Two Guys & Beer
Tales from the Tank Haggard Barrel Brewery Creations
Ever wondered which lager is perfect for that post-lawn mowing refreshment or which brewery is on the rise in St. Louis Park? We've got you covered! Join us as we embark on a sudsy exploration of Haggard Barrel Brewing Company, where their tales and ales have us singing praises. From the Widowmaker black ale to the Beer Before Baseball lager, we're ranking beers by style and sharing our personal picks. Plus, we'll let you in on why Schlaps Lager is quickly becoming the go-to for any outdoor occasion.
Let's face it, brewing is an art - but don't just take our word for it. This episode stirs the pot by comparing the creation of beer to the strokes of a painter's brush or a musician's score. We dive into a philosophical brew of opinions on the artistic merits of brewing, while savoring the innovative Glonky, a smoothie-style sour ale that shows off its environmental creds with the sustainable Kernza grain. And of course, we won't leave you hanging on the question of whether golf course design or an athlete's swing might just be another form of artistic expression.
Wrapping up, we're buzzing with excitement about Hazard Brewery's future plans and growth. Their knack for crafting exceptional lagers with gently used equipment is something to keep an eye on. We're plotting a return visit in the summer and might just bring the brewery owners onto the podcast for a chat. So, grab a pint of Hazard Brewery's finest and join us for an episode that hops between laughter, environmental stewardship, and the sheer joy of craft brewing. Cheers to the stories that grow with every pour!
Ever wondered which lager is perfect for that post-lawn mowing refreshment or which brewery is on the rise in St. Louis Park? We've got you covered! Join us as we embark on a sudsy exploration of Haggard Barrel Brewing Company, where their tales and ales have us singing praises. From the Widowmaker black ale to the Beer Before Baseball lager, we're ranking beers by style and sharing our personal picks. Plus, we'll let you in on why Schlaps Lager is quickly becoming the go-to for any outdoor occasion.
Let's face it, brewing is an art - but don't just take our word for it. This episode stirs the pot by comparing the creation of beer to the strokes of a painter's brush or a musician's score. We dive into a philosophical brew of opinions on the artistic merits of brewing, while savoring the innovative Glonky, a smoothie-style sour ale that shows off its environmental creds with the sustainable Kernza grain. And of course, we won't leave you hanging on the question of whether golf course design or an athlete's swing might just be another form of artistic expression.
Wrapping up, we're buzzing with excitement about Hazard Brewery's future plans and growth. Their knack for crafting exceptional lagers with gently used equipment is something to keep an eye on. We're plotting a return visit in the summer and might just bring the brewery owners onto the podcast for a chat. So, grab a pint of Hazard Brewery's finest and join us for an episode that hops between laughter, environmental stewardship, and the sheer joy of craft brewing. Cheers to the stories that grow with every pour!
and welcome in everybody. Whack again, back again, whack back.
Speaker 2:Let's just, I'll just start over that could be a name of a new brewery whack backack Back Brewing. Whack Back, there we go. That sounds like a redneck-type brewery Whack Back.
Speaker 1:Whack Back.
Speaker 2:Maybe Quack Back.
Speaker 1:Maybe Save your Seat or something Half Whack, half Whack.
Speaker 2:We're not getting paid for this promotion.
Speaker 1:Welcome in to the Two Guys in Beer podcast studios Once again, andy and Sean here to be able to discuss the greatest beers of all time, or just all of the beers. I mean, I think some of them are really great, but uh, I don't know the official rankings. I feel like it'd be hard to do the official rankings like that's thousands. How do you narrow it down?
Speaker 2:I think you'd have to narrow it down by style you know a stout ipa lager and go from that direction yeah, you, you know like make a top five. It's like trying to pick your favorite movie or your favorite song or band. It's really hard. But if you narrow it down to a specific genre or style, right Go from there top five.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just, I don't know. I don't even know that I could pick even a top five of certain breweries, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean in my mind maybe but the thing is, there's so many of them that we haven't had yet.
Speaker 1:There's millions we haven't had yet. We're trying to overcome that obstacle, though we're doing our best to be able to experience all of it, slow but sure, and we're taking you along on the journey with us yeah, 2063,. We will have a top five. We will it will take some time there may be some changeover in the uh the list before then, so I will have to throw one out there.
Speaker 2:That's in my top five, widow maker. I'm sorry, it's in my top five. It would be probably in my all-time top five it is it it's a it's an amazing beer, right and that's a black ale. So I don't know, the other black ales category. What else is out there for that but that one? I'm widow makers in my top five. I don't care what anybody says it's?
Speaker 1:yeah, it is. It is an amazing beer and I'm so glad that years ago that somebody suggested that as an option and honestly I don't remember even who it was. Might have been a vendor that tried to suggest to me when I had the bar. That might have been where I ended up getting it. But you know, I was like I don't know that that'll necessarily go. And he's like, well, I'll bring you like a sample. And I'm like I don't really want a sample, so I'll bring you some cans. And I had the first one and I was like, dial it up, I'll drink it myself. I don't even care, it was so good that is.
Speaker 2:I do buy it from time to time. I do usually have some in my fridge. I don't currently. Usually I have some in there. I think I have some pickaxe ale in my fridge from up there right now, but I usually have some Whittlemaker and I'm going to throw in one more at you before we get going on this beer. We're doing tonight the beer we had on the previous episode, beer before baseball. If you're talking lager category, that's got to be in the top five already. If I'm quickly thinking about a list and not really deep diving it, that is a super good light lager and I sure need some more of that.
Speaker 1:That was a phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say like complete surprise, but it was definitely kind of like wow it was super tasty, yeah, so if you're following along at home now, that's two beers that we've already covered on the podcast over previous episodes. So definitely go back and kind of review some of those over the course of the series, I guess, if you will, as far as what we've done here. But today we're talking about Haggard Barrel Brewing Company Again, Haggard Barrel. I guess there's another Haggard out there somewhere, but Haggard Barrel is the one that we're looking for. It's out of St Louis Park, minnesota, so it's kind of local.
Speaker 1:Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard, country singer. There you go. I don't know that I could riff on any of his tunes right now, though right now, though maybe if I googled it I could probably come up with something I'd have to think for a minute. Yeah, yeah, the the older fans that we have out in the audience are right now screaming at whatever that they're the phone or whatever they're listening to, like, right, just sing that song.
Speaker 1:I don't think you want me to sing at all, so it's probably better that I'm not thinking of what I think I agree we.
Speaker 2:We don't need to sing. We already already experienced that before. It's true, you know, on suspecting karaoke tune.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, I blame, we're going to blame Nick, even though it was really your fault, because I think me and Nick were playing pool, but he was making friends over there too.
Speaker 2:I don't recall it being my fault, but okay, I'll shoulder the blame, nick, thanks.
Speaker 1:I don't remember, I just I remember parts of that day, parts of that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate the visit though I remember, yeah, that was, oh, that was good times. Just, you know, I'm glad I didn't play bingo that night. We'll let that one just kind of lie there. So, uh, haggard, haggard Brewery, haggard Brewing yeah, that's uh out of St Louis park kind of a new brewery. Uh, they're only a couple months in there, they're. They're kind of a fresh and new one. Uh, uh, some of the first things that pops up if you were to Google them is actually the live video when they're going before the city council be able to get their information, their stuff going.
Speaker 2:So your liquor license or approval, or exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so they're. They're kind of fresh in on everything. They let's see. I don't know if they have a specific date, but I know that they had some stuff that they said that they're opening soon on their Instagram. Is you know where a lot of this is coming from? First dry run that they were making was about 10 weeks ago, so they're, you know, not not real old. That was the end of January, so nine weeks ago. February 10th is when it went before the council and then they started being able to get things out shortly after that. So their first beer sold commercially came out and it was about a month ago, so about four weeks ago, so March 15th. We usually try not to get too timely on the episodes. That way you can listen and watch, potentially on youtube anywhere anytime. But uh, just time wise, it's about four weeks old. So kind of a fun little uh deal that, uh, you know, we uh kind of stumbled upon what did you say?
Speaker 1:march 15th yep was their grand open date well, at least that's when they first released their beer. First release, yeah.
Speaker 2:March 15th of 2024. 2024. So now you got it dated properly for everybody, yep, and so in the future.
Speaker 1:Got that date stamp on there, yep. So yeah, no, it's kind of a fresh one with that, so got a handful of beers that they got out there. You can see some of them here on the front table of the Two Guys and Beer podcast studio. The Glonky is a smoothie-style sour ale, mango strawberry with kersnett grain. We'll get a little bit more into the kersnett grain here in a little bit. But they also have Amber Waves, which is not on our list. It's a Vienna-style amber lager. But we also have the Nothing H like a schlaps and how that one's a little bit more of an american lager string lager drink.
Speaker 1:So that should be uh, you know it should be fun one episode to be able to chat about.
Speaker 2:That isn't far from us, you know, we should probably go to that one too. I mean we say this every episode.
Speaker 1:It really will get there at some point, but this is a local brewery to us if you see the meme, I think it's uh, probably from always sunny in philadelphia, where you know where he's got like the not the murder board, but he's got the string going all over the place and he's like just follow me with this. You know, like I don't think I've seen that. I feel like that's what I picture, like our know like the little stream here and then it's back there and if we go this direction, you know, I feel like that's kind of what's kind of coming together on this one.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm in, we should start a map. There we go. We could do that, pin it up and boop, boop, boop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as the map starts appearing magically Right. You know we should. We stopped there on the way down to Iowa to go to Millstream, millstream Brewing, nevada, iowa Try to connect with them and try to maybe be able to do some on-location stuff. We reach out to these guys waiting to be able to kind of hear back. Initially it actually kind of almost fell into our lap to a certain extent. We've talked numerous times and again, not a sponsorship at all, but at the same time I give them kudos every time that I can. Is the Dabbler Depot. It's just, it's a liquor store. I guess you know they don't really deal in a lot of like you know, coors Lights or you know more of the mass scale beers, but it's a lot of craft beer, a lot of craft cocktails, bourbons. They got vodkas, gins, all sorts of stuff from all over the world there. So it's not a huge building but they got a lot of really nice selection there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of the craft beer, like you mentioned, you know it comes from local breweries too, in small places. It's not big distributors or anything like that. So it really helps you get to try a lot of craft beers from the small local breweries around too, you know. So that's pretty nice.
Speaker 1:So some of these beers they were in so you can go across like the main part of the cooler, you can check out all the different coolers, but at the end they have a door that you can go inside and they got some disco lights to go to the singles lounge, cause that's where they got the ones and twosies to be able to get. So you don't have to buy like a 12 pack of something that you've never had. You can go and have, you know, just a couple to be able to try them out. So, but they're always willing to, like you know, have you try something that you got some usually on tap for you to be able to try. They got some bourbons that are open, you know, or they'll open one up to be able to. You know, let you guys would like to. If anybody's checked in from there, we'd love to have you. But no, they're great people there, they're a lot of fun. They want to make sure they find something that works for you and we ended up starting to have a conversation about this a little bit and it turns out it ended up being one of the people that is part of the trio of ownership for Haggard Barrel Brew brewing.
Speaker 1:So, uh, kind of fun to be able to uh got a couple of stickers there that they gave us as well, uh, just trying to uh get the word out there, I'm sure for them, but uh, for us it was kind of an opportunity to be able to, you know, have a little bit of a chat, you know, with you kind of some ownership and some local, local breweries, and we wanted to try to be able to test out their beers, so kind of trying some new stuff as well. So it should be a little bit different, should be fun, should be interesting. Well, shall we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I've been yammering a little bit too long.
Speaker 2:It's been a while for a beer, so I'll hand you one. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:This is going to be. Nothing Hits Like a Schlaps Beer, and how.
Speaker 2:I'd like to know where they came up with that name. I like that name. It's like a name where you want to smack somebody upside the head Kind of.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's kind of a classic like a nice clean-looking Can. Yeah, absolutely, and you can see, obviously by the other one too. It's not like they're just stuck into that, they're willing to do all sorts of fun stuff, all right.
Speaker 2:As I say every time, best part of the episode Music to my ears, absolutely fantastic. Kind of smells like a fruity lager here before I take a drink.
Speaker 1:So let's see here Reading off the can here, tall boy. So it's a pint 4.3 alcohol by value. Not a ton on the can, but what it says on their Instagram page. Again, as I mentioned, a lot of their information is sourced from Instagram and their website as well. The Schlapps American Lager Spring and summer are coming. This all-American crusher is made with choice barley malt and flaked corn. Lightly hop for continuous shotguns. Lightly hop for continuous shotguns. That's how word reading works.
Speaker 2:And you can definitely taste tell that. And when you drink this the light hops in there for sure. It's got a small small bitterness to it, but barely at all because it is a lager and you can definitely tell their description. There is pretty perfect to my palate. It is a small light, lightly hopped there. It's pretty tasty.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Continuous shotguns and long days on the lake which those are always fun too I don't like long days on the lake, I don't like water.
Speaker 2:So after a long day of mowing, I'll drink one there we go that that'll work I don't mind being on a boat like I like to be on a boat and stuff but I just I'm not a big fan of water in general.
Speaker 1:So I think they like the idea of being a little going out on the pontoon. We'll go out there, bop around a little bit, but we'll just go to like this bar or the other bar or you know, something like that you know, and kind of hang out out there. You know, but I don't know, I've never really much of a fisher.
Speaker 2:I'm weird, you're. I'm probably the only minnesotan that doesn't care for water too much, right? I don't know, I have this fear of drowning, so that's kind of what does it. So if I'm in water above my head and I can't touch the ground, I can't have a problem with that. But I can be in a boat and that doesn't bother me. But if I'm in the water, it's kind of where I have the problem. But a boat is so restrictive you can't really move much. You just kind of sit there. Right, if I'm going to sit, I'd rather be in my house or on my deck looking at wildlife or sitting on the lawnmower. There you go. You know, having a schlaps, having a schlaps Actually, I'd probably have two schlaps, probably On the lawnmower.
Speaker 1:Probably three on the lawnmower scale. I mean it's nice and light, you know. You know, yeah, I think I could, I don't know, it's got enough to it. It does have some body to it, like it's not just a super ultra light, it's got some nice uh body to it as well, so you can kind of get a little bit of the malt through there. Yeah, you know a little bit of that. You know, again, nothing. It's not like super heavy, super deep or anything, but it definitely has some flavoring to it and you know some, like I said, some body to it. Yeah, it does have some body.
Speaker 2:It definitely has some flavoring to it and, like I said, some body to it. Yeah, it does have some body, it does have some taste. You can probably throw it in the same category as a Greenbelt Northeast or a Moosehead you know as lagers that actually have a flavor and a taste. So I would probably put this in that category. Of course it doesn't taste similar to those at all, but in the category of lagers that actually has a taste, I would definitely put it in there. It's actually pretty good For a brand new brewery. This is pretty decent.
Speaker 1:And, as we mentioned before, lagering is more of a different style of making it. You have IPAs and you have different things with that, pale ales, but mostly it's either lagers or ales and you just kind of work your way through there beyond that. But uh, lagering has more to do with partly the some of the ingredients, but also partly that you have to keep it colder as you make it. So it's more of a. It's a little bit. You don't see as much of lagers with especially smaller breweries just because there's an infrastructure that has to go with that. You know it's not just the cooler to keep the kegs, you also have to. If you're going to make it at scale, you have to be able to keg it and be able to store it while it works through that process. So definitely is out there. You know I'm not saying that nobody does it, but you know it's always nice to be able to find smaller breweries that are willing to do that and go through that process.
Speaker 2:Right, definitely For sure. I think we should. We're probably going to, like we already talked about getting a hold of the owners, have a little conversation with them at the Dabbler Depot, get them on. We'll check out their process of making something like this and where it came up from.
Speaker 1:And here it is something like this where it came up from and here it is. So if you check out their website, haggardbarrelcom, under the About tab it shows a picture of kind of what they got there them through the process of making some beers. Just as far as, informationally, it is 100% employee-owned, so basically the three people that do it are that's who it is. You know it's all employee owned, so it's not a big conglomerate or anything like that. They don't have employee profiles. They encourage you just come on down, come say hi. So which is I'm in.
Speaker 2:We're going to have to come say, hi, tough sell.
Speaker 1:You'll be seeing us soon. So their description Haggard to us, is synonymous with gritty, gnarly and well-worn, so kind of like Merle Haggard to a certain extent. Sure, kind of old cowboy guy. As we begin over at Haggard Barrel, we know that we are small. We know with a fancy tap room and tons of marketing to get our name out, there is not going to be something we can afford. We know that our equipment is not going to be something we can afford. We know that our equipment is not going to be top of the line. But we embrace the fact that if we want to do this as industry veterans and own it ourselves, we'll have to start with what we can pull together and find a way to be able to make great beer. So they're not going to be the big flashy. You know you go to some places and you can tell they put millions of dollars into the building and the equipment so you can look at it and everything. It's still going to look good. It's still going to be good beer. It's not quality.
Speaker 1:People get hung up a lot of times on appearance of it that this is better quality because it looks nicer. I've been to some pretty awful dive bars and gotten a cheeseburger that will knock your freaking socks off. You've got to be willing to kind of experiment with that. So if you're you know, if you get a little bit worried about that, yeah, I suggest giving her a shot and kind of stepping out of that comfort zone a little bit. Let's see here. What else do they say here? We believe that it isn't how new or expensive your tools are, but how much effort you put in and how you use them. You can expect consistent quality beer for us day in and day out, with frequent collaborations with our good friends across the country and in the beer industry and beyond.
Speaker 1:The spot may look a little haggard, perfect yeah, but we can assure you our beer is not. So I definitely highly recommend it. Go check it out. And just right there in St Louis Park. So you know, it looks like a nice place, you know, like a good place to be able to go, and I think we've talked about that before.
Speaker 1:That I'm failing to remember now off the top of my head, but uh, on the episode when we were talking about tarpon river in florida, in the fort lauderdale area, the place that I guess liquor store in a sense, but it's, you know it's a place to you go in. They just have single cans everywhere. You can't get, like you know, six packs of stuff but like generally the thing is you go in there and you pick out your single cans, you drink it and you just hold on to your empties and at the end you check out. Just paying for empties is what it is. They got food but I think that on the episode, if you go back and you check out the Tarpon River Brewery episode, we're really throwing all the flashbacks in what other?
Speaker 1:one. Are we talking about Moosehead? We're talking about Widowmaker. Like all of them. But the way that I described the building is it wasn't dirty or dank or terrible, it was lived in, right, it existed. You know there's something to be said for kind of that nice, clean, chic, modern look. No, not when it comes to a brewery. I'm not saying good to be said, I'm just saying there's something to be said.
Speaker 2:Gently used. I like to gently use historic buildings, that barn-style industrial look wood steel man stuff. Industrial look wood steel man stuff.
Speaker 1:Not that women can't enjoy a good beer and brewery, but gold industrial roaring 20s type, you know speakeas yeah, something that's existed, like there's just a I don't know if charm is the right word for it, but there's just something about going to a place and you know I mean even as listeners you know, think about like some of the places that you've gone that you kind of enjoy, like were they like?
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe you go to a nice restaurant that's got, you know, clean and chic and everything or whatever, but you know you go to, you know like the local pub and grill or something like that, and it's just kind of a. You can tell that this place has been around for decades, right, you know, and people enjoy going in there. You know, like they got the wood floor and it's finished, but it's not like put in last week, like this has been refinished a couple of times, it's got the scuff marks on it, you know. Just, you can tell people want to be there. You know I feel like that's kind of the feeling sometimes. I really like a place like that.
Speaker 2:So having a place that they're leaning into, into that, you know I really enjoy that. Uh, that idea, yeah, I agree for sure. This haggard brewery you know they talked about, you brought up about how they don't have brand new equipment, they don't spend millions of dollars, they do this and they do that and they're not going to be a large brewery. I'll tell you what, onus, if they make beer like this in the future, with more, more beers, more varieties, they're going to be small for a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll definitely expand and definitely become a much larger brewery, more well known, in the future, for sure and I love the fact that and I think we've talked about this before too that, like craft beer brewing and I guess to a certain extent even you know some cocktail making, but really like the craft brew industry has, is definitely become kind of that. You can get into it and everybody's going to support you, you can get collaborations, you can get other stuff, you can get all sorts of stuff going on, because, as much as it is still a competition, it's also if we grow the industry, then we grow the industry, which, if I'm part of the industry, that helps everybody.
Speaker 1:And so I think that there's a lot you know a lot of support and a lot of good things with that. You know they're doing some collaborations, the one that we don't have here, unfortunately. Amber Waves, a Vienna style amber lager, is in collaboration with Wooden Ship Brewing. So they're already working with other industry, experts and other industry, just mainstays or even just other people that are doing it. You know what I mean. Like the one, like beautiful thing about collaborations is, again, it's, yes, technically maybe we're competing with you, but why not? We just smash something together and see if we can't come up with something that's amazing too. You know what I mean. We can both sell it, you know, we both.
Speaker 2:So my wife, says Exactly Put things together and smash. Exactly Amazing things happen.
Speaker 1:That's, you know, that's exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2:I have a terrible mind Sometimes. I apologize. I just went together. But no, I agree. Yeah, the collaboration. It just puts better products out there, especially for craft beer. All around the country you collaborate and you get better products, better ideas and it helps everybody out in the end. So it's awesome to see that that's the type of culture that local and small breweries have, craft brewing, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And even new breweries. You know something like this or whatever. Like I don't want to say that it's just accessible for everybody, but it's kind of accessible for most people. You get into the industry a little bit. You maybe you work with you know a place or something like that. You know you're like okay, I'd like to kind of do that. Well, I don't, you know you don't want to take out, you know $300,000 worth of loans to buy all new equipment and do this and do that. And you talk to one of the people that you worked with before and they're like oh, I got a line on. This place is selling some of their old stuff and they're upgrading their thing. So we're going to get you all set up for about 16 bucks. You know what I mean. They want to enjoy doing it.
Speaker 1:I don't know a lot of people maybe there are some. I would think that it wouldn't last for a long but I don't know a lot of people that get into doing craft beer brewing and having their own brewery, microbrewery, whatever size it's going to be, that aren't wanting to have fun Right size it's going to be, that aren't wanting to have fun Right. That are just like nope, we got numbers and ones and zeros and right down the line. No, no, no, we're going to have some. We're going to have some fun.
Speaker 1:We're going to enjoy this we're going to have the passion come through.
Speaker 2:That's just it. It's the passion, people's passions and hobbies that turn into successes. You know to start breweries and stuff. Most that you know to start breweries and stuff. That's most of the stories of the beers we've told so far. In fact, every beer, if you really want to trace it back, is just people that had an idea, a passion. It was a hobby, just like this podcast. It's just a hobby for fun and it's growing thanks to all the listeners, just to get it started that way.
Speaker 1:you know, it just makes everything better in my opinion. And brewing is such a accessible thing to a certain extent you can go to I mean, you can go to the Internet now, essentially. But you know like at the time you could go to different places and be able to get like, all right, here's a kit to be able to brew five gallons. You could go and you could pick your own. Yeah, you could certainly just go to a liquor store and like get you know like around and get the you know six pack of this or whatever. But it's one of those things. It's like you know what. I'm going to give this a shot, I'm going to try it out. You know it's the first time you do it. It's going to be a good long day. You know, make sure you get yourself ready, can do it. Anybody can get out there and get the stuff to be able to do it.
Speaker 2:It's inexpensive to be able to get into it. I was going to say it's fairly inexpensive to start that type of hobby for homebrewing stuff too, and it's I mean, essentially it is cooking because you're creating something to be consumed, so you are cooking.
Speaker 1:But it's kind of like that from the standpoint of if you've ever gotten something and you look at the recipe and you're like God, you know what. I wish this had just a little bit more Parmesan cheese on the top. Throw it on there. It's your. Yes, you have the recipe, but the recipe is just a guideline. Just be like um, I like that, but I think maybe a little bit more of this Sam Sam might up it just a little bit for what I like. Do that? Why not? Maybe somebody else will like it. Maybe you just have your own little mix that you got going on. You know what I mean? That's what recipes all are anyway. So that begs the question.
Speaker 2:This is a question I hate, and I hear this a lot.
Speaker 1:All of the Parmesan cheese. That's what I want.
Speaker 2:Just keep going. I like parmesan cheese. I like parmesan cheese. So is brewing, beer creation. Is it art? Are we calling it art? It's not my definition of art, but everybody thinks everything's art. So is this liquid art, food art, consumption art, artiste? Do you call a brewmaster an artiste?
Speaker 1:I mean there's an artistic level to it. I guess I don't know, that I would necessarily call it art.
Speaker 2:There's art on the can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there is that. There's a certain level, I guess, in my mind and I'm not saying that I'm the expert here, you know, feel free to.
Speaker 2:Well, after another slaps, you might become an expert.
Speaker 1:I probably will, because that's when all the great ideas really start to come out.
Speaker 1:If you have your opinions on this, you know, feel free to chime in. You know, whether it be on any of our social platforms or YouTube stream, whatever it is you're checking in on, give us kind of your feedback on what you think on this. But a view and it's going to be ironic to say view. But I kind of view art as something you can visually like. Even food to a certain extent, yes, I do think is somewhat artistic because of the way you have to visually present it. The presentation, exactly. There's a certain amount of that using the right plate, using the accent, swipes of chocolate or mango sauce or whatever it is. You know that you got to put on there. Beer to a certain extent can be, but when you pour it in a glass, but it's just a different shade, more than anything. So it's, I don't know. I can see where the argument could be made, but it's amazing. Don't get me wrong. I'm all in on the brewery art scene if that's what we decide that it is.
Speaker 1:But if it's me, I don't know, I guess I think of it as more of a visual. When I think art, I think of it as visual. A golf course can be art because of the way that it's done. Somebody's baseball swing ken griffey, jr joe mauer is kind of a. There's an art to doing that. Uh, pitching, you know like things, but those are all visual kind of things. You know what I mean. But it's not like the traditional. Go to the museum and look at the mona lisa or you know the statue of David or something. You know what I mean. Like those are visual, but like it doesn't have to be that. So I guess I don't pigeonhole it there, but at the same time, like it's still a visual medium in my world. I don't know, I could be wrong. I'd be happy to be, I'd happy to be educated on it.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if anybody can educate you on it. Art the term art seems to evolve in such a broad category. You know, like you can just grab a bucket of paint and splash it on the wall and that's considered art. To me, that's not art. You know, taking random brush strokes on a canvas isn't art, and welding junk in your backyard together art. To me, that's not art. But it's classified that. To me, art is like pencil drawing famous paintings like the mona lisa, like you mentioned. It has to be a painting of something that I can see, not just squiggly lines and this and that, bob ross, there's some art. You know little happy trees and happy waterfalls and little cute rocks here and there I'm gonna do that at some point in time.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get myself a little palette.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do all those things Wet on wet paint.
Speaker 2:We could do a presentation right here on the show.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. This might be two guys in beer and Bob Ross, bob Ross.
Speaker 2:So to me that's art. You know, I think art is too over broadly. Things are broadly called art, you know, that's why I just thought I'd throw it up. Because about the beer and art, because it is creation and making things out of nothing and stuff, but like music, they call music art.
Speaker 1:To me that's not art, because that's true, because it's not really visually, visually consumed, but I I call themselves artists I guess I kind of think it's.
Speaker 2:I call them musicians and they are creating, but I to me, to me, that's not art.
Speaker 1:So what is the?
Speaker 2:categories or different categories of art.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I kind of look at like the composer as an artist. But yeah, the musicians are, you know, I mean they're, they're part of the medium itself. But yeah, I guess I mean you kind of kiboshed my you know, you know, whereas music is in art form, yeah, it's a category of art.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, musicians are great. I love music. Without music, life would suck oh my god. Yeah, thank you to everybody that makes music 100.
Speaker 1:We get which. We gotta talk concerts later. I got a whole list. We're gonna do some stuff like perfect. I'm all on board on concerts, but maybe another beer or two Another.
Speaker 2:Slaps.
Speaker 1:Then we'll buy all sorts of concert tickets.
Speaker 2:A mango strawberry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that Glonky is a Glonky. I don't know we may end up having that Glonky yet today. The Glonky, just for those keeping track at home, is yeah, that other one here. It's a smoothie-style sour ale mango strawberry in collaboration with Arcola Farms curds grain. We'll talk about that here in a little bit because it's a new kind of grain that it changes the way certain things are even made. It makes the farming even a little bit more sustainable. They wanted something with a little bit more intensely flavor and they couldn't think of a better way to have a smooth, fruited sour Not smoothed that would be Fred Smoothed.
Speaker 2:Way different Way, different thing. The quarterback for the Vikings Way different situation there the love boat.
Speaker 1:Wasn't he on the love boat? He was definitely a part. I think he set up the love boat.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably what it is. I think he set up the love boat. I think that's probably what it is. I think he did. Yeah, I think he jogged, my memory enough.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. But they didn't focus on the grains. They used it as kind of a substitute with the high-protein malts. But the way that they did it, they don't have like a lactose in there, but it's got a smoothie kind of taste to it. I know it's different, but silence.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the glonky right.
Speaker 1:We are talking about the yeah, the, the glonky.
Speaker 2:So sorry, I was still thinking about Fred's moot for a second.
Speaker 1:I mean, it is, you know, a little bit different that is.
Speaker 2:You know that is a thing. So what are you talking about the grain?
Speaker 1:for. So the grain is the Kernsner grain, kers down K-E-R-N-Z-A is what I'm going to go ahead and say it. So I'm going to try to look at, you know, kind of the Wikipedia here and there's obviously a million different things on it, but we're just going to kind of hit the highlights here. You know, you can feel free to look it up again on, you know, whatever you know, medium you want to, whatever art form you want to, you'll see. But the uh kern's uh grain is uh kind of what it is, but it has something to do. It is a lot better with like it goes deeper.
Speaker 1:So it is more got to find the actual now, because the basic start here just talks about that. It's a grain with wheat grasses similar to seeds of a common wheat, but more of a perennial, while wheat is an annual. I know that some of them come back every year. Some of them you got to plant every year is basically the difference on that one. But so the roots go deeper. Yeah, normal corn tend to deplete more soil, organic matter and require inputs, whereas something like this is going to be something you can get yield crops while building organic matter, so it's actually better. So, even when you get into the grain you know you're seeing a little bit more of this getting into more and more breweries and whatnot, and it gets a lot more into trying to be more sustainable.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't suck the life out of the soil. Essentially Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a little more and we've talked numerous different times about various different things that it's trying to be. The whole industry is always up for trying to figure out different ways to be more eco-sustainable. Right, I don't think that anything is going to be 100% eco-sustainable, which, let me Tangent Tuesday there we go. Tangent Tuesday there we go, just a momentary thing. Let me tangent Tuesday there we go. Tangent Tuesday there we go, just a momentary thing. I got this email the other day on a local run, the Grandma's Marathon deal up in Duluth. Yeah, I'm going to be part of the half marathon. I know runner's physique, but doing the half marathon. But they send routine emails throughout the course of the year. Well, a couple of them come across where they talk about trying to. They want to try to make the run mostly eco-friendly. Now you say running, it's pretty ego-friendly in and of itself except for when you get 15,000 people coming to town.
Speaker 1:they all drive separate and so, like what they say is like most of the carbon load and most of the stuff that happens is because of that. Yes, there is some waste products and people throwing cups, you know, but they do a pretty good job with, like, having a million volunteers help pick up the paper cups and try to get those recycling and do things like that. But they in that email and I'm just trying to wrap my head around this they offer you the opportunity to go to a certain website where you can purchase a carbon offset.
Speaker 2:Okay, what's the carbon offset that we're purchasing?
Speaker 1:So apparently you drive your car to Duluth is going to have a certain carbon footprint but you can pay to not have that carbon footprint. But really of course you're not, you're new, you're paying to like have them plant trees from where, like, you're not really like erasing that for that footprint still there, you don't walk on the moon and the footprint just you know like, oh, we're gonna wipe it away. That doesn't happen. If we've been, actually you're trying to exactly, maybe it's just a big block of cheese throwing it out there conspiracy conspiracy theory could be, uh, but you know it's.
Speaker 1:I don't know it's. When you talk about, like the carbon offset, I mean there is a certain amount. But when you, when you hear something like an airline, like a a major airline, talk about like, oh, we're going to be carbon free, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like no, you're not. You have just figured out a way to be able to plant enough trees to offset how much fuel you're using, because you are not going to be carbon, you're just offsetting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know which I get, we can get into a whole discussion Carbon free thing is kind of a joke.
Speaker 2:And now that we're on Tangent Tuesday here I've read numerous times that we plant way more trees than we ever have in the history of mankind versus what we cut down. We plant like three times as many trees as what we cut down, so I don't know that offsetting your carbon input by planting more trees is some great spectacle.
Speaker 1:I've had some conversations even with my brother-in-law.
Speaker 2:Like he is a lumberjack, for better or worse.
Speaker 1:He works within the industry. I think he more supervises. I don't really. Maybe he's out there with an axe I haven't seen him with one, but I'm sure he knows how to handle a chainsaw but they do a lot of logging, but a lot of what they do isn't like we're going to clear this, clear cut this entire area because we're going to be moving in all these factories or something. No, they're doing a lot of like either clear cutting or sustainable things in conjunction with either, you know, local farmers or even businesses or dnr. You know, like a lot of the stuff that they're doing is better for the environment.
Speaker 1:But people look at again. They look at the headline like the big, like, oh, they clear cut this entire area. Well, there was probably a reason, you know. I mean you look at certain things you get into, like trusting the DNR or conservation officers or things. From that standpoint, you know, like California tends to not do that. They're like nope, nature is nature, don't touch it. Okay, well, that's fine. But then when it burns all away because that's part of nature too then you all of a sudden throw all of the resources and all of the people that you throw in danger because it's all burning now and you're not sure why it's burning. Well, that's part of nature too.
Speaker 2:So if you're going to let nature nature you have to let all of the nature be the nature. Well, it's funny. They freak out when wildfires happen. Well, that's a part of the process. Fires need to happen. It kills old growth, it rejuvenates the soil so new growth happens. Yeah, it's not always bad. We do. That's part of it. I mean it's sad. Sad, it's devastating. Animals lose their habitat.
Speaker 1:You could get your house burned down and lost, but wildfires, that's a part of nature, that's a part of the whole process of living things in life and plant life and forestry and all that, and you work with or you talk to DNR, forestry conservation officers, people within that world planned burning or doing things like that, controlled burnings. That's a big part of being able to control some of that not even control it Control is probably the wrong word I feel like that's an aggressive word there but more so being able to help sustain a lot of that. You know what I mean. It's something that's going to happen, but if you can do it in a way that we kind of guide it a little bit, then it doesn't create issues where we're burning somebody's house down because it's a runaway fire, because all it is is just overgrowth. At this point we're just trying to be able to kind of keep it balanced in a way.
Speaker 2:Anyway. Anyways, now we've gotten up on that topic. That definitely kind of went right off the rails there, that's what this podcast is all about too guys, drinking beer, talking like we're at a bar, absolutely Fixing, solving world's problems which always happens best after a couple beers, especially a schlaps or two.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, nothing hits like a schlaps and how there we go. So yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. So there's this new grain. The soil management is probably one of the biggest things by way of erosion control and land rehabilitation. Our uses for this. It establishes quickly to form a protective mat of roots and rhizomes. Soils degraded by earth moving or mining. Within five years stands have produced a 7 000 pounds per acre of dry root mass within the top eight inches. So heavy root production in the soil keep things in place and restores its natural fertility by increasing soil carbon. A lot of technical words, but it has big, thick, deep roots to it and so it actually works wonders for, like soil and water conservation, you don't have a lot of erosion. Sure, you know it comes back, so you aren't spending a lot of time turning things over, you know. So it's pretty good. It's pretty good. You would think that, okay, well, now you can't really kill it by rooting it up. Generally, it's not an invasive plant and it coexists well with native plant species.
Speaker 2:Perfect.
Speaker 1:That's what we need when we're growing corn for our beer, exactly and left unharvested. The vegetation is a good nesting habitat for some birds and waterfowl Perfect. I like birds. That's some of the things you know like you talk about Now I'm failing to remember the brewery that that created their own recycling plant. You know for all of the glass that they were going through yeah, we did episode of st louis.
Speaker 2:Yes, down there kansas city and like things like that and things like this.
Speaker 1:The industry as a whole it's still creating. I mean, farming is going to be something that's going to be a part of the fabric of america, really the world, forever, I would argue. I mean, you just don't have really food, even the crappy processed food.
Speaker 2:Well, Bill Gates likes to come up with fake food all the time.
Speaker 1:So fake meat, meatless meat plant-based meat, but even that is a lot of like soy type of stuff or things like that, but a lot of it is plant-based.
Speaker 2:Well, where do you get the ingredients you have to come out of?
Speaker 1:something Got to come from somewhere. So you know, like farming, generally speaking, is going to kind of be there and so, like even the brewery industry is, you know, helping develop or latch on to experimental things like this, this different type of grain that is. It's still good, it still works with what we're doing, but it leaves the environment better, and so I don't know Again, it's just another step in the right direction for the craft beer industry.
Speaker 2:Right, right at Hazard Brewery, right down there in.
Speaker 1:St Louis Park, minnesota. Absolutely, absolutely love it. That's most of what I got here, Sean. I babbled on and on and on. I'll let you do some of the babbling.
Speaker 2:That sounds good to me. I don't do a lot of babbling.
Speaker 2:I'm not much of a babbler, but I'll say I think that about wraps up this episode with it, with Hanger Brewery here. It's a good beer, good lager. If they continue on this path, brewing beer like this, they will not be small for long, but they're used equipment. They're gently used equipment. You know what they're talking about. Andy and I are going to go check it out sometime this summer. Absolutely, we'll take some videos there. While we're there, we'll see if we can't get the owners on for a podcast. If you get this in your area, try to get some. It's brand new and nothing hits like it slaps right. Yeah, and how Right and how Right. Cheers, everybody, cheers.