Two Guys & Beer
The Two Guys & Beer Podcast is a laid-back conversational show that combines the love of beer with a wide range of topics that pique the hosts' interest. These two guys, use beer as a launching pad for discussions on anything and everything that grabs our attention!
Two Guys & Beer
From Homebrewer to Sierra Nevada's Summerfest
Ever wondered how a homebrewer can turn a passion into one of America’s largest craft breweries? Join us for an incredible journey as we unravel the inspiring story of Ken Grossman and the birth of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. You'll learn about the trials and triumphs of starting a brewery on a shoestring budget, from repurposing dairy equipment to perfecting iconic brews like the Celebration IPA. We promise an episode brimming with fascinating insights into the craft beer revolution and the determination that fuels it.
But that's not all—get ready for some Olympic fever as we share our obsessions with quirky events like 3x3 basketball and kayaking. Hear our takes on memorable Olympic moments, including a Turkish shooter who gave us hitman vibes and a laid-back competitor who snagged a silver medal with one hand in his pocket. Plus, don’t miss our plans for an epic road trip to Oktoberfest in Munich, complete with live updates and a hilarious promise of seeing Andy in lederhosen!
Sustainability and innovation are also on tap as we explore how Sierra Nevada leads the way with green initiatives like hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels. Learn about their LEED Platinum Certified brewery in North Carolina and how they turn used cooking oil into biodiesel. We’ll even throw in a wild story about cocaine-filled sharks off the coast of Brazil and reflect on how well barbecue pairs with a cold Summerfest lager. Get ready for a rollercoaster of beer talk, Olympic banter, and unexpected tales. Cheers!
all right and uh welcome hin uh. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, not children of all ages, maybe 21 plus or close to 20, learning about the product I guess about beer of many types yes, yes it really, it's a history lesson is really what it is.
Speaker 1:so it's it's. You know, we're not close to 20, learning about the product, I guess. How about beer of many types? Yes, yes, and really it's a history lesson is really what it is. So we're not encouraging. Well, yeah, we're encouraging people to drink beer, never mind, okay. So everybody 21 plus and then everybody else that just clicks the yes button whenever they go to websites that ask that question. Welcome in once again to the Two Guys and Beer podcast. Andy Wax from Schott Field Back again.
Speaker 2:Once again, back at it again. Beer in moderation. We encourage people to drink in moderation. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Experiment with the various types, but in moderation.
Speaker 2:That's the disclaimer. Yes, moderation.
Speaker 1:Yep, I will say before we get too deep into the beer, this episode, timing wise, like it'll end up coming out, you know well, after it's done or whatever. But one thing I am not consuming in moderation currently is the Olympics.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, maybe we'll talk about that later, but it's just been constant Olympics for me, like I'm at work and I got it on one screen and I'm doing other stuff on another screen and I'm trying to go back and forth and, all right, I have to mute that because I have to pay attention to this, but I'm still watching that kind of back and forth.
Speaker 2:And I've consumed a very minimal Olympics.
Speaker 1:this time I probably one of the first I've consumed very little. I I just can't, I can never get enough. Olympics and I don't like it's not even like the running. Like the running doesn't really do anything for me. Yeah, I watch some of it or whatever, but like that's not the thing. Swimming's kind of fun, but it's just like all of the stuff that you just generally don't see. You know what I mean. Like three on three basketball no, no, no, 3x3 oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:At least that's what they keep calling me yeah, like on purpose again. So I did see yesterday is it this morning or yesterday morning the kayaking. Oh yep, they did like the 50-foot drop on the kayak and it splashed down. Yeah, they just happened to this thing and they tipped them down. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm interested when the break dancing starts. I guess that's going to be coming up here pretty soon too, so by the time this comes out like you'll already know the answers or whatever. Right, yeah, that's, I don't know. It's going to be interesting. A couple of things, or whatever. Watch some skateboarding. I haven't watched that. The big thing is, have you seen the pictures or the memes, I'm sure, about the? Is it a Hungarian shooter?
Speaker 2:So I was going to talk about that.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll talk about that that popped into my brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's from Turkey, turkey. It looks like a hitman.
Speaker 1:Turkish. There we go. We'll talk about that a little bit later, so lots of stuff to cover here on the old podcast today. I guess that's what we'll go with Olympics.
Speaker 1:We'll do a little bit of that. We'll talk a little bit of beer. We'll talk a little bit of barbecue, maybe even kind of touch on it a little bit. Want to give a little shout out out there, get some information out, but nonetheless let's get into the beer portion. Yeah, we'll drink a little beer, absolutely, I believe. What are we? Episode 29, I think, is what this is, if I remember correctly. I'd have to double check.
Speaker 2:I don't remember.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure that this is at number 29.
Speaker 2:We're getting pretty high up there for me to remember this stuff. I have enough fingers, I know.
Speaker 1:I've run out of toes to be able to count, and you know so it's getting kind of dicey at this point. It is so I have to just write it on my hand or something every time that works, or maybe research before I show up, you know.
Speaker 2:That might work too, but we're not good at that anyways. Yeah yeah, that sounds like too much work. This is all about having fun and just drinking beers.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, but if you go to the link right over here, okay.
Speaker 2:Subscribe, comment donate.
Speaker 1:Yep, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Donate some beer.
Speaker 1:All of the different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you are watching on YouTube, you know definitely, you know like share, subscribe, all the things you know. You know hit that episodes. This will be number 29. And we got all sorts of stuff coming up. You know we have probably the next what three, four, five beers? You know kind of like we have a handful of them that are already kind of in not in production but in preparation. You know we're getting ready for it. We have an idea of what it's going to be and that's going to lead us into kind of the start of Two Guys and Beer road trip.
Speaker 2:It will.
Speaker 1:I mean not really this road trip and more flying, the grand adventure of going to Oktoberfest, oktoberfest, the Oktoberfest. So watch out for some of that stuff. When you get closer to October We'll be doing some live on location from Munich.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll get some live clips and shots. Andy's going to be wearing lederhosen, if you want to tune into that.
Speaker 1:I might even have a schnitzel in there.
Speaker 2:That's what your wife says Careful, careful.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that should be a great time. You know we're going to spend. Yeah, I'm only spending a week over there, but I think you guys are spending a little bit more time. You know there's some additional family that are, you know, going to be spending a couple weeks over there running the Berlin Marathon. That's kind of what it all started, like those silly girls just running doing that. So I ended up signing up.
Speaker 2:He's going to run, I'll be running in Berlin as well. But instead of 26.2 miles I'll be running three.
Speaker 1:It's all about moderation, exactly. We don't want to get too far out of control, so in moderation, 100%. So, yeah, look forward to some of that stuff, but you've got to hit that like button to be able to get. It's free to get in there. We just want you to hit the like button because it's kind of cool to look at the numbers sometimes. Definitely, check that out and check out some of our other episodes for sure. Kind of go through the list and see what's going on and then, if you have any ideas or anything like that, definitely drop us a line.
Speaker 2:Comment on youtube on uh, facebook, instagram, x, buzzsprout, wherever. Yeah, yeah, you can send us text messages on buzzsprout too.
Speaker 1:Yeah anywhere you find us, just go ahead and leave a comment down there. If there's one you want to hear about or you know when you want us to try, or anything like that suggestion yeah, a lot.
Speaker 2:The last few have been suggestions from other people. We have one coming up from belgium that's in like a wine bottle that it's kind of almost on deck here, that we'll be doing pretty soon from a listener. So yeah, let us know anything you want us to try, we'll try to get it Absolutely, and we also want to give a shout out to.
Speaker 1:we've had even a handful of breweries reach out. So whether they're listening in or watching, or if it's somebody you know, one of our viewers, going to them and mentioning it, you know it's kind of fun. We're going to try to, we're trying to coordinate some of that to be able to get them on there as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some things like that, some moving and shaking, if you will, we've got some stuff going on it's fermenting. We're fermenting.
Speaker 1:Got to just toss the random words out there. So today Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is going to be the discussion point, as you can see here on the table of beer. I guess I like it. The display table here Soon to be a round table of beer. You know, I guess you know.
Speaker 2:I like the display table here soon to be around a table of beer.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, I mean, that's another one of the things we got coming up here. In the next handful of weeks we're going to have a new kind of semi remodeled studio, I guess to a certain extent. So we're going to get some of that stuff rolling and, you know, be a little bit of a different look, but same silly ob. Be a little bit of a different look, but same silly obnoxious guys talking about it and, you know, still solid beer all around. Yeah, so today's Sierra Nevada, we're going with the Summerfest today.
Speaker 1:If you go to the Sierra Nevada website, sierranevadacom, a lot of this information is there. They also have a list of all of their different brews. They have all sorts of different things. Probably one of the more popular ones is within their hazy IPA segment. They have a lot of little thing, you know, like the hazy little thing or the strong little thing, different things like that. That's kind of a whole series of different beers that they have within that segment and really the hazy little thing is probably one of the more popular ones that you've seen out. You'll see it at breweries or not breweries, but like bars quite a bit, you know like even here in minnesota we'll see it, you know, in half of the places, if they have like 10, 12 taps, likely one of them is going to be the the hazy little thing.
Speaker 2:It's a big old kind of teal and gold tap handle, I guess, if you will so well, in the sierra nevada it's probably one of the biggest breweries we may have done, maybe outside of Moosehead Breweries. I mean Moosehead's pretty huge up in Canada but I suppose other than that our very first episode we've done. I don't know that anybody might be as big as Sierra Nevada for a microbrewery. I mean, they've got breweries on both sides of the country, essentially kind of you know. So that's why you kind of would find this more everywhere else than opposed to a lot of what we do so far on the show.
Speaker 1:And we'll get deeper into you know some of the details of the history or where they came from, but to your point, as far as size, as of 2016, it was the seventh largest brewing company in the US and the third largest privately owned brewery in the US.
Speaker 2:So oh, so they're right behind Shells.
Speaker 1:Shells is number two. Yep.
Speaker 2:So they're right up there. I think I screwed it up. Shells is well. Yeah, shells is still privately owned, but what was it before? Was it family owned and operated or was it privately owned that we talked about? Shells was number two and Yingling was number one.
Speaker 1:I know that Yingling is the oldest one, whether it's privately owned or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Shells is number two. Yeah, because Shells is right behind it as far as age, Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 1:it has been around for quite a while, but not quite as old as some of those. Those will go back to like the 1800s and many generations. Before we get too deep into that, we got to get this episode started right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all like warm beer. Sierra nevada summer fest refreshing summer lager.
Speaker 1:so it's a lager and they do. We talked a little bit before we went on here. Even even on the label on the top part there you can kind of see it on this side too, but kind of around the top, family owned, operated and argued over, I like to argue it is. If you've ever had a family business you understand what we're talking about. So definitely you know something that there's discussions. Let's see. It would be a 5% by volume. What else Contains malted barley?
Speaker 2:You can definitely taste the barley, the malt in it for sure I'm trying to think if I had it.
Speaker 1:I had an IPA the other day that was super, super malty, like aggressively. So it's still pretty good, but like it almost overdid the hops to it. But that's a different one there. No, this is pretty good. I mean, it's a lager, so it's going to be lighter to begin with, but you know, a summer lager, so very refreshing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's pretty refreshing. It doesn't seem to taste like a lager to me, though light. You know we've had other light beers on the show that taste refreshing and stuff. But the flavor to me doesn't taste like a lager. It tastes more like an ipa, which I like ipas a lot, you know I got pays a lot, so it's different for a lager to taste like an ipa. But it is refreshing, but I don't think it's a lager. I mean, obviously it is, but right, you wouldn't think that if I, if you put this on with a blindfold and I poured some in a cup and you drank it, you definitely wouldn't be like, oh, that's a lager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, it's not that super light, but it is pretty refreshing. It's kind of in that, you know, it kind of almost bridges some of that gap between, you know, like a heavier IPA and like a lighter lager. So it's got some flavor, but it's not like super deep and heavy Lawnmower scale rates pretty high on this one, in my opinion. I'd probably have a couple, three, four of these while mowing lawn and then maybe a couple afterwards as well. You know, pretty nice, nice and refreshing kind of cocktail, so definitely very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wouldn't rate it quite as high. I don't think I could drink like this type of flavor multiple times in a row a couple as high. I don't think I could drink like this type of flavor multiple times in a row a couple. I'd say like two and a half or three lawnmowers, I suppose I would. I would have.
Speaker 2:I could probably slam one after I was sweaty, but then I would probably not want another one after that might have to, because I like the lighter beer, I guess if I'm hot and sweaty, right, but I don't think I would want to drink this around a campfire though, either in the cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it's pretty low on that scale. This isn't built for that.
Speaker 2:No, it's definitely a summer beer, for sure, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's more for the lawn mowing to a certain extent, so you might have to come back to me. I might scale that back.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm just thinking it's light right now Because it's kind of bitter in a way with the malt in it or the barley. So that's what would make it harder for me to drink while I was mowing the lawn or sweating like crazy, or after basketball or a great game of Bram Snapper baseball.
Speaker 1:There we go Some hot snapper action.
Speaker 2:That cannot sound good. My mind is completely wet in the gutter.
Speaker 1:It's just baseball, the Bram Snappers, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, anyways, I'm just going to drink another beer.
Speaker 1:So Sierra Nevada, established in 1979. A little bit of a. I don't know if discrepancy is the right way to really be able to put it, but you know, on their website they talk about 1980 was when they kind of created his first batch. But essentially it was 1979 is when he kind of started putting things together. Excuse me, drank a little bit too fast.
Speaker 2:Here comes the beer. The beer's working already Exactly so.
Speaker 1:He founded it in 79. It's Ken Grossman and paul camusi. Grossman, I think, is more the I don't know if the face of the franchise is the way to be able to put that, but mostly that's who they talk about on their website made a habit of chasing curiosity, backyard tinkering, things like that and then laid out, led to his ultimate discovery homebrewing. Fascinated by the alchemy of fermentation, so getting into, like the chemistry of the bit, sure, ken opened the homebrew shop in Chico in California, started slowly playing with some different flavors, creating more hop forward type of flavors. So that's one of the things about like brewing and you know things of this nature, that brewing has been around for ever, not forever, but for a long time. You know what I mean Hundreds and hundreds of years. At this point in time. You know we, we we talked about, you know spot and going way back and you know some of the you know Yingling being around for hundreds of years. We just talked about shells. This has only been around since, you know, 1979, 1980. 1980 is when they first actually created their big batch and started distributing. 79 is when they kind of put it together and created the business, but it wasn't real wild on flavors at that point in time. You know it was still. There was stuff out there but you know it was like the mountains of Bush and Bud Light and Miller Light things like that. If you're getting a dark, heavy beer you're just drinking Budweiser, things like that. So there wasn't a whole lot of hop forward type of things that were out there at all. So they ended up being kind of one of the first breweries to really kind of push those boundaries to a certain extent back in the early 80s. Mostly he started just kind of in the backyard just tinkering. You know he allegedly bought his first homebrew kit in 1969 when he was actually a teenager and he had to hide it from his mom.
Speaker 1:So 1970, right after that. Then he finds his freedom in this year in Nevada Mountains, which is kind of where the name comes from. So he would go hiking, camping, spend a week to 10 days up there, but that's kind of where some of that stuff kind of came from. That's where that started coming from, when he moved out of his own house and he could actually have his home brewing without trying to hide it from his mom. 72, he was on a road trip, drove through Chico, california, loved it, moved there, opened up the home brewing supply store and started doing things like that. 76 is when he opened up the store. So this is even before the brewery itself. He actually started just doing that. It started slow but he built momentum because he started teaching classes to people. That started slow, but he built momentum because he started teaching classes to people. So he was actually already even at this point in time not even 10 years in to just tinkering with himself, you know, with his own stuff, teaching other people how to be able to do some home brewing.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting. Before he even owned a brewery and was brewing beer for anybody, he was just teaching and nice yeah, which a lot of people I don't know know it's kind of a it's it's a weird, I don't know fascinating.
Speaker 1:It's the right way to put it, but it's a weird different way to be able to go about it. We talked about. You know, people like you know they start with the home kit and they kind of built from there and then they go and work as like a brewer or they make their own brewery or something like that. Like, oh, he made a homebrew kit store, right.
Speaker 2:Instead you went retail.
Speaker 1:You went retail first, yeah, you went retail instead, so a little bit different.
Speaker 2:Which back in the 80s that's kind of unheard of, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That wasn't really a thing. So that's quite visionary, I suppose you could say, for trying to open up a homebrew store to sell supplies to brew your own beer, and it really wasn't quite there yet. Yeah, or your own beer, and it really wasn't quite there yet yeah, he was successful at that too at that time. Now I think he'd be super successful at it because microbrewery and craft brewing it's a big thing now, but in the 80s that's pretty risque.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're definitely stepping out on some thin ice to a certain extent, but give him credit for going ahead and doing it. Yeah, so he started to kind of progress through there. He drives to the hop source in Yakima, washington, and starts convincing merchants to sell him hundreds of one pound brewer cuts to start doing big orders of like hops and things like that. So that's where that started to kind of move up a little bit. Oddly enough, at the time homebrewing wasn't legal. So in 1978, homebrewing is legalized and so he started wrestling with the idea of what's next. Which that kind of gets into like this is a weird thing for me. So in 72, 76, or 76, he opens a store selling homebrew supplies that are illegal. Is that kind of like when you go to a smoke or vape shop and they sell you all of the meth pipes Right or things for?
Speaker 2:pot, or THC pot marijuana. Well, now it's a little different than marijuana.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now it's a little different, but you could still go buy the paraphernalia, I suppose.
Speaker 2:But was it home brewing illegal in the United States at that time? Or was it illegal in just California at?
Speaker 1:that time, see, and here it just says that it was legalized. So you know, I think it's, you know, one of those things where you know he's just kind of winging it and seeing what happens. Winging it and seeing what happens, it's kind of interesting. You know that like it wasn't legal but now is, whether it is just in california or nationwide, to go out and sell that stuff, right, you know, like here's all the supplies to not do what you're exactly going to do right, but maybe that was the loophole in the law.
Speaker 2:You could sell the supplies but, you couldn't actually do it type thing like owning a three-wheeler. You know they were never banned or outlawed per se, but the manufacturers agreed not to build them. But you could still own a three-wheeler and repair it and drive it. I wonder if some kind of weird gray loophole into that maybe, where you could have the supplies or sell supplies or neon lights on cars. You know, different different states have different laws, like in Minnesota. Here we can't put neon lights on our cars, on the underbody or around the license plate or whatever. But you could go down to yourself your local Walmart, you can buy the shit right there and put it on your car. Yep, yep, maybe it was some goofy thing like that in California, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it's California, so it's kind of you know, they're pretty goofy, don't?
Speaker 1:judge me if you're from California I'm judging a little bit, but it's fine. So that was 78, when he, kind of you know, was like all right, you know what. We're going to do this, we're going to make this happen, Not sure how to do it. 79 kind of put together the business stuff and then a 1980 first trial batch of beer, five barrels of stout, Because we're not going to go hop for it, we're going deep in, right to the deep end. It goes to that Built the brew house from scratch, using mostly recycled dairy equipment, testing his handiwork with something rich and heavy. So that's really why he went with. The stout was more so, like I'm not picking my A number one type, this is a test batch and I'm going to run the heavy stuff through it just to see if it holds up and what it turns out. Does it turn out like the way that it's supposed to? So that was November 15th of 1980.
Speaker 1:He put his first craft beer through a 13-hour process and when he tasted it at the end, before you know, he had to let it ferment. But when you let it ferment and you let it carbonate, that's what usually takes time. But the initial brew, once it gets done. You can taste it and that's what it's going to taste like. I mean flat, but that's what it's done. You can taste it and that's what it's going to taste like. I mean flat, but that's what it's going to taste like.
Speaker 1:And so, uh, you know, he, you know, took a sip and he's like, nailed it, let's do it. So then, uh, the pale ale came after that and the pale ale is one of their bigger sellers and uh, that's kind of uh, where that uh kind of kicked off in. We're getting after it and we'll see what happens. So he borrowed $50,000 in loans from friends and family, which I think has worked out okay. I'm not sure how that works as far as like, well, just give me back to 50, or if now you're like a percent ownership in the thing or something like that. But you know it's kind of interesting. You know, like, what people do to get into stuff. You know, I mean don't get me wrong I mean I think we've all been there where you have a business idea and you gotta come up with the money somewhere. You know it's got to be there, and so you're willing to beg, borrow and plead and whatever you can do that's a lot of it.
Speaker 2:You know that's just what has to happen. You know, I was just watching. I like history a lot so I've been watching this thing on american. It's called american dynasty. It goes over like the carnegies and the vanderbilts and the rockefellers and how they started and made the money. And all of them, even though they become the richest people in the world in their day, started by borrowing and begging and pleading for money to start it up. You know. And the most notably, I just watched one on the fords. You know hen Ford. Well, he had to borrow and beg and plead to get $20,000 to start the Ford Motor Company. So all the great ones that's what they do.
Speaker 1:Everybody starts from somewhere. Not everybody starts completely rich and loaded, so everybody's got to start somewhere. So if everybody wants to give us $50,000 to expand the podcast.
Speaker 2:We'll start a brewery on top of it.
Speaker 1:There we go, so yeah, so he did that. With that money he rented a space and started piecing together some equipment. A 3,000 square foot space in a warehouse is what they initially had. He pieced together discarded dairy equipment so he would go through like scrap yards and old farms and things like that and just try to find what he could and just made up his own thing Because now you can go. There's numerous websites. I've been to a lot of them. It's kind of like brewer's porn, if you will. You know what I mean. You can get like all right, you know $50,000, you can put together your own little brew house that is going to be an electronic system with these pumps and all the different stuff. You know you can spend hundreds of thousand dollars on stuff like that to be able to create all of these things that didn't exist then.
Speaker 2:No, Not really. Even the internet Made. The Sears catalog didn't have any brew parts in it yeah, he couldn't Google that.
Speaker 1:You know that was not a thing. Yeah, he couldn't Google that, that was not a thing. So, yeah, so putting that together through dairy equipment and scrapyard metal to be able to create that initially. Obviously later, as they grew, they were able to get secondhand copper brewing equipment from Germany before they started moving into their larger facility in 1989.
Speaker 2:Well, that's cool as hell. That's cool information. I like that information. You know, dairy equipment and scrapyard metal, welding it together, putting it together like that. That's the American way, right there.
Speaker 1:You're just making it happen. Ingenuity. This is what I want to do and, yes, I could buy the whole bit, although at that point, probably I don't even know how you would. But it's like, nope, I needed to do this, so here we go.
Speaker 2:This is what I'm going to do. Yeah, ingenuity and creativity.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Fostered by beer. So November 21st. So this is six days later. So clearly not, you know, didn't wait very long. Like when he tasted that stout he's like nailed it, let's do something else. That's when he did the pale ale Again, as I mentioned, one of the bigger ones that he's ever made 10 batches.
Speaker 1:It took him before he felt comfortable with that one, so the other one was one. This one was at 10 batches. So a little bit different one, a little bit new on the scene. The Cascade Hops gave it a little bit of an intense aroma of pine and citrus and it started to help spark. They were kind of on the is it bleeding edge or the leading edge? I feel like it's the leading edge, but I really don't know. But like the bleeding edge of the creativity of the craft beer revolution when hops started becoming more of a thing smaller breweries, micro breweries, things like that. In my mind I look at that more closer to like the 2000s, but I'm sure it had to start from somewhere. By the time it reached me in rural, rural Minnesota, I'm sure it probably was in a lot of other places before that, so yeah, 1980, they created the pale ale and a little bit more take on beers for the season, which are often spiced and sweet.
Speaker 1:But this one is a little bit different because it's more of a hoppy type of spiced one. So I might have to try that at some point in time. Be kind of interesting to check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be. You know, spiced beer Spice goes with the holidays, though Every time when holidays come, it's always spice this and spice that, and cinnamon spice this, right.
Speaker 1:Candle spice.
Speaker 2:that yeah, exactly. It's almost like everything turns pumpkin. Yeah, everything's pumpkin spice.
Speaker 1:I've seen somebody posted something on Snapchat, like just the other day or whatever, like oh, it's my favorite time of year and they were like taking pictures of pumpkin stuff and I almost threw my phone out the window. I'm like, are you kidding me right now? I mean, I suppose it is August. So now we're back to the Celebration IPA which gets closer to the winter seasonal. At that time the company was selling 950 barrels of beer in the first year, which is, I think that's a that's a pretty solid amount for like 1980.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just starting it up and getting after it. Uh, they doubled that amount by the second year and, uh, they were kind of off to off to the races. Their first employee that wasn't you know the two main guys, the owners uh was, uh, Steve Harrison put in charge of marketing and sales and then, uh, steve Dressler was hired in 83 to help be head brewer. So kind of taking their vision and continuing to create that like actually kind of oversee, like a bar manager you know kind of situation, I guess. So at that point in time they were up to about 25 to 30 barrels per week and then he ended up retiring in 2017. So he actually just retired a handful of years ago, not too long ago, yeah good for him.
Speaker 2:Now his kids run it, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the head brewer.
Speaker 2:Oh, the head brewer. Oh, I thought you were talking about that, yeah the owner.
Speaker 1:He's actually still involved, got it. So that's kind of an interesting twist as well. Let's hear 83, malt and hops. Giant Bigfoot with barley wine type of beer he's all over the board. He's trying all the different stuff 10% ABV and a 90 IBU Wow, that's going to be. That'll put a hair on your nipple, or two.
Speaker 1:That's going to be a different type of flavor that I kind of want to try. Apparently it became kind of a cult classic. Also, in 83, they get the copper brew house that we had talked about before from Germany. If you go to their website again, it's here at nevadacom slash about dash us On the bottom of the page. There there's a timeline that kind of goes through that. But there's a bunch of pictures where I'm going with this. So you see, like the big giant copper kettles, just so, uh, he can afford to ship it overseas but there's no money to install it. So once he got it there they had to just sit on it. So they didn't install it for you know, a handful of years. So it was probably, you know, I'll have to wait and find out you know, when they actually started doing that. I think it probably was 87 or 88 before they actually installed it. So they had to sit on it for like five years.
Speaker 1:All right before they actually installed it. So they had to sit on it for like five years, all right, so they were still hitting max capacity in their 3,000 square foot space. This is around 1986, but the demand is still going up, which is a good thing, you know. I mean, that's kind of what you want it to be able to do. The company distributed its beer itself in the 80s, struggling with financial and marketing problems. A 1982 article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the brewery as well as having beer sold in prominent beers or prominent restaurants helped establish a little bit of market for it. So they were able to kind of get a footing there in the early 80s. But then by 1987, like we were talking about you know, the demand was starting to go up a little bit higher by 1987, like we were talking about, you know, the demand was starting to go up a little bit higher by 1987, they're distributing to seven states and their production is now at 12,000 barrels. So again, by my math it went from what was the start there 950.
Speaker 1:900 barrels and now we are seven years later and we are up to 12,000 barrels. This is still in the 80s.
Speaker 1:So that's a great increase Exactly so in 1988, they move into the 100 barrel brew house for fermenters and 200 US barrel secondary fermenters and that's when they started adding different things like that. Following year, the Sierra Nevada taproom and Restaurant. So opening some additional things in with that kind of as they go through the kind of late 80s that's where they put that new German brew house in play and get that going. So that's when that really started getting after it. 1993, harvestdale is the nation's first wet hop beer where the hops are plucked, delivered and go right into the brew kettle all in a 24 hour window. That sounds fresh. It's a. It's a different flavor. You get a little bit more. It creates more of a disaster.
Speaker 1:If you've ever done any home brewing I'm guessing some people watching maybe have a lot of times you'll get it in like pellets or dried. But what this is and this is actually so the hops that I have growing out here at one point in time Brandon, our homebrewing friend and genius that we're going to have on the episode and an episode here upcoming at some point he helped me with. I picked all the stuff, put it into a tote, brought it all down there and we wet hopped it. We just tossed it right into the thing and just sat there in his driveway and created what turned out to be a really nice American IPA. You know it was really good, but because you're putting it in there, it's, you know, like, if it takes like two pounds two pounds if you've ever grabbed a hop cone they're super, super light so it takes a lot of. It was like almost a full bill to be able to get in there. So to be able to get that kind of mashed down or whatever in the five-gallon kettle, to be able to get that to brew right. It was a little bit of a work, but a very fresh taste to it though. When it came out though, very, very good. So it was a lot of fun to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Let's see here, 1994 production continues to grow and Ken continues to make plans to keep up growing 50% for several years in a row at this point in time. So now we are into the mid to late nineties, just continuing to grow and move forward. Then, in 1998, kamusi one of the original owners it was Ken Grossman and Paul Kamusi Grossman, or Kamusi decided to retire. So 1998, he retired and sold his share of the company to Grossman. So Grossman, at this point, 100% owner and again family-owned, operated and argued over, argued over.
Speaker 2:I love how that's right on the can. That's just a great tagline that you put right on the can, argued over Absolutely Typical family business. My wife has a lot of say in that with her family business. Of course they're always arguing over something, it seems, over there, but that's the way it goes. Everybody wants the best. Everybody's passionate about what they're doing.
Speaker 1:That's going to happen, so in 1997, this is just before Kamusi decides to retire. Ken Grossman decides he's going all in. He sets up the 200 barrel brew house. That is just a stone's throw, just kind of right across from the original hundred barrel German system that he had got. And it's a major expansion fermentation cellars, complex infrastructure, lots of investment, lots going into this and Ken kind of figures that this is the last one.
Speaker 1:If you look at their website, I highly recommend looking at this picture. It's big bay windows with these big copper kettles, with the stacks looking up, just a really cool looking building that they have set up there. And again 1997, this is probably going to be our last expansion because really how much bigger is this going to get Next slide? So at that point in time things continue growing and they start making decisions. We've talked before about breweries trying to give back, trying to be I don't know holistic's not the right phrase, but like trying to be in tune with philanthropy, you know, they just tend to give back to the community a little bit more than your average business.
Speaker 1:And they do a lot with. You know a lot of breweries do a lot with recycling. You know the spent grain it's going to like hog farms or old cans. You know like there's the one that set up like a recycling system within the. You know the city that didn't exist before, like things like that. So 2004, they start kind of leaning that direction. They install four hydrogen fuel cells to drastically offset the energy consumption and work their way towards sustainable brewing. So they start leaning heavy towards the. You know the adjustments with that. The big room in 2000 is what it's called is the big room live music, all sorts of different stuff country, bluegrass, folk, rock, blues and all sorts of other things. So that's kind of what was going on with that expansion. But yeah, 2004, they started going a little bit more green, trying to be able to get that.
Speaker 1:2007, their first phase of solar panels go up, capitalizing on Chico's blazing sun in California, which actually you know what I'm going to take two seconds here and Chico, california, it is. It's in California, all they know. It is north of Sacramento, so it's actually more like upstate. Yeah, it's a fair amount north of Sacramento, north of San Francisco and everything. So it's almost about as far as elevations or anything or whatever, but it's about as far north as Reno, so it's actually quite a ways up, kind of the edge of California there. So nonetheless still a lot of heat and still a lot of sunshine. So they put out 10,000 individual panels. Just a small little bit there, wow, two megawatts of AC electricity, which ends up being about 20% of the needs. So they're still even consuming still that much more with that much that they have there.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good. That's a lot of panels. You said 200 panels, mm-hmm. I've got solar on my house, so I know a little bit about solar and I got it just because I'm sick of paying electric bills. Right, it's not about going green for me, I'm just sick and tired of paying companies money, and we have 36 panels and I generate on average in the month here in minnesota about 1.4 to 1.6 megawatts. And uh, so far all summer I've been getting a check from about 70 80 dollars from the electric company every month, sending me a check all summer.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of interesting that they had 200 panels. Man, if I had 200 panels, hopefully, 10,000.
Speaker 1:Or 10,000 panels yeah, 10,000.
Speaker 2:My God, I've got 36.
Speaker 1:So that amazes me that they must have just massive energy consumption, which I'm sure they probably do with just heating and everything like that. They must have just massive energy consumption, which I'm sure they probably do with just heating and everything like that. But to be able to, you know, 20% of the brewery needs, you know that's quite a bit, that's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's 07-09. They launched the Torpedo Extra IPA, which actually takes dry hopping to a next level, infusing more aroma and bitterness into the actual brew. So I don't know much about that. I'd have to do a little more research on what exactly it is that they do with that. But kind of an interesting thing that even after this they're still creating things to like you know kind of did originally. You know like let's, let's get some innovation here, let's make something so and they're willing to invest in that.
Speaker 2:Not everything's going to work but that's what you need to do to stand out though, too, you know. I mean, obviously, this year nevada's been around for a while now, but compared to now, when there's a brewery on every city, in every corner block, now it gets to the point where they're getting kind of the same Depends on where you go, where you're in. Well, you got to do stuff like that to change your flavors, your styles to keep ahead of the competition.
Speaker 1:You have to innovate. Stay out there yeah.
Speaker 1:So 2010,. Demand continuing to rise, and now that big, massive brewery that they built thinking it was going to be the last expansion now, some 13 years later, is kind of out of room and they got to start making some tough decisions in what they're going to do at that point in time. Around that same time in 2010, they partnered with Abbey of New Clairvue, which is a Trappist monastery in Northern California, to begin a series of Trappist style beers. So now they're pairing with the monks to be able to get that. We talked about that before, didn't we? About the fasting, the fasting.
Speaker 1:That they would have beers. So that's what they've been doing. So the Abbey, though controversial here Not really controversial, but maybe the Abbey has not yet been sanctioned by the International Trappist Association. Therefore, the monastery will not be brewing the official Trappist beer, but Sierra Nevada will be. They just paired with them. So about 2011,. The brewery is now up to an employee roster of about 450 people. Oh, wow. So it has definitely continued to grow and continue to expand. But again, as you mentioned, you get to that 2010, 2011,. Okay, we're kind of big. I feel like it's continuing to grow. What do we do? Right, Build another place? Sure, why not? Let's go to North Carolina.
Speaker 2:The other side of the country Exactly. Why not?
Speaker 1:So they break ground on an East Coast brewery in Mills River, north Carolina, in 2012. So they build a second brewing facility with an attached restaurant. This one is going to be LEED Platinum Certified Building that opened in 2014. Leed by the building that opened in 2014. Leed, by the way, leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is what it is. So it is a LEED certified, which is kind of a big deal. I want to say, is it Target Field? I think is LEED, oh, yeah for sustainability, yeah where?
Speaker 1:the twins play. They've done a lot of that Because they do so much work with the rainwater, like catching the rainwater for future use, of spreading, using the water instead of things like that. So, yeah, they're LEED Platinum certified, so that's kind of a big deal for a brewery to get to that level. Opened in 2014 with a forested track adjacent to the Asheville Regional Airport, they reused the cut down lumber in both the building and for rainwater cisterns that flush the toilets. So they're reusing everything Perfect. So it's quite the accomplishment with that one.
Speaker 2:That's probably not to change the subject too much, but you know they went from built one in California, now they built one in North Carolina. Well, that's actually kind of smart distribution-wise, because if you're on both coasts you're in all the major cities of the country minus, you know, Minneapolis, st Louis and Texas. You know that probably cuts your cost down for distribution-wise, and now you're hitting all the major cities up and down both coasts. Oh yeah, absolutely Well. These up and down both coasts oh yeah, absolutely Well. That's probably the smart way to expand. But I suppose the risk of that too is when you're starting all over on the other side of the country. You're not really close to your home base on the other side of the country, so you're basically starting all up from scratch, brand new, on the opposite side of the country though too, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a and it makes me wonder and it doesn't really allude to it here, but like what brought you to Mills River?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been to North. Carolina like five times and I've never been to Mills River and I don't know exactly where that's at. But I'm going to have to check that out and see.
Speaker 1:But maybe all it is you know, maybe all it is is just we want to pick somewhere on the East Coast Maybe that's what, like you're saying, you know trying to be able to hit both coasts and be able to do that. But it just seems kind of like a you're not going to expand, continuing where you're at, where you can kind of have everything right there and control it. You're going to expand to the other side of the country, right, it seems like kind of an aggressive move, but you know, I mean good, it appears to be just south of Asheville, so it is west of Charlotte.
Speaker 2:So it's on the western side of the state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I've probably ridden my motorcycle through Asheville it appears to be kind of tucked in, kind of where North Carolina, where it tapers off there before you get to like Tennessee and Georgia kind of in that corner there Sure.
Speaker 2:I think that's where the Vanderbilt house is, actually the largest house in the country. I think that's in Asheville, north Carolina, actually. So I've been to Asheville.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:If I'm correct, for some reason I'm thinking the Vanderbilt house house is in Asheville and I've been to Asheville.
Speaker 1:There you go. I've been to not very many places on the east coast closest to I guess I mean I guess it's east dish coast is like Florida, sure, like Miami and Fort Lauderdale, but yeah, nothing really like east, like upper east coast though the Carolinas are great.
Speaker 2:I love the Carolinas that's what I've heard they're gorgeous, I have to do that great motorcycle riding, great barbecue.
Speaker 1:It's, it's everything you know who else really likes North Carolina Ken Grossman's son Ryan. Oh Dad, I will run the North Carolina operation Perfect. Perfect, and so in 2015,. He takes over that side of the operation.
Speaker 2:Smart boy, smart boy.
Speaker 1:So that's where he does there. And then we mentioned that they're LEED Platinum certified. This is 2016 is where they earn it. They built the building and started building in 2012. But, yeah, 2016 is when they actually earn the actual certification. So in my mind, that's a big deal. That's kind of a crazy deal. Let's see here what else they got going on from 2013 to 2022?. They also operated the torpedo room in Berkeley, their first tasting room outside of Chico. So they did a little bit outside of Chico, california and outside of North Carolina, just as a little tasting room didn't make anything there. Just, you know, like here, come try our stuff.
Speaker 1:In 2017, always eager to innovate, they install a Tesla power pack battery system to better use the energy that they produce. So that's one of the things I guess I was thinking about when you talk about 10 000 solar panels. You're getting all that heat right there during the heat of the day, but the rest of the day, when it's not light out, you know what I mean. Like not that you're losing it, but like it's got to go somewhere. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like you need to store it somewhere. Yeah, that's the big thing with solar, is you need some place to store it. If you don't have any place to store it, it's kind of all for not exactly so, and so that's kind of what what they're doing here is.
Speaker 1:In that 2017, they install a the tesla power pack. It jumps in when demand is, uh, is low and then it, you know, kicks in when demand is low and then kicks in when things bump up and the solar panels aren't really doing much with that. So let's see here, twenty eighteen, a massive wildfire in Butte County. They work together with a lot of things there. More than fourteen hundred craft breweries joined them in a Brazil. They were brewing Resilience. Butte County. It's a proud IPA fundraiser with 100% of the sales going to the fire relief. So kind of a cool thing that they did at that point in time in 2018. So wildfires, you know, are devastating, you know, especially in parts of California, getting to like Idaho, things like that. Like, you know, it's just crazy. But, um, they, you know, did a lot to be able to put money back into that community with that. So, uh, let's see here the 2018, our beer styles start to diversify and they decide to join the haze craze which everybody, everybody's all about the hazy IPAs.
Speaker 1:I don't know what your take is on hazy IPAs. They're not bad. I'm not really the biggest fan of that my brother-in-law, al. He wants to get a shirt bring clear back or make clear great again. He wants to get that to bring back clear IPAs instead of hazy IPAs, which I support that. But hazy little thing, which is, I think we mentioned before, probably their top seller now because it's everywhere. You can't hardly go to a bar now and not see it on tap. It is, as I mentioned, number one hazy IPA in the nation there you have it.
Speaker 1:Verified, I validated my bullshittery.
Speaker 2:You're like a wizard.
Speaker 1:Something like that. Let's see here. It's the first in the step of the Little Things series that I had mentioned before, sure, so they kind of go in with that. Let's see here. What else do they? They got here, they talk a little bit, you know, kind of while there during the 80s, which kind of helped them kind of stand apart. You know, I guess is kind of really what it was.
Speaker 1:But when they get to their 30th anniversary in 2010, they released a series of collaborative beers with the assistance of those that Grossman thought was an early influence, and he's got a list of about four different brewers so he did some collabs and released those. So kind of an interesting thing with that to be able to claim with that and be able to work with that. So let's see here. In 2010 also, they won the US EPA's Green Business of the Year Award. So they're not messing around with that. It's a massive thing that they got going on there. They create that with the solar array that they have. They have the charging stations, they have the battery packs that they got there. They apparently also use a small-scale Bio pro biodiesel processor to convert used cooking oil from its own restaurant into biodiesel for the delivery trucks.
Speaker 1:Well that's pretty cool. Let's do everything.
Speaker 2:My wife's company actually did this. So my wife owns a towing company. Her and her family own a towing company in Minneapolis. Well, for a while you know they collect cooking oil. Well, now they just sell it back. You know companies that make biodiesel. For a while you know they collect cooking oil. Well, now they just sell it back, you know, to companies that make biodiesel. But for a while they did the same thing. They collect the oil they collected, they boiled it down and purified it, made their own biodiesel for their own trucks, for towing. So that's pretty cool that you can do that with cooking oil. You know to run your trucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great way to be able to move that forward. You know what I mean. You'll still be able to use that. In 2009, they made an agreement with a local ethanol company to create a high-grade ethanol fuel from its discarded yeast. So they're now reusing that. The spent grain is sold to local cattle ranchers for livestock feed. The spent water is sent to the brewery's own water treatment plant.
Speaker 2:That they have, because why wouldn't you have your?
Speaker 1:own water treatment plant where it's reused mainly as drip irrigation for its fields that it has. 99.5% of the brewery's plant's solid waste is diverted from landfills. Wow, that's cool. So they do a ton of work with that. They own one mile of a railway in Chico for intermodal freight transport, which helps reduce the carbon footprint. It can hold the equivalent of four semi-trailers full of grain, so you just rail car that stuff right in there.
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, much more efficient than ground transport, and so you know they continue with that. Uh, sierra nevada is the largest buyer of organic hops in the united states and it also farms its own organic hops and barley for the use in its own chico estate harvest ale release.
Speaker 2:So they do a lot of their own stuff that they're, they're doing I think all that technology is neat behind the green stuff. I'm not like this big go green guy that's going to save the planet, because I don't believe it will, but I think using things responsibly is good for the planet and good stuff and all these companies, especially the breweries, that do that. I think the technology that goes into that to reuse stuff and the solar and the batteries and the water, I just think that's cool technology. Oh, absolutely. You know it's a bummer that that technology costs more expensive than like fossil fuel technology and stuff, you know, but it's super cool technology and how it works you know, on that sustainability stuff.
Speaker 2:It's highly interesting.
Speaker 1:So let's move up now to 2020, and then we're going to jump back to 2016 in a second here. But 2020 is when there's just more business.
Speaker 2:Turn on the flux capacitor Yep.
Speaker 1:We got to get things rolling here. Let's hear 2020. They venture beyond beer because everybody's got to go beyond beer, although this one doesn't, maybe at least yet doesn't, go a seltzer route. They start making kombucha. So they make strange beast hard kombucha. Fermentation frenzy is tough to tame and they challenge it. You know they really like it. So kind of a fun little thing. The last one that they have on their website, here the information here. Kind of a fun thing. A keg of big little thing. So one of the little things, the hazy IPAs a keg of that flies 438 feet, breaking the Guinness world record title for the longest distance. A 20 kilogram projectile has been thrown by a trebuchet. So you know, those are the tumbling things that you know like throw pumpkins or whatever they. They put a keg in that thing and they launched that heifer right across. You know tumbling things that throw pumpkins or whatever. They put a keg in that thing and they launched that heifer right across, clear across the county, to be able to set a record.
Speaker 2:I wonder if there are videos of that on YouTube.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there probably has got to be something somewhere.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to find a video of that and throw it up on like, edit it in somehow to the episode of a flying keg.
Speaker 1:Right, it's going to be the kegs that are going to be flying over the top of my head over here, or your head, I guess, I don't know which direction it's flipping Right. So then, just to kind of recap, I mentioned we're going to go back to 2016. Let's go back to 2016, more so. Just that's where the data is coming from. We talked in their first year, in 1980, that they were what were they? 950 barrels. Is that what it was? I believe that's where they were at 950 barrels. So, as of 2016, it is the seventh largest brewing company in the United States and the third largest privately owned brewing company in the United States, and it was producing 786,000 barrels. Holy cow.
Speaker 2:The coolest thing about all that is the second fact is they're privately owned. I think that's the coolest fact of any brewery that we do that's privately owned. You get sick of these big Anheuser-Busch's and Miller Lite cores. They combined and stuff. Here you got. The seventh largest brewer in the United States is family-owned. How cool is that? You know, independently family. I think that's cool as hell. That's my favorite fact.
Speaker 1:So Grossman and his wife Katie they have three children they still live in Chino, still own the brewery, still, you know, operate it Again family-owned, operated and argued over still at this point. His son, brian, and daughter Sierra will run the company when he retires. So he hasn't even retired yet. But Brian did move to North Carolina to manage that one in Mills River.
Speaker 2:So he is. Maybe there's less arguing over there in North Carolina too.
Speaker 1:Altogether possible, but everybody back home. Because Wikipedia likes to throw random facts out there, because it's, you know, your trusted source of information Exactly. But so the funny part here is so, like Brian, he moved to Mills River, north Carolina, to be able to run that one there in 2014. And his wife Katie, is a non-alcoholic 2014. And his wife Katie is a non-alcoholic. She's a it says here. She's a teetotaler, which is practice and promotion of total abstinence from consumption of alcohol, so she doesn't drink at all.
Speaker 2:Well, that's an interesting combination.
Speaker 1:But he is now the head of one of two major breweries that is one of the largest ones in the nation in the country, right, yeah, wow, so kind of a fun little uh bit tidbit of information that's interesting, yeah, so yeah, that's uh kind of our information that we got here on, uh, sierra nevada. So sierra nevada summer fest, summer, refreshing summer lager, as I mentioned. You know, the the hazy little thing, the the little thing series that they have is uh the hazy little thing, big little thing, cosmic little thing, tropical little thing, juicy little thing, dank little thing, cool little thing, all part of like a lot of little things goes.
Speaker 1:It seems like it's kind of a big thing at this point. Yeah. So there's all sorts of different things. I'm kind of the cool little thing is a cryo fresh hazy. So I don't know how that works, but I'm willing to try something. But yeah, so that's the story of Sierra Nevada. You know, good beer, very solid stuff. Originally our plan with this brewer was we were going to. We have a friend of ours that was, you know, wanted to show an interest in being on the episode with us. Timing-wise we just didn't quite make it work out, but at the same time we also do want to give a huge shout-out to him anyway, because I love the guy and everything that he's doing. Clint Peet's, good friend of ours, a good friend of the program, was what we'll put it. That's the way we'll put it. But they just had they've been doing a barbecue thing. Uh, pete's out barb barbecue. So p-e-e-t-z. Pete's out barbecue is, uh, you can find them on instagram.
Speaker 2:They're on facebook. Yeah, he's on tiktok.
Speaker 1:They're, you know, kind of all over the place we got an award.
Speaker 1:I think he just won a third place trophy this weekend, so I was just gonna say they were out at a event this weekend and uh, yeah, they got a third place award in that one. They've been out doing all sorts of different things in many different locations, so I would definitely recommend, you know, kind of look them up on the old Instagram on the gram, if you will, the gram, the gram and give them a little bit of love and kind of get an idea of what they're doing there too. So I think that they do a fantastic a job with a lot of their stuff. Uh, um, I don't see where it was that they were at with this one, but there's a a long, stressful day, but they got reserve grand champion, so second place in that one. So a lot of, a lot of cool things that they're doing there. So, uh, pizza barbecue. I definitely recommend checking that out. And, uh, they got some good stuff and I've been drooling over his stuff on the Instagram for quite some time. Definitely something worth checking out.
Speaker 2:And what goes better in the summer with Summerfest beer than some good old-fashioned barbecue in the summertime?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's a great combination, absolutely, and actually barbecue would probably go fantastic with this beer. I think this is a great beer to drink while you're eating some barbecue Like this would be stellar. This would be like five lawnmower beers then.
Speaker 1:I was going to say do I have to change my scale? Now it's a zero lawnmower because I'm not even going to get on the lawnmower, I'm just going to drink and eat barbecue. That's okay. That's a good adjustment. That's a good adjustment. We added the campfire scale last time, so maybe we add the barbecue scale, Not the barbecue yeah, we're going to have so many scales we won't even keep them straight anymore.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. So, yeah, it's a solid beer, but, yeah, definitely check out what Clint has with the Pizza Out Barbecue. Definitely recommend that, and we'll make sure our tech guy puts the nice link right here, right, wait, no, right here, wait, no right here. Somewhere in there, mess with them and make them move it around somewhere. So, uh, yeah, definitely check that out and, uh, I think he does a great job and wish him all the best there. But we'll have him on an episode at some point. Yeah, for sure we'll still get him out here and do that. So, but yeah, that's our uh story of uh, of a Sierra Nevada. We talked a little bit of Olympics earlier, did yeah?
Speaker 2:What else goes on in the summer? Yeah, Summer fest the Olympics. Yeah, every four years. So, yeah, so we had brought up that. Uh, I wanted to bring it up. You kind of brought it up that guy, Well, I think he be wrong he's probably from our jobs, yeah but did everybody see that guy?
Speaker 2:he what? He won a silver medal with his hand in his pocket. Just his old spectacles on his face, no scopes, no tape on the other eye, no arm braces. No, this, no, that. He just raised the pistol, pow, pow and you look at like some of the other people.
Speaker 1:They got like this like thing covering their eye or they they have like like it's like a goggle you know, like all sorts of different things, that they got going on Scopes on their pistol. This guy had a look about him that he looked like he was disappointed that he couldn't have like a heater, you know, hanging off his lip he probably should have, and his hand was in his pocket, likely because he couldn't he wasn't allowed to have a beer in his hand. That's kind of the look that he kind of gave off.
Speaker 2:he wasn't allowed to have a beer in his hand.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the look that he kind of gave off. He didn't know what else to do with it at that point Exactly. He's like all right, bam, bam, bam Keep shooting, keep knocking stuff down.
Speaker 2:What a great story. I'll have to do a little digging into that guy and how it came to be. It's almost like a John Wick he just shows up, wins a silver. All right, I'm out yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the best part about the Olympics is you get just the randomness of things like that that happen. You know what I mean. We're so used to the big major sports that are so like refined and TV ready and stuff like that, and then you get the Olympics every you know couple of years, where just random Joe Bagadona shows up and does something ridiculous like that, and if he didn't do that, we probably wouldn't even be talking about the shooting portion of the Olympics.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Because he did that, yep. It brings attention to it. Now it's fired away. And what's more interesting in all the shooting sports this year, guess who didn't medal? Surprisingly, the United States, us. Yeah, you think the United States should medal every year in shooting because we own the most guns in the world privately. You think we would know how to shoot, but apparently we don't.
Speaker 1:I think I actually was watching some of that the other night. I made that comment that I'm like, yeah, US, all the guns can't hit anything. That's why we need that many guns. We've got to throw all the bullets that direction. It's volume over.
Speaker 2:Volume over accuracy. Exactly, yeah, it's volume. Volume over accuracy. Exactly yeah, um, yeah, that's crazy. And what else? On the olympics, the swimming I watched like the little bit I consumed was the swimming. What was her lid? Liddicky, katie, ledecky, ledecky, yep, one by like 10 or 11 seconds, like yeah, I was watching the screen your lap in the field. There was nobody else on the screen like holy cow.
Speaker 1:And she's getting closer to 30, which is unheard of to be that elite level. And she also was making comments about like well, I'm not retiring. La is coming up at four years, you know, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess, if you're winning by 12 seconds, you're really going to lose that much Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, instead of her trainings it could maybe just be a couple beers instead A couple Summerfest from San Fernando. There we go, absolutely.
Speaker 2:What have you been watching on the Olympics?
Speaker 1:A lot of that same stuff. I've been trying to watch some of the sand volleyball.
Speaker 2:I was watching some men's volleyball earlier today. They're pretty talented and doing pretty well, brazil, united States. Is that the one you watch, yep?
Speaker 1:Yep, that was a pretty good match. But I don't know. I try to bop around Every so often I'm just like all right, what's going to be on Handball is kind of a little weird to watch, but it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2:I like watching water polo. I don't know why, but in the past, Watch a little bit of badminton.
Speaker 1:you know, with the, you know the little rackets. Badminton is good and let's hear what else Table tennis which is. I just can't get my head around like how fast that moves and how you know to react to that.
Speaker 2:Well, and it starts so slow, like when you watch them serve. They're all you know, a little tap and it's like, and then two hits later they're standing 20 feet behind the table.
Speaker 1:It's rah-ha, you know, just going crazy Like how does it even happen?
Speaker 2:Like I love playing table tennis, I have one in our house.
Speaker 1:Nobody likes to play with me too much. I will happily play. I'm terrible at it.
Speaker 2:You can kick my ass, but it's a fun sport, if you want to call it a sport, I suppose. But yeah, watching those on there how they serve it so softly, you know there's a little tick-tick and then five swings later they're 20 feet away like Forrest Gump, you know. Yeah, it's just nuts. That's a lot of fun to watch. The table tennis Did the United States even medal in that? I don't know if they did or not, I know there was what was it? No, they did.
Speaker 1:They did because there was discussion of Anthony Edwards about if he was going to score against them at all and all of our players were like Asian players.
Speaker 2:They were United States, but they were Asian. So the meme was like oh good, one United.
Speaker 1:States Way to take that.
Speaker 2:We had to recruit from Asia somewhere in Asia.
Speaker 1:We got them a job at sierra fata brewing.
Speaker 2:It's fine date yeah, so we did win something.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what we placed in but yeah it's, I don't know, it's crazy to watch some of that stuff, but yeah it's, uh, I don't know if nothing else, it's even you know, fun kind of seeing just the randomness of who's good at what and where. You know what I mean. Like you even look at like track and field it was I was talking the other day about. You know, like I'm sure that you know like a Noah Lyles or you know, like the elite level sprinters, you know, like a Usain Bolt, obviously he's going to be able to. Running is his job. He's going to make enough money from promotional stuff, advertisements, things like that. That he's, that's what he's going to do.
Speaker 1:Simone Biles, likely gymnast, that's what she's going to do. If you're a high jumper, do you think, even if you're like an elite level, like world record holding high jumper, do you think that, like, cause that's the only thing that you really do, like they don't do other stuff? I mean, they do high jump for, like you know, I think, for like the decathlon, but if you're doing that, you're a decathlete, right you're doing the people that just do that.
Speaker 1:Just do that. Do you think that they have like the year out? Or they they're the ones that work at home depot, because they always have the commercials that like home depot sponsors, you know, whatever and right, let people go to the olympics, or something yeah, they, they do, and uh, that kind of brings me into something I wanted to bring up.
Speaker 2:So I work for the world's largest retailer, and one of the people that worked there just missed the Olympics. He was trying to do the 200-meter hurdles and he just missed out from qualifying. He got to the final and he was the first one not to qualify in the Olympics.
Speaker 2:So he was just right there, just right on the edge. But it's got me thinking. You know from reading in the past and what I've dug up Olympic athletes really don't make money. The winners might take home $30,000, then they pay tax on that stuff when they come back to the United States and that's just a travesty. It almost kind of put a bad taste in my mouth this year about the Olympics, and why I haven't consumed as much is it's the athletes that make the Olympics happen. Yeah, billions of dollars are made off the Olympics. Where the hell is that money going Right? It sure as hell isn't going into the athlete's pocket, where it should go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Meanwhile they're in the athlete's village sleeping on cardboard beds or in the park.
Speaker 2:Did you see? That guy from italy was so disgusted with where they were sleeping. He went and slept in the park. Oh wow, he rolled out a mat and that's where he slept. Like what, like what is happening here? The money should be going to the athletes more than everybody else means to be a little higher percentage there it does and and and.
Speaker 2:Another thing that bugs me about the olympics is why in the hell every city that hosts it, why do they always got to build brand new shit just for the Olympics, and when the Olympics are gone, it falls into disrepair? What a complete waste. We have the facilities worldwide and all these major cities use the facilities that already exist. Already exist, you know, maybe remodel it a little bit or update it before the Olympics, but you don't need a brand new swimming facility, a brand new this facility, a brand new track, and feel like that's such a waste and a crock of crap, if you ask me.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that it needs to be in the US all the time, but that's one of the things I've read. You know that, like, there was an article at one point that said that St Paul should bid for winter or summer because they have all of the facilities within an hour to do everything. You know, they might need to do a little bit of work on the ski jump off on, you know 494, but you know, I think that they could probably like throw some snow down on it and it'd be all right, but they're not spending a billion dollars on infrastructure and a bunch of other stuff to be able to do that, to use for two weeks, exactly. Yeah, they're going to book out all the hotels, but they're going to use the Target Center, they're going to use Target Field, they're going to use, you know, like, us Bank Stadium, they'll use the college stuff. Like all of this stuff is there. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:If you want to use, like some of the hills in Duluth, I mean of the stuff is in. You know, like what is it? The surfing, the surfing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought that was funny.
Speaker 1:You've got to have it somewhere where they have waves, you can't just you know, like we're just going to get everybody to like slap the water real hard on the other side of the river, but like something like that, you've got to put it somewhere. But you know, like of money to that area, but you're also going to have now all these buildings that are just unused.
Speaker 2:And then they cost how much to maintain and that's why they become unused and fall into disrepair, because you need to pay to maintain that stuff and if it's not used and you're not maintaining it and I know a lot of places- in the past have used it as like okay, the athletes village is going to be more permanent housing and it will become like low income housing or things of that nature.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. So you're still using it for purposes, but at the same time, yeah, you saw these big stadiums that you know are now being built for temporary use for no reason.
Speaker 2:And that kind of money, even in the United States I'm not just talking to other countries Even in Atlanta, the 96 Olympics, they built stuff there that they just use and have been abandoned ever since. It doesn't make sense to me. The money needs to go back to the athletes. It shouldn't be all about the athletes, not about the advertisements and the promotions. It's about athletics, country versus country competing athletically. That's what I think we need to get back to more of. I mean, look at what they're swimming, what the river's in. We've got athletes swimming in poop or puke or sewage or something, and a handful of them have gotten ill now and some of them are puking.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's fine. The test said it was just barely under the legal limit.
Speaker 2:What is happening? I'm fine with swimming in actual rivers. I think we should, instead of building it, but you supposedly said you cleaned it up.
Speaker 1:Like what's going on? They spent a ton of money just to clean it up and then it rained and it put it right back and, like you didn't plan for a rain, you didn't have a rain plan.
Speaker 2:Why is it happening? Why is that river getting polluted so much? That's what they need to figure out in France. Yes. You know you want to keep it clean.
Speaker 1:What is it that's causing it? You're just dumping your sewers directly out into there. Where is it coming from Exactly?
Speaker 2:And I would imagine that cost would cost France enormous amounts of money, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:But that gets into like maybe don't award them the Olympics to have them swim out there in the first place, Right? Or have a different plan. You know like, if we're running, you know like people all over different countries for different sports, why do we have to use the river here that's full of poop? We could do the triathlon in another one that has all the things. You know it's just good. Triathlon's not something you have like a lot of people that are sitting watching, except for, like the end and the start or some of the transition places, Right. But it's not like you're just sitting. It's not like basketball where you can see you watch the whole three hours. You know like it's such a distance You're spending a lot of that time just by yourself out there running. It's goofy.
Speaker 2:You brought up basketball. Let's do the 3x3. The United States got their ass kicked. Oh my God. I watched the first two matches. Why? Who are who's even on our team? I didn't even know any of them, except for Fred.
Speaker 1:Jimmer.
Speaker 2:Fredette Jimmer.
Speaker 1:Woo Jimmer.
Speaker 2:You know, and he got hurt, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he got hurt. He was a ball player.
Speaker 2:But the other three, I didn't know who else. Never one too, whatever haley van lith is a elite college player, but the other three, four, I didn't know who they were and I get nba players aren't gonna go do that like yeah, I understand that, but college level athletes like just yeah, people, I know, maybe you know right yeah, well, I think that's probably it's new, but yeah, it's probably one of the things that's probably holding back there.
Speaker 1:I guess to a certain extent notoriety is is, you know, just that name recognition. You know you put a guy like Jimmer out there or Haley Van Lith like you at least. Oh hey, that's somebody like I can attach to that. You know what I mean Because you know who it is.
Speaker 2:But his name recognition came years ago. Oh my God, yeah, he was like 20 years ago. And then you got what Chase Budinger from Wisconsin, former Timberwolves player, wisconsin, badgerite.
Speaker 1:Trying to make some stuff happen, but they lost Today.
Speaker 2:I think they did, they lost.
Speaker 1:Today it's going to be a different day when you Listeners have it. But you know, today it was devastating for me.
Speaker 2:This will come out in a little bit. Yeah, I don't know Olympics.
Speaker 1:Well, what else? You got anything else on your mind Otherwise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this will come out in a little bit. But yeah, yeah, I don't know Olympics. Yeah, well, what else you got Anything else on your mind Otherwise? Oh well, one quick thing I kind of thought was funny. I was bringing up Brazil. I read it on the New York Times, but I also read it on CNN and stuff. You know super trusted forms of information, but apparently these sharp-tipped sharks down in Rio de Janeiro.
Speaker 1:I can't talk.
Speaker 2:I just can't talk. Just don't listen to me yeah, down there off the coast of Brazil. Okay, so some scientists caught like 12 or 13 of them and you know they do tissue samples and this and that and they're full of cocaine. I think I heard that. So now we have sharks that are on cocaine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like cocaine bear, but cocaine sharks instead.
Speaker 2:So I was reading the article and they were talking about the wash off of cocaine into the streams and stuff. And then or is it coming from cocaine that gets thrown overboard and sharks are eating it? Like that's interesting. That's kind of scary. We got sharks on cocaine. It kind of starts to make me think of Sharknado 5.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Or what's the other one.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's going to be the next one. It's going to be Sharknado 9, sharks on cocaine.
Speaker 2:The cocaine.
Speaker 1:They're really coming to get you now.
Speaker 2:Like how funny is that they had that much cocaine in their system. The article said, I believe in the New York Times, it was 100 times more than like the average harm might be found Like what the fuck? What are these sharks are doing on cocaine? I wonder if they should.
Speaker 1:That should be a new Shark Week episode there you go Sharks on cocaine, we'll put the Rock on that one. Yeah, we'll get him going.
Speaker 2:Study their behavior while they're on cocaine, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get back to us in a week.
Speaker 2:Are they more promiscuous? Right Are they more docile?
Speaker 1:There's more. All of a sudden there's like 100 more sharks, like I don't know what happened. They're all on cocaine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sharks on cocaine. Sharks on cocaine In Brazil. So if you're in Brazil, stay out of the water.
Speaker 1:There we go Sierra Nevada and sharks on cocaine, that's what we do on the Two Guys and Beer podcast.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Well, I definitely recommend going out and getting yourself some Sierra Nevada of any kind, but the Summerfest is a solid option. A lot of fun having that today, and I think it'd be good for a nice hot day at some point in time, some barbecue.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. You know, check out Pete's out barbecue. You know like share, subscribe, but you don't take him. And then to any of the stuff for ours on any of our different platforms. Give us any feedback or any ideas of stuff you want us to be able to do and yeah, we'll. I, I'm sure, talk to you next time. All right, cheers.
