Barrel-aging has become all the rage in the brewing world. From Goose Island’s highly celebrated Bourbon County stouts, to the growing popularity of kettle sours, to the rediscovery of the historic tradition of wood-aged lagers, the range of barrel-aged beers has never been broader, which means that there should be a barrel-aged beer for every imbiber. Yet figuring out which one you might like, and how they differ, can be a bit complicated.
That’s why on this week’s episode of the VinePair Podcast, Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe are joined by beer expert and VinePair associate editor Cat Wolinski to take an in-depth look at this trend: where it came from, where it’s going, and whether barrel-aged beers are an ideal choice for long-term cellaring.
Listen Online
Or Check out the Conversation Here
Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.
Cat: From Manhattan, New York, I’m Cat Wolinski.
Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.
A: And this is the VinePair Podcast, and Cat we are so excited to have you guest co-hosting with us this week.
C: Well, thank you. It’s good to be back. I haven’t been on here in a while.
A: I know, and you would think we hadn’t talked about beer if you hadn’t been on here, but we have, I promise.
C: Well, that’s debatable.
A: Come on. You know that we talk about beer.
C: Barely.
Z: I think to Cat’s defense, I think we may have done more spiked seltzer podcasts than beer podcasts recently. So it’s been suffering a little bit, but hey, that’s why it’s great to have you on.
A: I mean, honestly. So just to start off, what have you guys been drinking? Cat, what about you? What have you been drinking this week? Besides, lots of things in the election.
C: Oh, God, you should see my bottle lineup from the other night. The one beer that I’m excited about this week is an imperial stout from Brown’s Brewery. It’s this really cool, opaque black bottle. And I can’t see the name on it right now, but it is not a barrel-aged stout, which was kind of what piqued my interest in it, because I’ve been so deep in barrel-aged stouts recently.
And with the Bourbon County tasting that we did with Goose Island and all of that, it was like, “oh, right. So there can be imperial stouts that don’t spend a year in a super exclusive, coveted bourbon barrel.” And it’s really delicious. It’s made of ancho chili peppers and cocoa nibs and a couple of other fun ingredients.
A: Wow. You know, it’s funny that I wasn’t even surprised when the thing you were drinking this week was a beer. I was like, “Oh my God, is Cat going to throw out a cocktail?” Oh my gosh, it was a beer. But that sounds delicious, actually. Ancho chilies?
C: Oh, it’s so good. It’s not spicy, but you get that dusty-spice flavor and essence, if that makes sense? You know, the flavor of the pepper without the heat? I like it.
A: I dig. I dig. Well. What about you, Zach?
Z: I got to say my late-night drink of choice — because the last couple of days I have been just too anxious and nervous to even drink, which I know sounds weird to people, but I can’t drink during important sporting events for the same reason. Like it just f***s with me too hard. So I have been having a lot of single-malt Scotch. Well, a fair bit of single-malt Scotch at the end of the night to help me sleep. And I’ve got to say, so this is a little bit of a deep cut, but my wife and I picked up a bottle of a limited release from Compass Box, which is like a Scotch blending house. But they blend really, really nice parcels of single malt. So it’s not like sometimes people think blended Scotch and think cheap, even though obviously things like some of the Johnny Walker bottles are not cheap at all. And this is in that same category. It’s their Peat Monster Arcana, which is a limited release, and a very peaty Scotch, and it is f***ing delicious. Smoky for sure. But also has more of a chocolatey tone to it than a lot of that style of Scotch. And it’s this cool piece of blending, where, I have a lot of love for single malts and drink a lot of them and have a lot of them, but blended Scotch sometimes can offer you a flavor profile that no single distillery is ever going to give you with a single malt. So I have a special spot in my heart for those, too. And that’s what I’ve been drinking.
A: That sounds very, very tasty. So obviously, this week has been the election that still isn’t over. Hopefully by the time you listen to this podcast, it will be over. But so far it is not. And so I’ve consumed a few different things. Just rolling through. I actually had a cocktail I think I’ve talked about before, that I’ve made that’s a riff on a cocktail from a really great cocktail bar in New York City. Well, they own two, but one is called Elsa. The other is called Ramona. And it’s called The Death of the Lady’s Man. I made that on the beginning of the actual election night on Tuesday, which was really delicious. And I made that with a little bit of WhistlePig Piggyback, which was pretty tasty. And it was really, really good. And then I also actually — I know I talk about them a lot and I think it’s gonna sound like I’m running a commercial for them — but last night I drank a few Threes. And yeah, I had Wandering Bine, which is my favorite beer they make.
C: That’s your favorite beer because I told you it’s your favorite beer. It’s my favorite beer.
A: Thanks, Cat. Yes, it’s a delicious beer. It’s a delicious beer.
C: That was the staff favorite beer. We all went home with a bottle the last time we went to the tap room.
A: It’s a great beer. And I also had a limited release IPA they just came out with that was pretty tasty, as well. And I can’t remember the name so I’m not going to share it with you guys. So those are the things that I’ve been drinking this week, but we’ll see. We’ll see what happens tonight and through the weekend, if this shit continues to get out of hand, but yeah. So otherwise, you guys holding up OK?
C: Yeah. I just want to say, by the way I looked up the beer, because it’s sitting right next to me. It’s called Calavera. And it’s got ancho chilies, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, and cocoa nibs. This is like a delicious dessert for the holidays. Whether your holidays are actually joyful, or if you’re just sitting at home on your couch, like me. I highly recommend it.
A: Amazing. So I guess guys, let’s get into it. So today we’re talking about barrel-aged beers, and just aging beer in general. So, I mean obviously, Cat, there’s no one better to chat with about that than you. And I guess I’ll jump off and just say, I’ve enjoyed barrel-aged beers in the past. But to me, they often are just so boozy, that they’re not something I go to very often. I know, obviously around this time of year is the big Goose Island Bourbon County Stout release, but I’m not that familiar with them, to be quite honest. I don’t drink them very often, and I’ve actually never aged beer. So I don’t have any experience aging it. I’ve had other people’s aged beers. Sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re dead. I had an experience recently with one of our contributors, Aaron Goldfarb, where he opened up a few of his beers from his “cellar,” and they were all kind of dead. So I don’t have the most amazing experiences, but I definitely think they’re interesting. So I don’t know, why should we be drinking more barrel-aged beer? And what is it about them that has so many people so obsessively collecting them?
C: Where to begin? First of all, I will note that you’re asking why should we be drinking them? Which is: The most important thing to do with a barrel-aged stout is just drink it. I have also aged many beers in my “cellar,” which has usually just been a hot corner of whatever apartment I’m living in. And it does not really bode very well. So, I too, have ruined many a beer that I held on to for years and years for no real reason. But what makes them so appealing is a lot of things. There’s the cool technical part that this is beer that’s been aged in a barrel. It kind of brings it up to that level of bourbon or wine or something that you picture in this really time-consuming, skillful pursuit, right? And it’s also just: We love bourbon and America. So really, bourbon barrel-aged stouts are what really started the whole trend, and what made it such a big deal. We put bourbon in anything. We just published a story recently about why Americans are bourbon barrel-aging everything. Even one of the Goose Island variants this year is also aged in three different distilleries’ barrels. And then also with maple bourbon barrels. The barrel that was bourbon, and then bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup was in it. And then that syrup is used in the beer, which is then bourbon barrel-aged. It’s just insane and cool.
Z: And I’m wondering too Cat, I think one of the things that I’m always curious about with these kinds of beers is to some extent, I think — as is the case with anything that gets aged in a barrel — we talk a little bit about the flavor profile change, but I also wonder, one of the things that’s cool about aging is a lot of my frame of references is with wine or spirits, but do you feel like the beer benefits from a changed or softened texture as well? Is that something that’s noteworthy, and is that something where aging the beer further can also do it? Because I think that Adam’s caveat or qualm about some of these beers that I’ve shared in the past is that a 9 percent alcohol beer — besides being just a little dangerous, if you’re trying to do anything else with the rest of your day, is a problem. But also that sometimes high-alcohol beers can just be a little intense. And I’m wondering with some aging, either in the barrel initially or further bottle aging, do you sense a softening of the beer over time?
C: Yes and no. So two things: One, with bourbon, barleys, beers and in general taking an imperial stout and aging it in a bourbon barrel or whiskey barrel, or any spirit’s barrel, you’re boosting the flavors of the beer. So that’s not like you’re trying to take an imperial stout and make it less. You’re trying to really push those flavors and bring out as much as you can. So, a high alcohol stout will have roasty flavors, chocolate flavors. Vanilla. And that will become even more pronounced and nuanced if it’s aged in a whiskey barrel. So you get the vanilla from the oak and you get caramel and other kinds of flavors coming from the whiskey that was in the barrel. So that’s more about amplifying what the beer already was to make it something new. But other beer styles, I mean, you can barrel-age any beer style you want, but with other varieties like with sour beers, mixed fermentation, more acidic or fruited ales, as well as the simplest flavor profile, pilsners and lagers, when you age beers like that in a barrel, it actually does have that softening, rounding characteristic.
A: Hmm. Very interesting. So where did this whole practice come from, Cat? I mean, is Bourbon County Stout — the Goose Island variant — is that the first big barrel-aged beer that made the style popular? Where did it come from? And it feels like now it’s getting boozier and boozier and boozier. And is that also correct?
C: Well it is. It is generally accepted that Goose Island and Bourbon County were the first to really plant the flag in barrel-aged beers, and bourbon barrel-aged beers specifically, and it became a huge draw to the brewery. This year is a little different because of the situation we’re all living in. But there’s usually a big release day. They have crazy events that surround this. And it really not only started barrel-aged beer, and coveting barrel-aged beers, but also the concept of lining up for a beer, or showing up for a festival day. And it’s just based around the one beer or stout that you’re going to get. And looking forward to something that’s released like a “vintage” of a beer. Those were all pretty much the trifecta of what made this a culturally important beer and concept. That, and it’s America. So, brewers like to experiment, they like to push things to the limits. And you know, these beers like Bourbon County and many high-caliber barrel-aged beers, they take years to make. There’s serious research and development. There’s a lot of — brewers and I think distillers probably say this, too — “We don’t tell the beer when it’s ready. The barrel tells us.” You really just have to keep tasting and keep blending things. And there’s a long process that goes into it.
A: So they’re not taking one barrel and dumping it, and then that’s the beer. They’re taking tons of different barrels, obviously in the same way. Is there such thing as a single-barrel beer like there is a single-barrel bourbon?
C: There probably is, just because if it’s a super-small brewery, and their barrel program is they got six barrels from the winery down the street they might only have one barrel of that beer. But I don’t think it’s seen as a benefit to only have the “one.” I think the best barrel-aged beers are an ongoing process and involve blending. And with some of the really good sour beers and barrel-aged sours, some breweries have Solera systems that they set up. And they really take a long time to get to that exact beer that they want.
Z: I have a question, Cat, coming back specifically to the bourbon barrel-aged beers, in general more specifically, because I think it’s a different answer for the sours and stuff. In an ideal world, what’s the best way to enjoy those? Are they better? I mean, often, they’re in a bottle, is there glassware that’s best for it? Do you want it refrigerator-cold or do you want it warmer? ‘Cause I think a lot about beer in general, I want a cold beer, but I think with some of these more premium beers, it might be interesting to think about whether there’s an ideal serving temperature and maybe serving vessel for them.
C: Yeah, totally different than cracking open a pilsner or something. I would say bourbon barrel-aged beers you want to drink cellar temperature, maybe even a little warmer, like 55 degrees. You want to have that bottle in your fridge, but then take it out, open it up, maybe even pour yourself a glass, and then let it sit there for half an hour before you drink it. If you can wait that long. Or just at least save some, because you’ll be able to really savor the flavors more, the aroma opens up more, same concept with any drink that we talk about on this podcast. And in terms of glassware, I always use a tulip glass, or something similar. So a lot of people drink their barrel-aged stouts in little snifters, tasting-sized glasses. And I do that when I am tasting, if I’m trying to get through a lineup like we did with Bourbon County. But if I’m sitting and enjoying, I’m committing to this 11 percent stout, then I’ll usually use a bigger glass. You can use a wine glass. Like the size of a wine glass. Stemware, feel fancy.
A: Interesting. OK. So why is it that people keep pushing the alcohol up on these so much? ‘Cause that’s my thing with them. They feel like a real meal and also like the thing I would drink right before I go to bed. They’re just so boozy, and I guess that’s where it’s been hard for me to get into them is just because I don’t like super high-alcohol wines. And I don’t really like super high-alcohol beers. And so how would you recommend that I should give them another try? What is the ideal way to consume these? Obviously with food, but what kind of food? And even in like a bottle of Goose Island, should I be drinking the entire bottle, or should I be splitting that with someone else? And that bottle should be two servings, you know what I mean? Because sometimes, some of these are just insane in terms of how much alcohol is inside.
C: Yeah, yeah. Definitely at least two servings. I mean, I rarely would drink a bottle like this myself. I would say the best way to enjoy these beers anyway is to share them. So I think that’s why people do bottle shares and how that culture started. Nobody wants to sit around and drink six 11 percent alcohol stouts by themselves, unless they’re really sad. … So I would say share them. I would also say with stouts like these, you can even get a bottle stopper like we have for our Champagne bottles and stuff. I’ll have to look it up. Maybe we can put this in the show notes. There’s a stopper that can actually seal the bottle, and it’ll be good for a couple of days, at least. I was still sipping those Bourbon Countys for the week after we tasted them, because they were sent beautifully in this package with all these supplies, including these stoppers, which were really awesome. Otherwise, I don’t know, man, just commit to it. It’s not going to kill you. Have it for dessert. It’s like, you can appreciate a Napa Cab. It’s like the Napa Cab of beer is a barrel-aged imperial stout. What do you do when you drink whiskey? You’re not going to drink the whole pint glass.
A: Well, Zach does.
Z: Only on special occasions.
C: Like on election night, you might sit there for four hours and just slowly sip on this thing, and it’ll be delicious all the way down.
A: OK, that’s fair.
Z: I’m wondering Cat, you mentioned a little bit ago when we were talking about Adam asking about single-barrel beers, but I’m curious is one of the reasons why these beers are, well let’s say “harder to make,” obviously you mentioned the time, but how hard is it for these breweries to get barrels in the first place? Do you have any sense for that? Especially used bourbon barrels? I know it’s this crazy market of bourbon barrels that go for other whiskeys, whether it’s to Scotland or Ireland or other parts of the U.S . Maybe even now for wine production for the bourbon barrel-aged wines like we’ve talked about. What is the market like for these? And is it prohibitive for most breweries to even start down this path?
C: I would say it definitely is. It’s super competitive getting barrels. And I think that’s also where some of the experimentation came from with barrel-aging in general. What used to be always bourbon opened up into whiskey, and then craft distillers, and wine, and tequila, and rum, and brandy. It’s whatever you can get your hands on is now what brewers like to play with, and it depends a lot on how much money you have. I mean, I don’t know how much a barrel of one brand goes versus another, but it’s definitely not cheap. Maybe it used to be like favors or a friendly swap, and it’s possible that still happens. But I think it’s not that easy. Not every brewery can have a barrel program, and if they do, it usually starts extremely small.
Z: So, I mean, obviously we’ve talked a lot about Goose Island, but are there other bourbon barrel-aged beers that you feel like, “Hey, if you’ve already tried Bourbon County” or you can’t get it or whatever, are there some others that you’re like, “Hey, these are awesome and you should check them out?”
C: Totally. AleSmith brewing in Anaheim or San Diego, they are a long-respected, awesome brewery. And they have been doing a stout called Speedway Stout for many years. And it comes in all sorts of varieties. And it’s unlike the big pastry stout trend of “Let’s put anything at all that we can associate with dessert and throw it in there.” A time and place for everything … but this one actually came from a story that Beth Demmon, one of our contributors, wrote recently about AleSmith. They went the opposite of that trend, so they stick with this beer and they’ve done all these different coffee varieties. They have done Vietnamese coffee, Ethiopian coffee. They’re really, really good. But there’s tons of them out there. I mean like, chances are, anywhere you live there’s a brewery in your city that’s making a delicious barrel-aged something.
A: Right? And I think that the misconception is that it doesn’t always have to be stouts or people think of that because of Bourbon County and stuff like that. Right? But people are putting all kinds of things in barrels at this point.
C: Right. Another story that we just ran recently by Ben Keene, who was a former editor of BeerAdvocate magazine, he did a really cool story about oak-aged lagers. I love the story and the lagers. And there are surprisingly more than you think. Threes is actually mentioned in the story. They’re one of the earliest breweries to do this in the U.S. This is hundreds of years old in the Czech Republic, but a really good example is Three’s Kicking and Screaming, so good. And Cerebral Brewing. They do some really good ones. I think their most recent one is called Tactical Maneuver. You might see it, it could be “wood-aged” or “oak-aged” or “foeder lager” or “foeder pilsner”.
A: And so are these going into neutral oak barrels? Or obviously we all understand what happens with a barrel-aged stout or bourbon. They’re going into used bourbon barrels and they’re taking on bourbon flavor along with the stout, but are these lagers just going into pure barrels? Are they going into barrels that used to hold wine? What’s happening with them?
C: With the foeder lager, so a foeder is basically a giant vertical barrel, for those listeners who aren’t familiar with those. It’s like winning the lottery if you can get a fresh, brand new one of these things. So I think that is the goal. You would want to start that way just to see. It’s a one time opportunity to make something that truly gets the essence of this oak. But then, you can keep using that forever. I mean Threes, they have their ongoing program. They have a foeder that’s just dedicated to the lagers. They have one that’s dedicated, I believe to saisons and mixed fermentation. So yeah, you can keep developing, sort of like seasoning a cast iron skillet, right? You develop the flavor of this barrel over time.
A: That’s super cool. Yeah, I’ve had theirs, and I think it’s delicious. It is interesting how different it is from a normal lager, how many nuances that are there. It’s really, really cool.
C: And I don’t think it would smack you in the face. It’s not like you would drink that pilsner unknowingly and be like, “Oh, what is that?” It tastes like wood, but it’s just a nuance. If you could compare the two or if you are familiar with drinking a certain beer style and then taste one that’s had this treatment. You notice these subtleties and how pretty it is.
Z: I was just going to ask, because since we moved a little bit away from this stout category and we hit on sours and stuff before, to come back to this idea of aging. Is it a safe assumption for people that if it’s a barrel-aged beer, whatever the beer style, that it’s a beer that you could consider aging if you’re inclined to try?
C: Yeah, I would say in general, if it’s barrel-aged and it’s high-ABV, it’s a safe bet. It’s not necessarily going to get better. It depends on the beer. It depends on your own subjectivity. But it will change over time. So something that beer people like to do, which is probably easier than doing with wine because of cost and availability-wise, is having multiple vintages of a beer. So, if you have a favorite brewery that does a barrel-aged beer, buy three of them and drink one. Now save one for a year from now, save one for two years from now, or buy enough that you can compare the three. And it’s a fun thing to do. I think it’s really cool when you’re getting into beer, and it just feels good to collect and to have these cool things and have special experiences. You might like to take home a bottle from a trip that you went on, or maybe you got a super-rare bottle of Cantillon for three euros when you were lucky enough to be on a business trip to Belgium. And then you can hold onto it for as long as you want. There are just still things you want to do to keep it from — it’s not going to spoil and hurt you or make you ill, but you might not keep it at its ultimate flavor potential if you’re leaving it in the corner of your apartment like I’ve done.
A: So then is there a recommended way that you would store the beer? Should I put my beers in the wine fridge? Is it OK to be storing them at room temperature, or no, they should say cold? How are you supposed to store and age beer?
C: Basically, if you store it cold, then it’s not going to change. So at the typical beer or refrigerator temperature of 33 or 36 degrees, you’re just keeping it as is. The chemical components are suspended there. It’s chilling. So you want to have it cellar temperature. And for most people, this can be your basement or your garage or your back porch in cooler months. Which is why I struggled with it, because I never had any of those things. So I was thinking like, “Oh, my dark closet is good enough.” And that’s where I homebrewed. And that’s where I would keep fermenting beer. But warm temperatures might create a vigorous fermentation, and you really don’t want to condition or age beer that way. Because it just accelerates the process of aging. So it’ll just get to wherever it’s going to go more quickly. And so then if you have an Oskar Blues Ten FIDY and then you open it three years later and it doesn’t taste so good, then that’s probably why. Although I actually did that with a canned version — Pat and I did — and it was so good. I wouldn’t recommend aging canned beers. It’s just kind of silly, but it was still really good.
Z: Can I share a brief aged-beer story, because I think we would both appreciate it? Our listeners could, too. So I’ve always been a big fan of Breakside Brewery, which is in Portland. And they make some awesome seasonal beer. They do a lot of seasonal beers, but there’s one and now I’m blanking on the name, but every quarter, they put out a new fruit beer with other things. And I bought a while back a 12- bottle case. I think it’s a mix of kumquat, coriander, and something else, and I’ve been opening them like every six months to a year over the last few years. And it’s super interesting. I mean, for one, I actually have to like decant it or strain it, because it’s got so much particulate matter suspended in it, that unless I really want to chew on it, I strain it. Which is fine, but it’s so fascinating to see how much it’s changed. And I mean it’s certainly a very high-quality beer, not super-high ABV, so maybe not the optimal beer for aging. But things with that where there’s just a lot going on, in the same way with wine, I think it can be really interesting to age them, and it’s been fun to kind of — well, I think the last time I opened one was before the pandemic, so I could actually share it with a few friends. ‘Cause that’s the timing and setting of it when I like to do that. But I do have a couple more, so maybe one day we’ll get to open them.
C: That’s so interesting. Do you take notes when you taste them, or do you just kind of remember, “Oh, last time it was a little more tart.”
Z: I definitely don’t take notes. I would say it’s more like I can remember the broad trend. I don’t think I could say definitively this one has this much more “coriander.” I will say that the herbaceous notes are definitely getting more intense over time, whereas the kumquat, especially, has diminished quite a bit.
C: Right? Yeah. And that happens with hops, too, and that’s why you don’t really want to age IPAs or anything that has a ton of fresh herb or fruit in it. It’ll just fade over time, so you’re not really getting anything out of holding onto that. But that beer sounds like a really interesting one to age. I wonder if it’ll reach a certain point where you’re like, “Nope, that’s it.”
Z: Well, I only have two bottles left, so if it comes, it won’t be that big of a deal. Cat, what you gotta do is wait until the pandemic ends and fly to Seattle, and I’ll be happy to share one with you!
C: OK!
A: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Zach. Well, Cat this has been great having you on this week. This has been really interesting. I mean, I think you’ve made me feel like I need to at least go out and get some of these beers and try and try them again, especially the bourbon barrel-aged ones, and also potentially make some room in my wine fridge for some beers to age. I got to see what this is all about.
C: Absolutely. I’ll recommend if you see anything from Allagash Brewing Company’s Coolship series, this is one that Pat, my husband and I actually popped on election night. We were just like, “OK. No matter which way this goes we’re just going to get into the good stuff.” It was our Coolship beer that we bought like six or seven years ago. And we were assuming that we totally blew it. ‘Cause I think it’s gone from like two apartments ago to here, so we were kind of scared, but it was so good. Spot on gueuze, could have been Cantillon. Really, really good. So I think that’s another pro tip is find a brewery that is really good at doing this, and seek those out, and get a couple in your wine fridge.
A: I mean, actually I did have an aged beer last week, I just realized, and you’re going to be really jealous and I’m super sorry. So I worked in the VinePair office last Friday with Josh, and there was a Jester King Coolship. And it was a year and a half old and yeah, it was really, really, really good.
C: Yeah. Tell me about it. I didn’t actually hear about how it tasted. I just got the FOMO-inducing photo from Josh.
A: “We’re drinking this, Cat.” It was similar to Allagash. It was a sour, but not aggressively sour. It was very balanced. Sometimes those sour beers, all of a sudden you’re just like, “OK, please rip my esophagus out. I’d really appreciate that, this is delicious.” It wasn’t like that. It was incredibly balanced, there was this fruit on it as well. It had a lot of wine characteristics, actually. It was really tasty. I thought it was a very good beer. Super easy to drink. And I know that they are a very celebrated Texas brewery. This is my first beer I’ve ever had from them. But it was really, really tasty. I was very impressed.
C: Yeah, that’s their jam. You should seek them out. Your path to appreciating barrel-aged beer is going to be barrel-aged sours, or mixed fermentation, or native yeast or wild yeast, or what have you. Because they really do benefit from sitting in the oak, and then sitting in the bottle over time. I think that helps to “soften the burn” because, I have that, too, where I’m like, “Oh my God, my insides are on fire.”
A: Right? Why did this have to be this? Why did you have to make it this acidic? Why are you trying to make me be in pain?
C: Some people don’t even notice. It’s just normal to some people. And then to folks like us, it’s like, “Goddamnit, this is torture!”
A: Yeah, even though the beer is delicious. Yeah, totally. I completely agree. Well, guys, this has been an awesome conversation, as always. Cat, thank you so much for joining us this week. This was a lot of fun.
C: Thank you for having me back. Anytime, guys, I love talking about beer, as you know.
A: Yeah, we know. Well, Zach, I’ll see you back here next week, probably with another guest host, and Cat come back anytime.
C: Cheers, guys.
Z: Sounds great.
A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced by myself and Zach Geballe. It is also mixed and edited by him — yeah, Zach, I know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh, and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
