California Beer & the NL West w/Jenny Mann & Warren Wills

California knows how to party. Our guests this week are Warren Wills and Jenny Mann – both California transplants who have been around the beer world for a long time. We're gonna talk about all kinds of things: California. We're gonna renew a rivalry. We're gonna make amends. We're gonna drink some beer, and talk about trends.

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Transcript

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California knows how to party. Our guests this week are Warren Wills and Jenny Mann, both California transplants that have been around the beer world a long time. We're gonna talk about all kinds of things. California, we're gonna renew a rivalry. We're gonna make amends. We're gonna drink some beer and talk about trends on this episode of Overthinking. They found us, I don't know how, but they found us. This is Overthinkr. Welcome in to another episode. Really excited about the guests we have this evening. Gonna get to talk to Jenny Mann. Hi, Jenny. Howdy. And Warren Wills. How you doing, Warren? Are you getting enough oxygen? Plenty. Okay, good, thank you. Jenny, real quick, just give us the briefest version of who you are, what you do and what you've done. Oh, well, my name is Jenny Mann. Actually, we just moved up here about a year ago from San Diego. Spent about 20 years there and 15 years in Craft Beer. Did some management, worked with some amazing breweries, with some amazing people. Had a chance to manage Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits, when it was Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits. And after that, worked with Cutwater. Had a chance to take that to the next level. And after they took it to the next level, I created my own business. I took everything I was already doing and just put 100% into it. And went in all on Craft Beer and social media and marketing. After that, it was time. You worked with some big names doing that, yeah? Oh yeah, I was working. Some of the folks you worked with? Yeah, I was working with North Park Beer Company, which was one of my favorites. I got to photograph over half the breweries in San Diego, which is like over 150 breweries there. So it was a wonderful opportunity, wonderful time. And to grow up in that industry was amazing. So I got to see some of the people just kind of blossom and bloom and become who we all know them to be now. So that was an amazing opportunity. So and now up here, doing the same thing, but different setting. Give it up for Jenny, everybody. Warren, where are you from? What do you do? What have you done? I'm from South Pasadena. Been in Portland for 12 years by way of the army, Korea, Oklahoma, Chicago, Minneapolis. I've been working in craft beer for effectively 12 years since I started writing about it. And it never ceases to get old. I love it. I am the operations marketing manager at Day One Distribution currently in Portland, Oregon, not Maine. And I've been writing Craft Beer Scribe for over six years now. I don't know, I'm losing track. I don't write as much as I used to, but I've been- Craft Beer Scribe. You can find that on Instagram and craftbeerscribe.com. Jenny is found as Miss Beer Craft. That's correct. I got them correct. Yeah, right on. Super stoked to have you guys here. Obviously, I wanna talk about some of my favorite places as well that I know you guys are familiar with because Jenny's spending a lot of time in the San Diego area, knows a lot about those San Diego breweries. It's a place I love to visit. Warren, working now with Day One, who brings a lot of these Southern California breweries up to the Portland area. And we're super stoked about that. So you work with a lot of those breweries down that way. Since our last episode, I've been to California twice. Just the way things worked out, the way things happened. So I was down in LA, got to visit some places down there. We'll talk about that. And then went out to Boonville Beer Fest. And we can touch on that a little bit. I'd be happy to share a little bit of that. That's a fun time. That's a dream. Good place. Sounds amazing. So this is Overthinkr. The whole idea of Overthinkr is just to hang out, have a few beers, talk about whatever comes up. I've got a few talking points. We'll get into some things. We're gonna talk a lot of San Diego beer, LA beer, San Francisco beer. But I'm gonna kick things off with a question for Warren. Uh oh, here it comes. So Warren, do you think that. Or do you feel that your pleasant demeanor and overall jovial attitude disguises for most folks the fact that you're a Dirty Dodgers fan? 100%. I mean, I could curse up a storm like any good sailor. Not that I ever was when I was an army soldier, but. Is this how it's gonna be right here? No, no, no, no, no. Honestly, I have heard stories that I don't even really wanna discuss because a friends of mine that are from Chicago that went there as Cubs fans and were in the bleachers is where you don't go if you're a visiting team. There are stories of things. Things have got ugly between Dodgers fans and their rivals. There's a history. There's a history of violence, which is terrible. It's terrible. Thankfully, not between us. We've not had any violence against one another. In fact, Warren's the only person on the planet I've brought Dodgers paraphernalia home from LA to give to Warren. It's certainly grateful for it. First picture I recall seeing was against the Houston Astros, which is Fernando Valenzuela, which Michael went to the retirement of his jersey and brought me back a bobblehead, which was very, very kind of him. I did, yeah. I was excited to get down there and cross off all of the West Coast baseball stadiums, get them all off my list. And Dodger Stadium was the last stadium that I hadn't been to. Why would that be? I just don't understand why. I was a little scared. I went wearing a Sonics jersey for my safety. I figured that was the best bet, is a Seattle Super Sonics jersey. They wouldn't know what to do. They'd just be confused. They wouldn't mess with me. But now we had a good time. We sat behind Mario Lopez. Yeah, that's right. So that was something. But yeah, finally crossed that one off my list. Crossed off the San Diego trip, went to Petco Park in 2013. So it's been a minute since I've been to Petco Park. Still a great year for that, though. It was shiny and still newish. It was, yeah, it was new. And I remember being extremely impressed at the beer selection at Petco Park at that time. There was a lot of really great beer. I don't remember a lot of the names. I just remember looking at them all and going, there's many of them and I don't know a lot of them, but I'm excited they're here and I'm really happy to pay $13 to drink whatever they put in front of me. Jenny, I didn't want you to feel left out here. Uh-oh, okay. There you go. I made sure that we... Perfect.... that you can represent too. Thank you. Now we've got the entire NL West represented. I say the entire NL West and people are like, wait, no, there's only three. The Diamondbacks don't count. Not for much. Or the Rockies. That's right. There's five now. Different time zone. Arizona is the same. Right, right. Arizona doesn't even change there. They don't even do daylight savings. They really just try to mess with everybody. Not real. Does not exist. And the Rockies don't exist in this world either. I have to double check this. It is SDA, make sure. It's the old Tony Gwynn style from back in the day. It's amazing. I bought that that day in 2013 when I went to Petco Park. I bought that at Petco. Yeah. I bought this hat at AT&T Park. Now Oracle Park. Is it Oracle now? I don't know what dumpster fire you found your hat in though. Was not at a stadium. I know. It's all right. There's a lot of excitement on the sports end of things, of course, between the California cities. I want to talk a little bit about what's different there in terms of beer. When you look at... Let's just go one by one. Let's go through the three cities. We'll go north to south. And I just want to ask, I'll let Jenny field this one first, and you can answer too, Warren, but when you think of San Diego beer, what's the first thing that comes to mind? What is its identifier as a culture, as a market, as a place to go visit and get beer? What defines it? Honestly, the first thing that pops in my head is camaraderie amongst the breweries, and also tourism and hospitality. I feel like San Diego has really knocked it out of the park. They've had some time to grow and learn together, and even the breweries such as like, other than Stone and Coronado, it was, or Illsmith, it was Carl Strauss that kind of led that direction, and even they have taken a whole other level to taking care of the smaller breweries, to taking care of those around them. So they're doing more collaborations. It was really awesome to see the larger brands starting to do what the smaller brands were doing and collaborate with one another, because that's how everyone learns and grows. The tourism and hospitality part, everyone took it to the next level. Stone is a good example of that with their beer garden up in Escondido. Like World Bistro. Yeah. They did such a great job with that. And even, again, Ballast Point. Ballast Point did an amazing job when they had their 300-barrel brew house and took it to a whole other level. Unfortunately, it wasn't completely sustainable. I don't think anybody else could have managed it the way that it was managed by previous owners. It was a whole other beast, and no one had really seen that before there and then sold it to somebody else to try to manage. Right. They sold it to Constellation Brands at some point there, around about 2017? Yeah, it was 2016, 2017. It was a wild time, wild, wild time. And so yeah, I feel like that's a really, really big part of it. And coming from kind of growing up again in the industry, being a home brewer and then going to Ballast Point for all my home brew equipment, and then learning and knowing some of the people that actually were working at the home brew mart. You were able to go in there and go talk to them, and then later in life, they became award-winning brewers. So it was just an amazing thing to see them branch off. And another big one is Pizza Ports. Pizza Ports is a classic example of amazing brewers coming from one brewery and then going on and doing their own thing. Yeah, so I think that San Diego was a little nest of just talent and deliciousness. And we've got some Pizza Port to share here. We'll get into that a little bit. I see Swamy is, that's their flagship IPA. I've seen that many times. What's the other one over there? That's the Belmont Collab that was done for the Belmont 27th anniversary, which just happened a couple weeks ago. Awesome. Yeah. With the PDX carpet and everything. And that's Day One, who Warren works with, distributes Pizza Port. That's rad. Warren, San Diego, what comes to mind? What do you think of first? For the longest time, until I came to Portland, I always thought of San Diego as stone, basically. And the only one I ever really enjoyed was Arrogant Bastard, because it was balanced, because it had malt. And I felt like all the other ones were so dry and so bitter, they were way out of my... My palate was a baby palate. It was just a little baby. And so over time, living here, having Hopworks and Breaksight IPAs around circa 2010, when I first moved here, totally changed my perspective on IPA. But then the other thing I think of is, yes, it's pizza port, in that you've seen me write about it, the whole connection between Swamy's and Vinny doing Blind Pig and Temecula, and then taking that up north, which is the transition really from San Diego to San Francisco to Terry Farrindorf, who's Pink Boots, and she took it to Steelhead in Eugene, and that's kind of how the IPA traversed its way up the coast. So those are the two. It's stone and pizza port, for sure. There's so much more than that. I just had to crack myself a Swamy, because I haven't had it in a long time. And yeah, you mentioned stone as well. Stone was really the... They were like the embodiment of that era. Let's say, let's call it like 2008 to 2012. Even earlier than that, I think, right? Even earlier, they were doing things, but like when I think about... I call that era the IBU. Wars. If I had to put a date on it and put it in a history class, it would say IBU. Wars, 2008, I'd say 2014. When people were pushing the boundaries of, it's over 100 I.B.U.s. And people were getting all excited, like, but what does that mean to you? Right, right. And on the last episode, we dove into I.B.U.s and how really meaningless they are at the end of the day when it comes to trying to order a beer and things and having to also calculate in what's the residual sweetness here as well. Like, I.B.U.s is not a taste number. It's a measurement number that doesn't necessarily tell you that's going to be a more or less bitter beer. It can. It can. If you have some 5% beers that use the same malt and the same yeast side by side and one's 40 I.B.U.s and one's 80, you'll taste the difference. But it's hard to do that when, you know, beer's all over the board. Anyhow, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole again. That was a segue. But you are right, though. Like you said, the IBU or stone was blowing people out of the water with their, I mean, the hot profile was insane. It was something that even San Diegans were trying to get used to. People outside of the San Diego market were trying to get used to. And it blew everybody away. So, they really did help lead and carve that path. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were highly sought after during that period too. You know, when different stone beers made it up here, they were geniuses with the Enjoy By series. That was great. I mean, that was just like put the timestamp on your fresh AF IPA right out there and tell everybody, drink this before this date. And that seemed to go really well for a while. Until it didn't. Until it didn't. And then you're like, ooh. All of a sudden, there were Enjoy Buys on the shelf that you were like, that was two months ago. Then there's a reason that hasn't sold is because you literally told us not to drink it after that date. Exactly, exactly. So you were gonna say something, Warren? Oh no, I mean, just in the stone realm, it's funny because my first hoppy beer was in 95 at Colorado State, where at that point, Fat Tire hadn't left Colorado, and it was very much still, the Malty realm was prevalent. Having a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, possibly stoned at Colorado State University was a revelation and something far more intense than I had ever experienced before. And a Pale Ale, and that beer is still very hoppy and still very well made. I had one recently and I hadn't had it in a while, and having so many Pale Ales that we have today, so this is what I was gonna say, this is a good segue, what I was gonna say about what I think of with San Diego beer is I immediately go to crisp, clean West Coast IPA, really redefining what IPA could be, probably right around that time, probably the end of the IBU wars was when I started to notice like, oh, these IPAs coming out of San Diego, they're not amber, they're not orange. And so many of our IPAs up this way were still, there was a lot of caramel malt and crystal malt still being used in IPAs. And here was this like, all Pilsner malt IPA that just was so, the hops shined and there was really not a lot of other sweetness and other things behind it. And I really enjoyed that. And to me, so to bring that back around to Sierra Nevada pale ale. Sure. I went and grabbed one the other day and was really surprised to see, it's a little, it's more caramely than I remember. It was like amber in color and I was like, oh, I forgot that that's what you look like. Immediately, immediately like you get transported back in time, like I remember, you know, just crack a cooler full of Sierra Nevada pale ales. You crack it open like this is the best thing, lightest thing, most refreshing thing. And again, when you don't have it for a bit and you revisit, you're like, dang, especially after what's been going on. So it's a whole nother level, which again, still an amazing beer to have, still absolutely delicious. It's still absolutely phenomenal. But I'm grateful for that contribution. A lot of people credit Vinnie with that as bringing in the CRISPR cleaner Pilsner malt driven IPAs and double IPAs at a brewery there called Blind Pig Brewing, wasn't it? So Blind Pig IPA, which we all now know as Russian River's Blind Pig IPA, that was Vinnie making IPA in San Diego at Blind Pig Brewing first. It's a neat thing to know. It's an amazing full circle. Everyone is so connected in some way or another. Just the fact that there's San Diego and the Sonoma connection, it's a beautiful thing. It is, it is. Yeah, and I feel like everything has a chance to also get touched on by that flavor profile. Even Pacific Northwest, I'm tasting more and more of that West Coast style up here now. And even down there, they're also incorporating more malt profile. Everyone's just bouncing off each other and it's really exciting. I think the one thing that I want to mention that we don't have to go down this road, but for a long time and before everybody got RO, reverse osmosis, which is something I heard, I had not heard really at any brewery until I went down to Southern California. It's like reverse osmosis is a thing to where it's like, we have to treat the water because we're dealing with certain things. But before all that, there was a, I wouldn't say a rumor, but there was a perception or there was an opinion that people were hopping the hell out of their beers in Southern California to hide the water, the hard water. I mean, am I wrong? I mean, you've heard this before, I'm sure. I don't think it's necessarily hiding it. The stories I've heard and after reading the water book, it is like just the chemical reaction that ends up happening between malts and acidity and hops. And so they say, but again, most people do have reverse osmosis. You actually have to do certain things now. They may not have. So you have to really play with your beer a little bit more to accomplish a certain flavor profile. And so, especially going into a larger brewery, the example again, obviously we're talking about California beer, so I guess it doesn't matter if I keep talking about California breweries, but Stone, Ballast Point, all of these larger breweries incorporating the reverse osmosis into there, but it gives them this clean base. But what's amazing up here is, again, people say the same thing about here, and that's the rumor I always heard about Pacific Northwest is the water, and that's why our lagers are so amazing up here, is because we have this amazing soft water. And I feel like that that really says something like, yeah, sure, California, Southern California specifically, kills it with their IPAs and up here, but it could still also be one of those rumors like the IPA story going on. We're just recreating more tall tales. Right, it's a beer game of telephone. We all played telephone when we were a kid, but now telephone gets told after two or three beers, and it gets even more distorted as we go. But things have changed over time, and I think it's part and parcel to that in that this reverse osmosis process has become standard. Sources of water has changed, I'm sure, to some extent for some of these breweries, but there was this sense that, what are you trying to do? Are you hiding something from me? This is drinkable. It's really bitter though, I don't know, let's go. Interesting, crazy. So, Warren, let's go up the I-5 just a little bit. Not far, you know, just an hour or two, up to LA County and Orange County. What, same question, what are the identifiers, the, what makes LA area beer distinct? What stands out to you? What's the first things you think of? Well, the first thing you have to acknowledge is the fact that the Los Angeles area, like Brewers came online far later than any of the other major metropolitan areas in California. Even, I mean, Firestone Walker was 97, I think. And I mean, the first one in Southern California that I'm aware of, other than maybe Eagle Rock, was Tustin in Orange County, which I did write a whole series on every state of the union. So, Southern California was kind of a thing with, it was San Diego, LA and Central California, lumped together. And, cause Los Angeles was so late to the game, yes, you had Golden Road, which was great at one point, and you can probably still find it if I can dodge your stadium in Mango Carter or whatever the hell they have in 192s. But I think of people trying to find other avenues than IPA. IPA is definitely still huge down there, but the last time I really spent any time down there was my first visit to the opening of Common Space, which is in Torrance, I believe. Okay. Or, there were SpaceX's and Los Angeles Ale Works, and then down the road, yes, you have Monkish, you have Smog City, I went to all of these places, and there was a variety, especially Smog City blew me away with just like all of the different things. Smog City was an early one that I became aware of. Totally, same here, and that was something that would show up at bottle shares, you know, Snuggle Bug or Barrel-Age Sours that were different than anything else that we saw up here, for better or for worse. There was more variety in Los Angeles County than Orange County, and Orange County was even later than LA, I think, for the most part. You had Tustin and you had... It was. Shit, I don't even know what else was down there. It wasn't a lot. If I'm not mistaken, it was just Tustin. I used to live across the street from there. Oh, you know. Yeah. So it was sparse. And so I haven't lived in Los Angeles since, well, I lived in Orange County until 04 when I finished college in Orange County, but I left high school in 95. So my time in LA, it's like, I've been there like five times since I graduated college. But you're bringing beer up from down there today. So what do you think defines it today? Today, I feel like it's piggybacked off of the IPA from San Diego. I mean, they've effectively going down that same path that's been well trodden, which is great. And the things we're bringing in from down there, it's again, it's a lot of IPA. You have some one off things that are really unique and individual. We're just starting to bring in Brewery West again. We brought Brewery West in for the first time in a long time. Oh, yeah. They're Hazys. When we first started bringing them, they were working with Mechagrade, who is, I think they're still operating. I don't know if they are or not. I'm not sure. I know they were for sale. They were for sale. Mechagrade Estate Malt down in Madras. And it was a thing. I mean, it was a difference maker in somebody making a Hazy IPA or whatever. And the label art and all the things they were doing changed. The label art from Brewery West was crazy. That was a game changer. Nobody else does those. We just brought back Alligator, which is one of those ones that they cut out. It's a whole bunch of stickers on it. It's like, they're beer labels. If you're not familiar with Brewery West, it's spelled like Brewery as the Bohemians or Belgians would spell Brewery. And Jenny, grab your water bottle there real quick and just hold it up to the cameras. But this is basically like a Brewery West beer label. Is it not? It's a bunch of stickers. Yeah, it's just like, it's crazy. And I still don't even understand the process of how they do it. There's a video online that describes it. You can see actual video of it, but it's basically, instead of a label passing through once to put one thing on there, like before printed cans became a thing, it would go back and forth and back and forth. And it was, it basically, there's a... They've printed out the stickers in an order to where it will be timed up with the cans going through to where it stops, goes back, stops, goes back, and then it's done. It's like three layers of incredible. It's such an amazing, like innovative, like mind blowing, especially like, when everyone works so hard to create really fun labels and artwork and then you see something like this and you're like, oh, what? And it's so hard to just put a label on a can to begin with. And they're like, oh, what the fuck are you doing? This is crazy. It's all over the place, it's amazing. Jenny, what's your thoughts on LA. Beer? What defines it for you? So I feel like they are truly a league of their own and they are moving forward in the same kind of direction when it comes to the hospitality and tourism. They are trying really hard to push it. I know even like the guilds there between Orange County and LA., they're all doing the same kind of thing, like what else can we do to support our local brewery and again, Orange County, I want to say, my number might be off right now, but I want to say they have like 35 breweries if I'm not. It's a small county too. Yeah, so even with LA., like LA not even being part of that, I think everyone's trying so hard to work together to collaborate and I think that that's where that collaborative spirit really helps another brewery out because you do get to work together. And I know with, a good example would be Julian from Beachwood. I know that he was a huge influence and he helped Kelsey along the way, like Kelsey brewed on his system, that's how Hopfu was created, like there's this whole beautiful story that goes along with that. North Park. But that's from years ago, that's from 10 years ago nearly because I think North Park just celebrated their seventh, so this is all before the time, before the brick and mortar was even put in place. So I just think that that collaborative spirit really holds true now more than ever because people see the benefits of working together. And what other industry do you see that happen? Like it's so mind blowing. I always tease about like, you don't see accountants going out and like collaborating. Like we got into a great field. Everyone gets to work together because again, when you get to help each other out, when you get to be there for one another, when you get to support, it's truly your community. Everybody gets to benefit from that. And naturally like the really crappy people and crappy things just weed themselves out because they don't want to be part of the cool stuff and the collaborative spirit. And I think that that is a huge thing that I think LA and like OC have really embraced, especially over the last, I'm gonna say like, well, especially over the last five, six years, it's been a big part of that. Well, and Beachwood just did a collab with, Kelsey came up and did a collab at Beachwood that is a something foo, I can't remember. It's gotta be another foo. It's another foo for sure, with an exclamation point of course. Awesome. And Kelsey, for those who don't know, North Park. Yeah, co-owner of North Park, yes. For me, LA., Orange County beer is, when I think of LA. Orange County beer, I think of excitement, like an excited populace that's excited about beer and, dare I say, is allowed to be excited about beer. Like, it's not unusual to see lines for beer releases, to see big excitement over what the brewery, Brewery Tarot was doing, or Bottle Logic, obviously Monkish came in, and lots of excitement over what they were doing. And it wasn't frowned upon, I don't think, in that area, not from anything I saw. I look at the Pacific Northwest, where we live now, so now Jenny, more recently coming up here, there's a little bit of that. There's a little bit of, you know, somebody starts doing well, somebody starts having a line, somebody starts having a little bit of hype, and the industry almost wants to try to stop it, almost wants to say like, oh, that's not beer. Beer should be accessible. Calm down, calm down. Yeah, just calm down, everybody. I don't know. This is something that bothers me a little bit. It bothers me about, I love the Pacific Northwest, I love our beer culture up here. It is very, it is a great community. I wonder if sometimes we're not a little snobby in this regard, not across the board, but just like in this particular regard of like the idea that, well, yeah, beer's beer, it's not worth getting that worked up about. It's not worth getting that excited about. And yet we see in places like San Diego and LA, people getting very excited about beer and going and buying it by the case so they can trade with their friends and send it across the US for a trillion or other half or what have you. Why are we this way? I can tell you. Well, it's part and parcel of what I was saying earlier about LA being so late to the scene. I think they're still passionate because literally it took almost 30 years from if you look at when Oregon passed the beer bill to say you can sell beer on premise, say, 85, so that Widmer and Bridgeport and Mcminimans, these breweries, they should operate. They all opened up in the 80s. And fast forward to, well, not even fast forward, but before that, Northern California was the first burgeoning craft beer scene, which we'll get to. But we've been doing it for so long, it's what Jeff Alworth has referred to as a mature beer market, which is true. We've been doing this for a long time. And it's, you know, yes, we know better than everybody else. So whatever you're doing down there, it's okay, fine. But it's true. Like there is, you know, working for day one, bringing in things like Drekker and weird smoothie sours with lactose. There's that. You're literally sitting in the juxtaposition of this because not that long ago, there's a place in Portland called Function. They have two locations now, but for a long time it was just one location. And their whole thing is they are a pop-up pub. Other pubs come in and do their thing there. And I know there's been several. I know North Park was very exciting when they had their pop-up pub here. And so was Monkish. It was ridiculous. And I loved seeing that because I liked seeing that excitement. There was this genuine passion of, I have to have this beer. It's finally in my area. Scarcity plays a role in that. But it's the same mindset as LA, where it's like we've never really had this phenomenon where I can go down the street and drink beer in my neighborhood. And we're like, oh shit, we've never seen Monkish before. Wow, this is exciting. It's that spark that all of a sudden people are excited and crazy about it. And I think it's the same idea. It's just a different permutation. Yeah, but that's the beautiful part too. Like you said about function, it gives you that opportunity to feel what other, you know, communities go through. And it does fuel that spark. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that spark. I like to see, I love to see brujos doing well and doing can drops that people line up for and everything. Wasn't that long ago, we saw more of that from Great Notion. And not as much now, but I think that might be more about having, what, eight locations now and a much larger brewery. They're making more of the beer, so it's a little bit more accessible to us. We're selling a lot of their beer throughout Oregon, outside of Portland. So it's more accessible for sure. Things change a bit, but they're still very popular and they still sell a lot of beer. As they should be. I enjoy seeing that at Brew Hosts for sure. Jenny has a connection to Brew Hosts. Me too. You first. Jenny, what's your connection to Brew Hosts? My connection with that is we have a little place called St. Lovejoy's. It is a little restaurant inside of Brew Hosts. It just happened to be a beautiful match made in heaven because just Sam from his background, and I know him from when he was in Temecula brewing there, and when we found out that he was even looking for a restaurant partner, that's when we're like, oh, we should go check it out and see if it's something. We did a whole tasting for Sam. It's chef Colin Murray. He did a whole tasting for Sam, and Sam was like, this is it. This is amazing. This is what I want. And it was so complimentary because they both do very quality, between the quality liquid and the quality food. It just was kind of a, I mean, it was perfect. So yeah, check it out when you get a chance. Go to Brew Hosts and eat some great food. Absolutely, yeah. If you haven't had Brew Hosts beer yet, they're doing some rad stuff. A legit drop on Saturday too. What's your connection, Warren? It sounds like you've probably known Sam longer, but I met the folks that he used to home brew with in Temecula. They were on their way to Seattle, stopped in at the Bottle Share at Beer Mongers within a year of me starting to do the Bottle Share around the time of CBC being in Portland, which is when I really got all in on beer in the lovely city of Portland. But they had like two 12-ounce bottles. One was like a triple IPA and one had like Brett in it. It was like a Brett IPA and we're just like, what the, what the, what is this? This is crazy. Like, this is cool. It's good. And so, you know, like five-gallon batches or whatever. And then when he moved up to Newport, I met up with him at Modern Times and, you know, it was cool to just be, you know, make the circle complete because I didn't realize who he was. Oh, trust me, I was just drinking the beer. That's how I know of him. I was just, oh, cool. So let's continue up, let's take the 101 because it's more scenic to head up to San Francisco. So we can stop by Pismo Beach, put our toes in the sand. We can stop by Firestone Walker. We're going to go hit Paso. We're going to go to Firestone Walker. Can't forget Libertine, which still exists. Go to Libertine. And if you're going to be over at Firestone Walker, might as well stop by Figueroa Mountain. Yep, Figueroa Mountain's out there. We can stop in San Luis Obispo, for There Does Not Exist. We can stop into Santa Cruz and Monterey and see Alvarado Street and Humble Sea. But eventually make our way into the Bay Area. The Bay Area, I guess I'll start this one off because I went to 12 straight SF Beer Weeks. I broke that streak this year for good reason. Bridgintunnel wanted to brew a collaboration with Vice Beer and release it for their anniversary. And then we got invited to a Festival of Dark Arts as well, and I was like, well, that's what I'm doing this week. That sounds like a really good plan. Yeah, and it was a good time. So we missed out on SF Beer Week this year, but we'll be back, we'll be back. San Francisco beer for me is, gosh, I think back to my early visits and I think it might be a little similar to LA in that it came on strong kind of late. You know, there were some players there, 21st Amendment and Anchor, Anchor being the oldest, continuously operating. Well, them and Yingling go back and forth as who's older and who has the claim, but I think Anchor's team goes back further. Yingling is the oldest family owned brewery in America, which means they're older than the second or third oldest, which was in Minnesota when I lived there, which is Shell's, which is 1853 or 1850 something, so like 1880 something. So I'm pretty sure that Yingling predates Anchor, because Anchor didn't start until the 1890s, I believe. I was going to say, yeah, because the common, the steam beer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so 1890s was... There were photos of this steam beer phenomenon on the roof. Yes. Was Anchor. Got it. Nicole's going to steal some beer. She's allowed. She's allowed. It's okay. Everything was positive. That's really fun, actually. I like that, like, pop in. Sorry, I guess I wasn't supposed to acknowledge that, but Nicole took some beer, and it's fine. We're having a good time. I think it's great. So, yeah, for San Francisco beer, I think they came on late. I think of San Francisco beer, and I think of really a wide range that came out of there. There was a lot of things that I think they were more experimental with early on and throughout the last decade. You know, going down for SF Beer Week, I know that's, like, the first place that I saw wine-infused beer, like this actual blend of beer and wine happening. That was really interesting to me. I think, you know, you had everything from the Rare Barrel to, of course, you know, Russian River. We'll count them. They're a little north, but we're going to count them for San Francisco. If this is a contest, we're claiming Russian River. It's tough to define Northern California because in Los Angeles and Orange County, you're talking about a county, whereas San Francisco, Northern California, it's the Bay Area. You have Marin, you have Sonoma, you have all these different counties. And I get corrected often on like, well, no, that's not Bay Area. It's Bay Area. And I'm like, well, if I can get to San Francisco in 20 minutes, how is it not the Bay Area? I was like, what about Petaluma? Like, there's Petaluma and then just north of there, I mean, like between Hinn House. North coast to like, you know, Monterey or Santa Cruz, maybe, is my idea of what Northern California beer is or what the Bay Area is. So I think of some longevity from that area because 21st Amendment has been doing it a long time at a high level and continues to, of course, we mentioned Anchor, and I know when they opened their doors, they're not far from there. They're an hour and a half north of San Francisco, but a brewery that's very near and dear to my heart, Anderson Valley Brewing Company, when they opened up in 1987, they were the 24th licensed brewery in America. So there was not a lot going on in 1987, but here was this great place. I think the other thing I think of, Jenny's rep in it, but I think of Toronado and just what that beer bar that opened in the 80s, Toronado was one of the first places to pour Anderson Valley beer in 87. Anderson Valley still makes Brother David's double and triple. Brother David is David from Toronado who wanted a Belgian double and a Belgian triple made locally and to pour at Toronado. So I think about those things as just like iconic places to visit, Zeitgeist. There's definitely, if you're here in the Portland area and you've been to Apex, like I literally tell people Apex is a San Francisco style beer bar. I agree with that statement. That was well... Because Jessie was at Toronado in San Francisco, right? There you go. It totally models it. The owner of Apex, Jessie. You've got loud music, you've got stickers all over everything, graffiti all over everything, just the weirdest crap everywhere, all over the walls. Punk and motorcycles and mixed firm PNCs on drafts. Yeah. Toronado... Okay, I'm going to tell a Toronado story. Toronado is my favorite place. Toronado, they've got a reputation for being a little edgy, a little angsty. I'm in there for SF Beer Week. It's packed shoulder to shoulder. This guy walks in. He's dressed very well, and he has a date with him. She's also dressed very well. They come to the bar, finally get the attention of the bartender. They kind of squeezed up next to me, and they said, can we get a Blue Moon, please? And the guy behind the bar goes. Comes back to them, and is like, okay, what do you want? Well, we just want two Blue Moons. And the guy's like, look, the closest thing I've got to Blue Moon is Allagash White, which, okay. Hell yeah, way better. But yeah, Allagash White. And then just walks away. And I'm like, okay, these people are finally just, just get an Allagash White and be good with it. You know, he comes back and sure enough, they say, do you guys not have Blue Moon? And the guy behind the bar, just get the F out of here now. It just kicked them out. And they were just like, what did we do? What did we do? I'm like, that's the most Tornado experience I've ever had. And I was really just happy to be there for it. I was just like, this is great. I ordered a Boont Amber Ale after that and went, thank you. This is everything I ever wanted. Really fun moment. Sorry. San Francisco beer for you guys. What do you think, Jenny? What comes to mind for San Francisco beer? 100%. There is actually, the big one for me has always been just because of going up there to visit and you're trying to get as much breweries in as you can and you have to get somewhere, like in San Diego, you can go on to 30th and University and you can hit so many places. So in my head, it's like, all right, so how are we going to map this out? So for me, it's a lot of mapping and planning. And you want to support because you're also seeing some cool stuff along the way. But the first and foremost had always been, I mean, it was Anchor Steam every time I went up there. I've done the tour, can't even tell you how many times at this point, and it never got old. It was the most amazing thing ever. My folks actually were up in Sonoma for a while, so Russian River was always our go-to. So it didn't matter if I was, you know, in the Bay Area, I just went whoop, you know, up there, had to go make my rounds. And I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong, Third Avenue Ale Works? Yeah. Yes, so that was another one I always went to, and I think they actually just moved locations, if I'm not mistaken, so I don't think they're on Third Avenue. So how does that work? Someone needs to help me with this one. Third Avenue Ale Works. Back when I was a young man getting into beer, that's where I had my 1,000th untapped check-in. You're still a young man. 1,000. But yeah, that area, Anger Seam, Russian River, and I feel like just because it's an older part of the craft beer community, I feel like going up there honoring those places. Of course, you know, Cellar Maker, and then it's just one of those spots where I always go back to the old school because why not? Warren? For me, there's two parts. One is seven years ago for my 40th birthday, I drove from Portland to LA and back, or Orange County for... Went all the way down. Reasons. But in that trip, I got to go to Russian River for the first time and did Pliny the Younger because it was the same weekend as Super Bowl where it was the first Levi's Stadium Super Bowl and they were down at Barcadero, so I did all of that. I went to field work for the first time. We were there the same weekend. Yeah, I was there. I don't think I knew you then. No, I don't think we knew each other. It was seven years ago. Different hats, too. Yeah. Different sports. That would have kept us on separate sides of the streets. Different sports balls. But to do the two-hour wait-in-line meeting people from Minnesota, which I had been gone not quite ten years yet, was awesome. Going to field work for the first time, when they were still in their original location only, they had yet to sprout into whatever six or seven locations they had been. They had a lot of locations, including Sacramento and Monterey. But also Bear Republic before they closed. That's absolutely... Which was still, at that time, it still felt a little dated, but this was before Windsor opened for Russian Rivers, when Bear Republic was still open. It was field work. It was, I went to Barrel Works down in, you know, Builton for Firestone Walker. But then the other part of it is the last time I went down was last fall, I went to Wondrous, which is... Yeah. I can't recommend enough. If they made more beer, we would bring it to Oregon. It is phenomenal. Wondrous is literally wondrous. It is. But they're brewing like seven barrel batches or five barrel batches or tiny. They are small. They are very small. And they are very... I'm really into the Czech style loggers and West Coast IPAs. And I really like that brewery. There's new stuff happening in there. Wondrous and Ghost Town are both on... Ghost Town is good. Prussian. Both on the east side. Both good things. Original Pattern, which I have not been to yet, but it here is amazing. Yeah. We just... Yeah, at Boonville Beer Fest, the Original Pattern guys, they're great. I finally got to connect with them a little bit. They're making good stuff. They're making good stuff. Another new one that just came out of the Bay Area, Old Caz. Old Caz. They are... Shoot. The Ronert Park is where they're at. Got it. Next to Santa Rosa. And they just won a World Beer Cup medal. Nice. For their Mexican Dark Walker. Awesome. It's great. That's always exciting. That's very exciting. Man. I didn't know we were going to talk that much about just these three beers today. I mean, we are obviously passionate about California beer and these beer towns. I want to see if we've got some questions we can get to. Do we have some folks submitted some question cards? Yeah, we didn't talk about Sacramento, mostly because they don't have a baseball team. Well, they kind of do. The A's are playing in Sacramento right now, I think, in a minor league stadium. They might be for longer than anybody expects. Yes. We'll see if they finish that stadium in Vegas. They might be in Sacramento for longer than they bargained for. I've got some questions here from some folks. Here we go. Bria has a question here. Hey, Bria. You want to come around this way? Here's somebody. That's somebody as Bria, and here you go. Can I read my question because I'm not going to remember exactly what it says. So this is just to get some ideas going and hear some thoughts from you guys. Name three California breweries you miss the most. Like if you could be transported, where would you want to go? And then name two specific local beers you're enjoying right now. Or like currently, not like this. Two partner. Oh, I like that. Beers or breweries for things? Beers, local. Okay. Because then you don't have to like hurt and get his feelings. And then California breweries. Gotcha. Cool. So, Warren, go ahead. You can go first. First part of that was three breweries you miss. Maybe haven't... Hold on to that. You get to stick around. Three breweries I miss. I honestly, I went to school in Orange, and we've worked with Chapman Crafted for a long time. We are going to be working with Green Cheek at the end of the year. And there's... I've never been to Bottle Logic. I've never been to Green Cheek. I've never been to Chapman. And I went to college there. So, I will say those three. Those three. Because you want to get to. Honestly, San Diego, I'd love to go to Ballast Point. There's a lot of places I haven't been to down there. And the places I did go to, like Green Flash and Modern Times, I'm like, this is not really anywhere I really want to go anymore. And not that they're poor breweries, but things changed. And then local beers. Two beers you're enjoying right now? Like what's in your fridge or what did you just try recently? Most recently, the honey saison that Granifer did with Firestone Walker. Is that available still? It's on draft at Mongers last I checked. It could still be there. They had it on with the Ghost Forest, which is a Brett Saison from Foreland. I had Side by Side the other night and it was phenomenal. Bonus, if you could find it, the Mr. Ordinary of the OAS day's collab with Beer Mongers is amazing. If you haven't had a 3.8% English ordinary bitter, you're not living. I'm going to take it to two different spots in San Diego. Picture this. Because nobody works in San Diego. It's a Wednesday. It's noon. You drive down to Ocean Beach and you already put your toes in the water. You let your dog run on Dog Beach and then you go to Pizza Port OB and you get yourself your pizza. You get a pitcher of beer. A pitcher of Swammy's even. And you sit there with friends and you eat pizza and you drink a pitcher of beer. And you don't have anything else to do today because nobody works in San Diego. So take it to the other side. You go for an amazing hike because yes, in San Diego County, there are mountains and they are amazing. And it's like high desert style. It's Chaparral. It's amazing. Manzanita everywhere. Snakes. Yeah, snakes. Yeah, it's fine. Just carry a stick with you. And so you walk through the mountains and then you have to drive back home and you're like, gosh, I have to stop by McElhaney Brewing Company so I can have a month. And yeah, so sitting there after a long day of just like tromping mountains and just stopping by there on the way back into San Diego, McElhaney Brewing Company, definitely. So I can't think of another one off the top of my head just because there's so much deliciousness, but those are the two that make me think of the two things I would do. So, local beer though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Local beer. Oh, golly. My fridge is so big. It doesn't even have to be local. Like, what have you been drinking? Well, Sun River recently, because I remember one of the first times, thank you, thank you. One of the first times after moving up here, I didn't know a lot about like Oregon breweries. I know what I've seen following from social media, so I nerded out hard when there's like, you know, people and I get to see them like, oh my god, you're the people from this place. And I like love your beer. And I get very excited. Again, I carry the excitement with me. I can't help that. But you told me about Sun River and you schooled me on it. So that was the thing for me that like kind of changed everything. I was like, oh, I got to obviously learn more about Sun River. So I start drinking more of their beers, but I just had their Mexican lager. And that was the one that just kind of was like perfect weather for it. So what about that? That park beer? Oh, I know. Neither of us brought that up. But one one thing that Jenny and I have in common is that she works with Fracture Brewing. I work for day one who distributes Fracture Brewing. And they recently did a very was American light lager crush with Motueka that gives it this nice zesty lemonade thing going on. And it is phenomenal. And it's very accessible for this weather. I'm like, it's perfect. Give me all the light beers. This is a float beer. I can't wait for those cans, maybe. Yeah. Do I get to play this game, too? Okay, I'll play this game, too. What am I? I'm going to go one from each of these represented cities and say that it doesn't exist, so I can't go back to it. I don't think, maybe it does in some way, but I remember in 2013, we went to Lost Abbey and Port Brewing, we're in the same thing, same building, with this L-shaped bar that tasters, four ounce tasters, were a dollar, and a dollar and a dollar fifty. It's another time, another world. And I had the time of my life. Yep, it was great, I tasted so many great things, and then I gave the keys to my wife, it's my wife, Bria, if you didn't know who's a, who was the question I called, it's my wife. We have more fans than anybody. But yeah, I gave her the keys, we drove out to Carlsbad, where we stopped, and I had a couple more at Pizza Port. Yeah, Carlsbad Pizza Port is one of my, yeah, right there, like walking distance from the beach, and then we walked out onto the beach, and I crashed and just took a nap. I want to go there again, I want to do that again. I can't because Lost Abbey and Port, that's now someone else's. It's now Pizza Port. It's now Pizza Port. Yes. It all comes together in the end. It all comes together. Well, all right. There you go. Maybe I can try to recreate that in some way. Going up to LA, I was just there a week and a half ago. In fact, we can crack one of these and share with you guys. I love Everywhere Beer. It's very, very wonderful. Forward brewery, folks. Yeah, I was just there. Go ahead. I'll hand it off to you. Everywhere Beer, yeah, came from the brewery, Brewery Tarot, if you're familiar. And I walked in there. So I took my son down there for his 12th birthday. We went to Disneyland. And on the way home, I said, I got to stop by Everywhere. I walk in there. And the day one, guys, day one distribution is at the bar. It's Robbie and Niall. Robbie and Niall. And I just went and stood next to the bar, stood next to Robbie, stood there for a few minutes, finally just nudged him, didn't look at him, just said, what are you drinking? And then him and Niall both turned around and freaked out. What are you doing here? It was really fun. It was a good time. Everywhere Beer is just making some really great, similar to Wondrous in that way, it's the Czech style lagers, the modern pilsners, and the West Coast IPAs. They do hazies and stuff too, really well as well. And barrel-aged pastry things that are amazing. They do some big barrel-aged pastry things. I love it there. Really cool vibe of the place and everything. And then San Francisco also was just there. But Anderson Valley Brewing Company is just such a special place in my heart. They're situated in this beautiful valley. They're on an 18-hole disc golf course. So you just grab some beer and go throw some discs and just hang out all day while endangered California condors circle overhead just waiting for you to die of happiness. Waiting for you to pass out. Yes, it's such a great, great place. So yeah, that would be mine. And what am I drinking on lately? Gosh, I own a brewery, so that's what I've been drinking lately as I've been getting in on my own supply. But you know, out at Booneville Beer Fest, I drank a lot of a West Coast IPA by Almanac. That blew my mind. Okay, so that's a name. I haven't actually had Almanac in a long time, and back in 2012, we used to pour it at Tiger Tiger. Oh yeah. Yeah, but it wasn't IPAs. No, they're known for mixed culture things, and sours, and barrel program, and fooders, and all of this. Yeah, and so at Boonville Beer Fest, the brewers camp on that 18-hole disc golf course. No one's playing disc golf because it's full of breweries camping out. Of course, they bring their festival setups. They're pouring out of their jockey boxes and everything, and you just walk around and meet people, and they're all just, here, have some beer, have some food. Somebody smoked a whole pig. I told you, accountants don't do this. Yeah, right. That's true. There's no insurance agent at Boonville Beer Fest. Yeah, no, exactly. This is an industry that's just so fun to be a part of. But yeah, I really like that West Coast IPA from Almanac, and then a Will Shameless plug. We have Aaron, our brewer here, made a hazy IPA that we called To the Windu to the Mall. And I really like it. I have drank a lot of that, so it makes me happy. Thank you, Bria. Thank you for singing the whole thing. To the Windu to the Mall. I was going to say your mention about Almanac in that we're going to have Lost Abbey back for the first time in six years to Portland. Wow, very cool. So Lost Abbey is coming back to Portland. We did a pre-sale and sold a lot. And it's primarily not mixed firm stuff. All new branding, all new canning, because they were port brewing. It was port Lost Abbey, and then port effectively got moved into Pea Support, which is why Pea Support now occupies their taproom. And you have Lost Abbey's now newly branded can, 16 ounce cans. I just got another idea. A-ha moment. That's coming soon. I don't know how soon it is, but we've got Lost Abbey on the way, which is cool. I am totally going to say one more thing from Bria's question, and this is something I did often. It is Julien Beer Company. So Julien Beer Company is an offset of Pizza Port. We actually lived in Julien for a hot moment while we were helping some friends open up a restaurant. And our go-to was the Granddaddy Pep pepperoni pizza with jalapenos and roasted, or smoked, roasted garlic. Smoked jalapenos and roasted garlic, excuse me. And we would get a picture of the Martian IPA. Again, picture of beer and a pizza means you are sitting your butt down and you're enjoying friends. And you're definitely near the coast in San Diego. Because that's what you do. This is in Julian. So this is up in the mountains where we pick apples. It's like a tiny old town up there. It's an hour away from San Diego proper. So you would drive up there. You'd go for a little hike. Go hike Stonewall. Go hike Cuyamaca Peak. And then you would go have a pizza and a picture of beer. So anybody who checks out San Diego, if you have to get out of San Diego and want to go adventure out, go to Julian. Go to Julian. It's amazing. While we're plugging people for free, we don't have any sponsors of the... This would be where we have a sponsor break right here. We would be like, hey, you know, go do this thing and check out this place and do this stuff or buy this product. And we are for sale. You can sponsor Overthinkr. We'll let you. So please contact us if you'd like to sponsor Overthinkr. But because we don't have a sponsor for Overthinkr, I'll start out and just give a shameless plug for O-O-O-O-Riley. O-O-O-O-Riley. Parts. There you go. Jamaican horn. Who do you want to give a plug for? That's a very specific Nissan. It's San Diego. Okay, I got a national one. Five, eight, eight, two, three hundred, empire. We're in the yellow pages. Empire carpet. That's great. Empire. Empire carpet. And they became empire today. They still do commercials today. And they still look like they're made in 1997. And just like an animated little guy, yeah, everything. Absolutely, absolutely. It went viral there for a minute, like the founder, like an old guy now around Thanksgiving this last year, had his whole family around. And they did 800, 580, 200, 300, empire, like together as a family. It was like, wow, that's something. That's magic. It's magic, it's magic. It's beautiful. Yeah, Shane Company is a good one. Yeah. I have a structured settlement and I need cash now. Call JG. Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW. There we go. Oh, I totally messed that part last night. Well, this has been your sponsored segment, sponsored by nobody. So, yet. What about you create your own and be like, hello, my name is Warren and I'm an overthinker. It's like a little AA action. This is a little, I like that. Nice to meet you, Warren. Welcome. I wanted to do that to begin the show, but I'm like, yeah. That's pretty good. I really wanted to. And I was like, you guys gotta, you know, have to move the cameras. I want to get into, I want to take us to a different place. I want to imagine that there are multiple realities. Into the Multiverse. Here's how we're going to do this. Imagine, imagine a world, if you would, imagine with me, imagine a world where Vinny never brewed blind pig IPA in San Diego, what does that world look like today? Isn't that right? Just terror. My brain just erased. There would be a lot of crystal malts and caramel malt. IPA would be a lot more like Bridgeport IPA. That's true. Our IPA would be Oranger. Yeah, SRM way up here. Filtration, non-existent. Oh man, that's fucking hard. We'd be drinking a lot of loggers too. I think everyone would still hate IPAs. Yeah, because you were not becoming acclimated, because that was one of the go-tos that really helped boost and lift that flavor profile. And people had to get used to it, and it had to come from somebody who was going and willing to get behind it. And that's what they did. I think it was a pioneering beer that, when hazy IPAs came around, they only enhanced this movement towards late edition hops. We still call them all IPAs, and I still meet a person from time to time that's like, oh, I don't drink IPAs. And I'm like, well, when's the last time you had an IPA? Oh, it's been a decade. Yeah. Well, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Well, you don't know what you're talking about, yeah. Because IPAs have changed a lot. And what you didn't like was grocery store shelf turds with caramel and crystal malt and orange, amber hues and big bitterness. Maybe tangerine flavoring. Yeah, looking for that tangerine note, man. Other things, yes. I remember looking for that. I hunted that tangerine note. One of my first home brews, I love to make browns as my first home brews, but anything that was an Avery Maharaja, it was Avery Maharaja clones. That's what I was making. And we're talking like, what, 2005, Avery Maharaja clones. Wow, Avery Maharaja, yes. That's been a long time since I've seen Avery. One of the first Imperial Stout I think I ever had was Avery in 95, 96. Ooh, out of bounds stout. Something about Avery Maharaja clone. Oh my God. It was, holy thing. Love that beer. I went to the brewery when they were still in a business park. I never went when they had built their own separate standalone deal in Boulder. And it was the same time when Crooked Stave had not built out their space in Rhino. And they were also in a little space. That's the only place I've been to of theirs too is the little strip mall kind of place. Crooked Stave. But that was a time, mid teens was kind of the early, the sour wars, as I like to say. Yeah, I would say about, yeah, about 2015 to 2021. I don't know, it felt like mixed culture things didn't make it to the other side of COVID. No, unfortunately not. But there's still out there. Speaking of, Not dead completely. Speaking of things that aren't going to make it, my next question here, in the multiverse, notice it's not the multiverse, it's the multiverse. Into the multiverse. Here's the next one. What if the Oakland A's had moved to Portland? Jesus. What to do, what to do? I got nothing. I'm like, dang. I mean, we can't even figure out where the hell we want our own baseball team to have a ballpark, much less somebody else's baseball team that doesn't want that. I mean, Portland was in the bidding for trying to get the A's at one point. This was several years ago. You know, Russell Wilson was a part of that group. MLB to PDX and all of that. And they had identified a place to put a ballpark that was actually kind of over near Brew Host. It's where all of the cool things are opening right now, which is Brew Host and Great Notion and Jerry's Tavern. Yeah. Pizza Thief. Yeah, so a really interesting part of town that could be a really cool stadium district where you're pre-gaming Great Notion and Brew Host on your way to, you know, one of the reasons I love baseball is, this will sound weird at first, I'll clarify, but the affordability. Like, the Mariners still have many weeknight games that outfield bleacher seats are six bucks. Just go to a game. Just go, just go. And yeah, you're going to walk around and you're going to be paying, you know, $8, $9 for a can of beer or, you know, $13 for a pint on draft. You know, that's not ideal, but it's really just so fun. Same thing like San Diego, you would have like out on the green, the lawn, and you could just go get tickets for super cheap and you just sit there and chill, bring your blanket. The kids can hang out, run around, and then you're buying $13 beers. But still, it's a good compromise. And it could have been another stadium right on a riverfront, which to me, like, look at Pittsburgh Stadium. Their team is beautiful, pretty garbage, but they have a beautiful landscape and like the twins. I went there to Target Field before I left Minnesota, and that is a beautiful space. So you can see the whole downtown. That's my American League team, the twins. Mine as well. All right. Can we come together? This is like a, this is a real thing. Are we going to hold hands? Sing Kumbaya? Okay. Is that next? We got to get you guys matching twins hats. Little Minnesota twins hat. Well, the twins clobbered the Mariners today, so. That happens. Let's not go too far. I've got, I've got one more question that is outside this realm. This realm we currently live in. We're going to go into the Multiverse one more time. What if, what if Everywhere Beer opened up a pub in Portland? Sweet Jesus. Sorry, that's like every time. That's where I would hang out. That's where you'd hang out. It's delicious, for one. It's great beer. Like everything about it. I've only drank very little of it, and this just made me even more excited. They're Colch. We did Colch service at a couple different spots when they last came to town, which was a couple months ago, and it was outstanding. We did Colch service next month. What if... Everywhere beer opened a pub in Portland? We just came back around at the same place we were in the multiverse? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm sorry. It would be... It would be called... Depends on where it was. Function? Next month? It would be called Everywhere Beer is opening a pub in Portland. Can we be getting Colch service? Baseball analogy is dropping the ball. Both locations? Yeah, everything's both locations. Everything is everywhere. All at once. Everywhere is everything. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere Beer is coming to Portland in June to take over Function. Basically, what happens when Function has a takeover, it's immersive. They do a really great job. It's not just a tap takeover. The glassware is going to be from everywhere. The signs on the wall, the decor, is going to be everywhere's branding, everywhere's vibe. The sign out front is going to say, Everywhere Beer. It's really a cool thing that I'm excited about. I hope that many others will get excited about it as well and be okay with being excited about beer in Portland. And yeah, line up for it. Go out there and crush it. It's phenomenal beer. It's worth being excited about. And to see Function do what they do. I've been going there since he was partnered up with a different person. They were doing weekend pop-ups. And it was around the time Modern Times downtown opened. And they had just come up from LA and was like, Here's some welcome to LA IPA, whatever they did for Modern Times then. And it was a weekend thing. And then it was a weekly thing. Barelyx done it. They did a, you know, like a, you bring in your vinyl and spin vinyl. That's super red. And now there's the expansion of North, which I'm hoping to, hopefully, you may have heard it here first, do an upper funk series, which is similar to the upper lip series, where we do symposiums and talk about beer things, because the nerds got a nerd. And then you have Northeast, which is on Alberta, the former Imperial top room. Speaking of nerds, let's bring another nerd up here for a question. Here's somebody. That somebody is Andre. Andre, come on up here. We want to hear from you. Come around the back and behind me. And yeah, we just want to... You've got a question here. I'm going to hand you your question card back so you know what you wrote down before. Come over between me and Jenny. And there you go. Yeah, so my question here, being from San Diego myself, that is my adult home for 20 plus years, been in Vancouver for three years and found Vice and fell in love with the place and both me and my girlfriend come here every week. It's great times. I'm very curious because we have all the representation from the different cities here. Where do you see the beer scene going up here? Seattle is not necessarily as lively with their craft beer scene. Portland, I would say much more so, but it seems like a lot of the breweries in Portland are very family oriented, which is cool to see as well. Lots of areas for kids to play and everything. Like, where do you see it going? Yeah, stick around, stick around. Yeah, we're going to answer your question and talk to you. Where do we go from here in the Pacific Northwest? Well, I think, for starters, we just touched on function, which is a lot of pop-up type things, where it's imagination, it's trying new things. As far as family oriented, I feel like that's traditionally what Portland's done, and it's kind of trending the opposite way. We're seeing more of a presence of cocktail-focused places. Cocktails and mocktails and other beverages of low ABV or no ABV, zero alcohol, have become very popular. I feel like that is a trend that is unstoppable at this point, year-round, not just a dry January thing. So yeah, I mean, as far as the pub, I don't see craft beer changing much in the pub other than the styles within it. Family-oriented is tricky because I'm neither married nor have a child or even a furry baby. But I think there's more accessibility here and there. There are breweries that are opening that are specifically doing that for sure still. Just less common than it was 10 years ago. I think Seattle is also... I hate to say this because I love Seattle. Seattle is really becoming an exciting place for beer. As we see folks like Cloudburst and Holy Mountain and now Human Robot and Bizarre Brewing are some of the new ones popping up there. I think there's a resurgence happening there. There's a place like Ballard. Ballard Brewery Blocks are just an incredible place to go visit and spend an afternoon where within like a 3x3 blocks, and we're talking like neighborhood blocks, they're tiny blocks. There's like 14 breweries. It's all so packed together and so cool. But that said, that all sprouted up much later than Portland for sure. I think Seattle maybe still thumbed its nose at Portland a little bit, called us hipsters and things like that for a while while we drank our IPAs. But I think that's changing. I think that beer is becoming very accessible. And I think as this podcast grows, you'll probably hear me refer to this many times, because I do in my daily life all the time. I think beer is following coffee. We're in third wave coffee now. Where coffee is accessible on every single corner. And I think beer is becoming that. And so when you see Great Notion, who has eight locations in three states, I think you're going to see more of that. You're going to see more small pop-ups, like you said, but locations, small taprooms. More drafts. We're here to service this neighborhood with one person behind the bar. And it's just our beer featured here for this neighborhood. And a small microcosm, I'll say, is just that just recently, draft has finally come back to overtake package, which was king during COVID. So draft is a big showing right now. And I think a lot of people are still adjusting for that. So that's going to play a part as well. What are you excited about in beer coming up? Or what have you seen that you're jazzed on? Well, let me tell you something I wasn't super jazzed on in Southern California. When everything started to go limited release, where people were literally lining up outside of Bevmos and breweries, and it got to the point where it was like, you're spending $30, $40 on a bottle that you theoretically need to leave in a fridge for like five years. That's kind of when I started not have so much fun anymore. I'm kind of hoping it's not going to go that direction up here, but I do like the maybe more neighborly aspect up here. It's just a different culture up here. I think you hit the nail on the head. Accessibility is one of the number one things that we have to stay in touch with, because that's how we share what we do best. That's how the brewery is here in Southwest Washington. That's how the one's in Portland. That's how everyone can end up collaborating together. It's being able to be accessible. And when we make it so it's not, you know, if it's too crazy inaccessible, you can still line up. You can still this. You can still get it, but it just depends on your timing. We don't have a lot of that up here necessarily, but it is important to make sure that, you know, even if you can't get something, you still have the accessible experience. You can still get something on draft. You can still find a bottle or a can or go talk to somebody. I think that's the biggest thing that we have to keep in mind in craft beer, especially this area. We, as much as like, again, there's a difference between like the excitement and the hype and waiting in line for stuff, which is super fun, but like you said, it has to be fun. And when things become inaccessible, you're like, ah, I couldn't even get into the lotto to get into the lotto to get into the lotto to have a chance to win that beer. But that's a whole other level of beer too. It's actually something that I actually personally stopped saving in aging beers because it is for cracking it open now with friends and family. Fresh is best. Yeah, and another reason why too, I really enjoy it. I mean, IPA is one of my all-time favorite beer styles on the face of the planet, always has been. But now that we're going into like, Hellas was also my favorite, but not a lot of people were making Hellas 10 years ago. So when they were, they were like, an amazing little tiny spot, you know? And I feel like up here, we have a lot of amazing tiny spots that are doing things so well, and that amazing beer is accessible. Like, we can get our hands on some delicious stuff. And that's what makes it appear exciting. Absolutely. And we're returning to diversity. I think it's, we've been so focused on IPA for so long, and lager, but lager is coming up stronger. We're selling more red ales, pale ales and brown ales. Sorry, Ezra. It is a thing. People are wanting to drink classic styles again, which again is a sign of a maturing market where you're just like, I don't just need the hype thing. I want the thing that is delicious and sessionable, and I could drink on the river, or I can, you know, sit at home on a rainy day, and not get overwhelmed. Like, that's still a thing people want. Absolutely. It's a big trend. Thank you, Andre. That actually became a thing up in Seattle, trying to hang out with some friends, is we actually literally avoided certain beer bars, because it was literally all IPAs down the menu. It was like, I want something other than an IPA. Give me something more. There you go. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Super rad. All right, we got one more thing we want to do here. Real quick. You all participated in maybe a fantasy baseball draft at some point. Maybe fantasy football, but we're going to go ahead and we're going to draft. What's On Draft? This is a California brewery draft. We're going to assemble our fearsome threesome of a California brewery. Warren, you're down on the end there. You've been awarded the first pick of the draft. This is a snake draft. So it's going to go Warren, Jenny, myself. I will get to pick again on what they call the turn. And then it goes back to Jenny. Then you will get to pick again on the turn back. And then Jenny, and then I will have the final pick. So Warren, what is your first California brewery that makes your team of top California breweries? Is this kind of also like a futures kind of thing? Where I'm getting a rookie that's very good, that's going to have a great life? It could be a dynasty draft, sure. Yeah, you could go for somebody that you want, that you're like, I believe in this, this is going to break out. Award-winning brewery, got the chops, in the right town, just purchased another brewery to blow up and sell beer in other markets. Greencheek. Greencheek. Greencheek, I don't even know if Greencheek is an up and comer. Greencheek is phenomenal. They're great, but they're also very... Took over a whole other market. They're local. That's like you saying, I'm going to pick an up and comer for the first pick of the draft. I'm going to take Christian McCaffrey, and I hope he works out. Greencheek is incredible. Okay, Niners fan, I understand. Greencheek's incredible. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Jenny, who's your first pick? Oh, I think I know who Jenny's going to pick. Yeah, of course. You just went in Greencheek, so I was like... Yeah, okay, I'm going to go with... I will go with North Park. It's North Park Beer Co. Yeah, there we go. North Park it is. I can feel that one in my bones. Yes. That makes sense. I'm going to take, with my first pick, I'm going to take... I'm going to go outside of the three cities that we've been talking about. I'm going to go into the Sacramento area. I'm going to go out to Rockland, California and take Moxa. I'll take Moxa with my first pick. Moxa is doing incredible stuff. They're actually one of the cans we have here from California that I'm going to crack too. And they are going to be the feature brewery of Brews for New Avenues coming up here this summer. So that's a festival to look forward to and some really incredible beer to also look forward to. Oh, yeah. And there's somebody, like you were saying, an up-and-comer. Moxa is hitting it now, for sure. But they're located really close to where my cousins live. And so when we visited California, we were like, there used to be a brewery in that building that was like, eh. And then Moxa moved in and all of a sudden, I was just like, these guys are good. Why is nobody talking about this place? Now everybody's talking about this place. So that's great. Moxa is my first pick of the first round. So coming back around on the turn with the second round, my second pick is going to be Everywhere, Everywhere Beer. So I'm going to take Moxa and Everywhere. Everywhere I think is an up-and-comer. I think not enough people know about them yet, and they need to. Jenny, you're up. All right. I'm going to go somewhere in Central California actually. So in Central California, I have lots of family all over California. So driving through, I have lots of great memories. My great-grandfather lived in this area, and it's still to this day my camping trip with my daughter that we do annually. I'm scared she's going to take my brewery that I wanted to come back around. Kern River. They've been around for a long time. Citra. Yup, Citra. It's beautiful. I had actually a chance to watch the Great American Beer Fest. There and everyone was watching. It was great. Rebecca and Eric, we actually switched hats. I had my North Park hat on. We swapped out hats when North Park was announced. The Brewery of the Year award. It was a really wonderful time. Again, because of my childhood experience there as well, just being on the Kern River and camping. They make some amazing stuff. If you have not been out there or if you can make your way down, I highly recommend it. It's beautiful. It's also the base of the Sequoia National Forest. You can go hiking up there too. Nice. Alright. Love it. You got two picks now. Number one is Cellarmaker. And I choose Cellarmaker because if you look at what Cloudburst and Pint House Pizza in Texas and Highland Park, they're all associated. Greencheek is part of that as well, where they're brewing each other's beers. But I feel like Cellarmaker was the first that really did what Rooz once called the Rooz IPA. It's a hazy west coast or a west coast, whatever you want to call it. Modern hops, opaque, but still drinkable like a west coast, a little pinier. So that to me is what made Cellarmaker on the map. I mean, Fort George picked them as part of their three ways. 100%. It's a good pick. Who's your next one? Number two is gotta be the classic LA one, Beachwood. I go Beachwood, Brewing and Blending, because that's kind of a two-for-one deal at this point, because Izzum took over the original, or not the original, but the Long Beach barbecue spot. And yeah, you have the Blendery still in Long Beach, and you have a bunch of outposts now all over Orange County and Long Beach area. Fantastic. So your three are Greencheek, Beachwood. Cellarmaker and then Beachwood. Cellarmaker and Beachwood, yeah. Yeah. Greencheek, Cellarmaker, Beachwood comprises your team. All right. Jenny, who's your final pick? All right. Well, it would be obvious, but I'm not going to go with my obvious choice. You should do your obvious choice. I think I know what that one is. But one of my favorites, which is very much, it flies under the radar 100% in San Diego. They make a lot of English style beers, but it's New English. They actually recently went to Cannes in the last three to four years, which is shocking because they were bottles for years. Their Explorer ESB is one of my all time favorite beers. But they are a beer, like I would go paddle boarding out in La Jolla Cove, and then I'd go over to New English and hop, skip, and a jump, and go have a beer there afterwards. I highly recommend, again, if you're in San Diego, it's along the same vein, if I'm not mistaken, like if you're going to Gravity Heights, which is also Skip Virgilio's place, he was Ailsmith previously, and they have amazing restaurant and brewery there, and so I would go to New English and then hop right over. There's a couple places to visit in San Diego. I've not heard of them. They literally lie under the radar every time, but they've been around forever, and everybody, all the beer nerds, the brewers, it's a brewers' brewery. San Diego trip. I'll say that Michelin is pretty good, too. Yeah, no, trust me, there's this, there's this. This is a hard game, guys. Yeah, it's a hard game. I just had to mix it up with some New English, though. Your team is North Park, Kern River, New English. Bingo. All right. I'll take, I got the last pick, and there's a lot to choose from left, but I would be remiss not to go back to my OG brewery love, and that is Anderson Valley Brewing Company. They still just have such a special place in my heart for just such an awesome venue. It's the place I was with a friend when we went to our first SF Beer Week 12 years ago, and I sat at the bar with him, and I just remember the moment of being like, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to be a part of. There's something about this industry, and I just kind of had an aha moment. We even joked about, there were two hawks flying overhead, and we joked about one day we'll have a brewery, we'll call it Two Hawks Brewing Company for this moment. We didn't do that. But that was a moment. And that's the draft. What we're going to do, we're going to put that up on the social medias so folks can vote on their favorite of the teams we've assembled and determine what... we'll see. We'll see what they end up with for their favorites. Jenny and Warren, super stoked. You guys came to talk about rad California things. This is really fun. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming out. But that's it. That's Overthinkr.