, but was brewed by a local beer celebrity of sorts, who is actually quite jolly. We’re talking about none other than San Diego, California’s own Ken Schmidt. He got together with Iron Fist Brewing Company out of Vista, California, and made a chocolate mint stout, appropriately named Chocolate Mint Stout, that’s quite fitting for the season. Ke

Season 1, Episode 29 - This week on the show, we are again joined by John Ryti and Tim “Showtime” Ryan, and this time, Ryti brought along some homebrew. We kick off the show this week with a fantastic brew from the folks at Refuge Brewery in Temecula, California. Blood Orange Wit is a tangy and big-bodied, low ABV pale ale. This beer isn’t just another fly-by-night wheat ale—this thing is delicious! This is Refuge’s first offering in a can, and it’s totally worth checking out. Refuge Brewery – Blood Orange Wit Next up on the show are a few brews from Ryti. First up is, well, we don’t know. Neither does Ryti. He found this keg of brew hiding in a cold-box and forgot to label what it was.  The second beer up is a stout that Ryti made as part of a group brew. This beer went into ~50 gallon port wine barrel that was about 75 years old. Pretty cool, right?  Ryti’s final beer is a clone of Stone Brewing Co.’s Vertical Epic Ale 09.09.09. Ryti made this brew a few years go. The cool thing about the Vertical Epic seri

Season 1, Episode 28 - This week, some totally rad brews from our friend Philip Lorenzini, special guests John Ryti and Time Ryan, and Foudre, duders! Long time friend of New Brew Thursday and Four Brewers, Philip Lorenzini, hooked us up with some really great beers, and we invited some friends to spread the beer love, John Ryti, aka Temecula’s Beer Ambassador, and Tim Ryan, aka “Showtime”. We start with a beer that we meant to get to last month on the show, Cascade Brewing Company‘s Foudre #1. This beer is a blend of three soured triple ales and was released in celebration of Cascade’s newly acquired foudre. If you’re not sure what a foudre is, it’s essential a very large wooden barrel, or cask. This photo was taken at Crooked Stave a few years ago and shows a style of foudre. Cascade, Perennial, and Three Taverns Beers. Needless to say, Foudre #1 is pretty great. Cascade used to be a somewhat rare treat for us in these parts, since they are located in Portland, Oregon, but their distribution to SoCal has pi

Season 1, Episode 27 - John and Matt brewed a special grisette-style saison, David Gillanders is back on the show, and we’re drinking a DIPA from Barley Forge Brewing Co.. John and Matt finally did some goddamn brewing, and they made a pretty great brew! Matt got his hands on a “special” strain of yeast (he really didn’t give us any details other than that) and called upon John and his pimp-ass brewing setup to make ten gallons of a grisette-style saison, aptly named Grisette Beta. To date, this is probably one of the best brews that has come from said brewhouse.  John’s Brewhouse It was originally intended to be a 4.0% ABV beer, but due to some miscalculations while mashing, the original gravity came out a little higher than it should have, thus raising the final amount of alcohol in the beer. This beer was very much an experiment for Matt. He was looking to have a solid session-able saison that he could brew the shit out of, and outside of a few tweaks that need to be made, this beer is pretty much what he

Season 1, Episode 26 - David Gillanders is back on the show this week, and we’re drinking beers from Sante Adairius, Jester King, and Fantôme. This week on the show, we try to recreate the magic that is The Festival – brought to you by the Shelton Brothers. Not only do they import some amazing beers from overseas, but they distribute some of the coolest craft breweries in the US. We weren’t able to recreate the bottle list of one of the craziest festivals we’ve ever seen, but damn it did we ever try! Just for good measure, we invited our buddy David along as a thanks for all the Citra. We start out with Witchmaker from Jester King, a rye farmhouse IPA. This beer is a classic farmhouse beer, despite the creepy sparkle eyes on the label that stare right into your soul. Jester King / Fantôme Collaboration Beer. This was just a warm up for the main event – a collaboration between Fantôme and Jester King. It took two continents to get this bad boy into our hands, it’s the Del Rey – but as it turns out, NOT a summe

Season 1, Episode 25 - Put on your fishing waders because this week, we’re knee deep in brews from Kern River Brewing Co., Knee Deep Brewing Co., and Spiteful Brewing Company. Devout craft beer drinkers far and wide make the pilgrimage to central California for the periodic release of Kern River Brewing Company‘s hoppy masterpiece known as Citra double IPA. We just happen to be friends with someone who won the Citra lottery (really, the brewery holds a lottery to buy the beer) and that someone is Mr. David Gillanders, who coincidentally is this week’s guest.  David was gracious enough to bring over a couple bottles to share with us, as well as some other beers he picked up during a recent trip he took to Chicago.  Kern River Brewing Company – Citra Citra is an amazing beer. The beer won gold at GABF in 2011, and it absolutely deserved it. While all of us on the show are big hop heads, Nagel isn’t too fond of the Citra hop, due to its “cat piss and orange” smell (he meant that in a negative way, too). Hey, sou

Season 1, Episode 24 - This week, Matt’s clearing out the cellar. We’ve been at that point in our craft beer journey when we discover the diverse selection of beers available to us, and realize, “Hey! I TOTALLY need to start building my beer cellar up!” So, the first thing we do is seek out anything that might possibly “cellar well”. Well, that’s precisely what Matt did, and now we get to enjoy the fruits of his naive excitement. The main reason Matt decided to do this was to clear out all of the 12 ounce bottles and cans that were taking up space in his cellar. These beers are mainly from the 2006-2009 era. Hair Of The Dog beers. We kick it off with a vertical of Fred from Hair Of The Dog Brewing Company. Jason provided two of the beers, specifically, batches 77 and 87, and Matt brought batch 70. This beer was named after acclaimed beer writer Fred Eckhardt. These beers held up very, very well, to say the least. Hair Of The Dog and Stone Brewing Co. beers. Next up is another brew from Hair Of The Dog, 2006 D

Season 1, Episode 23 - This week, a Duck Duck Gooze side-by-side, and some, er, interesting homebrew from Nagel. Welcome to November. It’s that special time of year when we get together with our families, roast birds in the oven, and drink barrel-aged beer to keep warm in the brisk winter weather. On the show this week, we’re cracking open two beers from The Lost Abbey called Duck Duck Gooze. You may have heard of it. It’s an excellent sour that many beer geeks consider to be a “whalez, bro”. No hype here. It’s fantastic. The Lost Abbey – Duck Duck Gooze 2009 & 2013. Matt really knocked it out of the park for this episode by providing not only one, but two variants of the DDG, one from 2009, and one from the most current 2013 release, which was provided to him by his super-rad boss, Patrick Rue. So, thanks Matt…and Pat! We break away from the drinking for a bit to discuss the recent IPA showdown at Vendome Wine & Spirits in Toluca Lake, CA. The results may surprise you… Greg brought two homebrews for

Season 1, Episode 22 - It’s that special time of the year when pumpkin beers abound. This week, we carve it up. This week on the show, we’ve got two homebrews from our Aussie brother from a different mother, “The Beer Mule”, and two interesting craft beers from Hangar 24 Craft Brewery. Many of you may know The Beer Mule. You know, that globe-trotting-drink-you-under-the-table Aussie dude who also happens to be a pilot? Well, we were lucky enough to get some of his homebrew on the show this week. We kick it off with what we think is his New Zealand hopped Pale Ale (after further reaserch…it is. Motueka & Wai-iti hops) called Kiwi Skunk. It’s an overall refreshing beer that’s crystal clear and vibrant, given that it’s two months old.  The next beer on deck is The Mule’s Flanders Red Ale, Intro To Oak. From all accounts, this year spent probably around a year in secondary souring-up, and was bottled on 9.9.2014. Right off the bat, this beer smelled great. It had all of the usual characteristic that one would

Season 1, Episode 21 - This week on the show, we’re all up in the 2014 Great American Beer Festival. The Great American Beer Festival is America’s largest beer festival, and is held once a year in Denver, Colorado. Greg and John were up there for the festivities this year, and needless to say, they were not dissapointed. On the show this week, we’ll be drinking three award-winning beers from three southern California breweries who all won medals this year at GABF for the first time. GABF 2014 Award-winning SoCal Breweries We start the show with Saint Archer Brewing Co.‘s White Ale. The beer took home a gold at GABF this year, and it’s easy to see why–this beer is delicious. This light, clean, and dry witbier bursts with that signature witbier yeast aroma, and is backed up by a refreshing burst of citrus flavor. Saint Archer is a relatively new brewery out of San Diego, California, and they came running out of the gate with some truly great beers. Seeing them win at GABF was no surprise.  Next up is Rocco Red 

Season 1, Episode 20 - This week, we’re diving into some blind tasting, drinking some Nagelbier, and reaching exponential levels of hoppiness. We’re not messing around this week. We’re coming out swinging with some blind tasting, courtesy of Jason’s girlfriend, and our bud, Sara. Matt accidentally caught a peek of the first beer, and it takes us a seemingly odd amount of time to guess said beer. We’re then a bit blown away by one of the selections and learn that preconceived notions about any particular beer are just that, and beers should be just by the actual product in the bottle, or in this case, the 25.4oz can they are packaged in. Next up is a long overdue homebrew segment. Greg brought us his Belgian strong-something-or-other that he brewed with local homebrewing legend, Brad Daniels. Brad is a local craft beer and homebrewing enthusiast from Anaheim, California, who’s probably best known for is unique and badass home brewery named Peace Brewing. Without getting into much detail, the dude’s brewery has

Season 1, Episode 19 - This week on the show, we harpooned some whalez from the other side of the continent, Brooklyn Brewery. Welcome to Four Brewers, the one-day-late edition. As many of you know, the Great American Beer Festival came to a close last Saturday (…it was AWESOME!), which means we were pretty much in recovery mode when we got home, and couldn’t get the show edited and out on time. Better late than never, right? RIGHT. This week, Matt and his totally awesome rad wife hooked us up with some Brew fromBrooklyn Brewery out of New York. We rarely see Brooklyn Brewery’s beer in this neck of the woods, so it goes without saying that these are quite a treat for us. Brooklyn Brewery Beers. We kick off the show with the only beer made with the Sorachi Ace hop that Matt can stomach, Brooklyn’s Sorachi Ace. Sorachi Ace hops tend to have a very perfume-like nose to them, and can really dominate the overall experience of a beer, since they live somewhere in the neighborhood of 18% alpha acid. This beer both c

Season 1, Episode 18 - This week, we’re going to Germany and celebrating Oktoberfest! It’s Oktoberfest! This week on the show, we’re drinking four different German brews, three of which are Oktoberfest beers from Paulaner, Weihenstephaner, and Hofbräu, and the last, another beer from Weihenstephaner, their Korbinian doppelbock. Greg is studying for his Certified Cicerone® exam, and it just so happens that he’s researching Germany and its breweries and beers. Not only did he provide all of the beer for the show this week, he steps up and drops knowledge on the history of Oktoberfest and its beer. Oktoberfest Beers from Weihenstephaner, Hofbräu, and Paulaner. Also, Weihenstephaner Korbinian Doppelbock for good measure. Oktoberfest began as a festival in 1810 that lasted 16 days, from late September to early October, and celebrated the wedding of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The beer made for the festival, called Märzen (which means “March”), was traditionally brewed in March, and lagered fo

Season 1, Episode 17 - This week we’re trying out some of the awesome beers coming out of Firestone Walker Barrelworks, as well as some midwest flavor from New Glarus. Firestone Walker is regarded as one of the best breweries in America. From their awarding winning IPA, to their barrel-aged blends, Matt Brynildson and crew definitely know how to bring the radness. So, when a brewery of this caliber decides to start producing sour beer, the outcome is obviously going to be nothing short of incredible, right? Yep! We start off with the Bretta Weisse, their Berliner style wheat beer. This beer clocks in at 4.9% ABV, and a total acidity of 7. We’re unclear on what exactly an acidity of 7 actually is, but this beer definitely has a nice balance of tartness and and malty-wheat goodness. Firestone Walker Barrelworks Beers Next on deck from Bottleworks is the Feral One. From Firestone Walker: “We humbly offer you our inaugural Barrelworks bottling on the occasion of our first anniversary—Feral One. A blend of our be