Episode 40 – 99 Bottles of Brew on the Wall

Friends with Brews!
That was a distinctly…
What’s the word? Lack of…
What’s the…
What’s one word for lack of enthusiasm?
You’re counting with sorely lacking in excitement, I must say.
You sounded like…
Blasé.
You sounded like, “Oh my god, here we go again.”
I’ve had that kind of day.
Okay.
And, and I’m drinking decaf today.
Yeah, I noticed that. Why?
Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere.
Yeah. Namely here.
Okay. All right.
You’re one of those people that Yeah, I know. I know.
You’re one of those people who are like,
“Oh, caffeine doesn’t have any effect on me.”
Well, it has effect on me, so yeah.
I’m sure it does have some effect,
but it doesn’t keep me awake.
Whether or not I sleep as well,
I couldn’t begin to tell you, but.
Yeah. Anyway, today I have mixed it up.
I scoured the aisles at Wegmans,
and I found a Wegmans specialty coffee,
their decaffeinated Peruvian, nutty with a sweet finish.
Unlike my normal go-to stuff, this is a light roast.
Mm-hmm.
But other than the normal Wegmans decaf espresso roast that I get,
this was the only other whole bean decaf I could find in the store. So I got it.
Yeah, and whole beans are important.
And it’s pretty good.
I don’t like those three-quarter beans. I don’t like those half beans.
Hmm. Do not get a half bean, half bean, especially not a half baked half bean.
Right.
And don’t get a half baked half bean has bean, because that’s even worse.
I don’t get a half baked bean baked half potato baked potato. I don’t know definitely don’t get a baked bean either
But yeah, anyway, I like it. It’s a light roast which is not my normal thing, but it’s drinkable
So it’s still you know, I had a splash of cream in it. I think it should be your normal thing
Here’s what I’m having Peter. I’m having ferment brewing companies L lager Dorado
El lager Dorado. Yeah, it’s a lager brood without the El Dorado not the older auto logo logger Dorado. That’s the name
It’s a lager brood with a gov a syrup. How do you say that agave syrup?
Yeah, and it says bottom ferment. I really don’t want to talk about people’s fermented bottoms
But they also have some top ferment beers too, so they’re all into their extremes with their fermenting
It’s either got to be top or bottom. Apparently, there’s no middle for mint
Is there such thing as a middle ferment beer I’m asking?
We should probably get someone like a friend of the show Adam Bell to answer that.
That’s right.
Okay, Peter.
Hey, Scott.
Oh, let me take a sip of this.
This is a pretty good lager.
I like this.
This is a good summer beer.
It’s a good lager.
if I recognize the taste of agave right away and there’s tiny bit of a sharp taste of something
but it’s not too bitter and yeah I’m all about this.
This is pretty good. This is brewed
in Hood River which uh it’s not that far from here. It’s not the biggest town in the world
but I guess a lot of people live there now. Yeah it’s pretty good. Okay. They say a crisp
refreshing lager with a special zing. It does have a bit of a zing.
I will say they’re right
about that so of all the lagers that I’ve had in recent times this is one of the better ones yeah
I like it I give it a thumbs up woohoo right into its fermented bottom
that’s weird that’s weird
uh well yeah I’m glad you you know you’ve uh yeah as you say up yours right up there’s up
up there fermented bottom who was the guy with the thumb in the plum or what was it little jack
I don’t remember some nursery rhyme you don’t even know what I’m talking about do you
little Jack Horner. Oh, you do know you’re ahead of me.
Sat in a corner, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, yeah, that guy. Oh, brother.
All right, so what’s going on? We’ve got our brews, we’ve established that,
we’ve got our hosts.
Shouldn’t we, do we have our hosts? Do we need an introduction? Yes,
you are Peter Nikolaidis. You are a man about town. You are a Bostonian at this point in time.
You live in Boston. You weren’t born there. You weren’t bred there. You haven’t had bred there.
You have had bread there, I would imagine.
I’ve had bread there. I’ve had bread in Boston, yes.
You’re an IT consultant.
These days, I don’t identify as an IT consultant anymore.
You identify as a security specialist.
I don’t do that, actually.
What the hell do you do, Peter?
Yeah, I identify as the founder and CISO of a security consultancy and also as the senior security operations manager and threat intelligence manager for a large hospital.
Pretty much what I said.
Not at all.
Hmm, okay.
So anyway, yeah.
But that said, yeah, that’s what I do. Now you try to introduce me,
since apparently I don’t know how to introduce you.
Let’s see how FUBAR you get with- Well, you do stuff with nachos and dips
and salsa, vinegar, salt. Right. You put a lot of things on people’s shoulders.
Yep, you’ve got those. Chocolates, you do morsels, little bits of chocolate that you put in cookies.
You do a lot of those. Plantains.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
That’s right.
Youyouwow.
Chips, that’s what you do.
Poker, you play poker a lot.
Yeah, right? That’sthat’s notthat’s not what you No.
Whatwhat do you do?
But you didn’t even say my name though, at least I said your name.
I’ve called you Scott a few times. I didn’t say Wallaby, but okay fine, you’re Scott Wallaby. Whatley, whatever.
Wisely.
Wisely.
Some people call you Scott Willsey.
And when I dictate, still every now and then, like back in the early days of Siri dictation
and stuff, I would say, you know, Willsey and it wouldn’t get it right.
I’ll say, you know, Willsey and it would be W-I-L-L space S-E-E.
Yes, yes.
I don’t think I ever saw it do W-I-L-L space S-E-A, but I could have seen that.
I mean.
No, I’ve never, I’ve never seen anybody misspell my name that way either.
All right.
All right, now that they know who we are, Peter, this podcast is reaching middle age.
We are on episode 40 today.
Middle age podcast.
Yeah, and it’s time for it to have a crisis.
So let’s get going on that.
Wasn’t every episode kind of a crisis?
Yeah, it’s pretty much.
We were pre-middle age crisis right from the beginning.
But I noticed as I looked at our website that we have had 97 different brews on this podcast,
not counting today’s.
So 99 now, different brews, including beer, coffee, and tea in 40 episodes. So 99 in 40. That’s a pretty healthy ratio.
So on average, that is usually, I mean, that’s like one and a half, a little over, a little
over, it’s like 1.2, 1 point.
No, it’s almost one and a half. It’s really close to 1.5 beers per episode.
Right. Yeah.
And I think I have to give you most of the credit for that volume
because you are usually the one with two beers, although I have done it occasionally and I’ve
also had a couple of repeats and I believe you’ve had a couple of repeats, but that’s
an interesting and impressive ratio that we’ve got racked up there.
Yeah. And I think more often I think there have been times where I’ve had a beer plus a coffee more often.
Yes. Two brews. Let’s just put it that way. Two brews.
But also some of the times that we’ve had Adam on has really bumped the number up.
Let’s see. Yeah, but that hasn’t been that many.
No, but there was a time, there was one time where Adam was on and there was like 28 beer,
28 drinks consumed between the three of,
I can’t remember I’m looking for right now.
We did get a little toasty that time.
Yeah.
Oh, here’s one.
Yeah, it was the one with Adam.
Adam had a Tennessee Brew Works, Walk the Lime
and a Black Abbey Brewing Company, The Rose.
You had Trillium Brewing Company’s Thresh.
Fresh, I remember that one.
And I had O’Lalie Ale from Groundbreaker Brewing,
which is a, what are you called?
Help.
You know what I’m trying to say?
Gluten-free.
Oh.
Wheat-free, gluten-free.
And I also, during that episode, had an Ex Novo Brewing,
the most interesting lager in the world.
So there were five drinks consumed
between the three of us on that episode.
All right, that was a good one.
That’ll up your numbers.
And as we know, more beer is better, right?
Yeah, and I always hear our listeners say, “Up your numbers.”
Up yours.
So I just want to take a little look back
and get your impressions of some of your favorites.
What were some of the standout brews?
Could be beer, could be coffee, could be toffee,
could be anything.
I mean, I feel like…
We have a brews page you can go look at.
I was just gonna say,
I feel like I should be calling up the bruise page and see what my favorites were.
I’m looking at it.
I’m yeah.
Obviously, the Ommegang Three Philosophers has to be up there.
Yes, yes.
That’s your favorite of all times.
My favorite of all time, although I don’t drink it as much as I used to because it’s
so strong and I need help, you know, with that.
Peter, it’s good.
The first step towards being recovering from alcoholism is saying that you need help.
Yep.
abbey copper legend is a standout that’s another another good one
yep really like that
did they give you a free jack’s abbey copper bracelet to go with your copper legend
i don’t believe they did
did they send you a copperhead snake
no
i hate them
uh let’s see yeah there i’m going over the ones that
i like first right oh chauffeur hofer grapefruit that’s a memorable one always like that one
i like it just for the name you had me at chauffeur hofer
well you had me at chaff
Okay, that’s good, that’s good. Let’s see there. I do remember fondly the Costa Rican imperial.
Those were good. I mean, they’re not outstanding, but you know, it was a special time.
It was a special time. And yeah.
Wegmans Distant Horizon, not to be confused with Event Horizon. That was a very good whole bean
coffee. I like that one.
Again with the whole beans.
Burlington Beer Company, it looks like I have not actually tested mochaccino on this. I have
No, you have.
Did I have mochaccino? I had barista and I had study hall, but I don’t think we actually had
mochaccino on the episode. Unless it was a long time ago, but I still have one can of mochaccino.
Oh, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.
I should have saved that. Maybe I’ll do that for our 50th episode.
I remembered you mentioning mochaccino, but what you said was lighter than the Burlington
beer company, Mocaccino, but very, very good.
Yeah.
So I’ve talked about mochaccino a bunch of times, but I haven’t actually had it.
So on the, on the podcast, on the podcast.
You’re a mochaccino tease, I think is what our listeners have said.
Mochateaso.
Mochateaso.
So Mochateaso. Yep. So yeah, there you go.
Yeah. So that’s what, that’s what’s going on. Those are
Those are my favorite beers. What about you? And then let’s go to, you know, our memorable,
but not in a good way.
Our most hated, our most despised products.
Well, since I’m, so I’m going to just look
at, I’m not going to list these in any particular order because I’m just going to go through
the brews pages.
But one of the things I did want to say was I really liked Water Avenue
Coffee’s River Trip.
And Water Avenue Coffee is a coffee roaster that I find to be pretty
good but they haven’t traditionally been one of my favorite but I loved the river trip
that was super good so that was one that was a highlight for me.
Okay let’s see here I actually did like blueberry boyfriend from prairie artisan ales that was
pretty good I will look for that again
last time I was at whole foods I didn’t find my blueberry boyfriend but he’s out there somewhere and I will find him again.
Does your wife know?
I told her, I said, “Hey, there’s this thing. You can’t stop it.”
There’s Cascade Lakes Brewing Company’s Salted Caramel Porter.
That one’s one that I always like. I’m always good with that.
Kova Coffee Roasters SO Blend. I love that coffee. Oh my god, I will drink that any time.
I had the Little Beast Brewing Third Bird Oatmeal Stout and I really liked it.
The bad news is that is the one and only time I’ve ever seen that at Whole Foods.
I don’t know where to find that right now. There are other little beast brewing products there and they continue to be there.
But that particular oatmeal stout I have not seen again. And I’m craving a little.
And that’s the same thing with Mocchino. Yeah, I only found it that one season and haven’t found
it since. And you know, they even said they were supposed to be making it this year too. And I
and I never saw it in stores anywhere.
And I looked.
Yep.
Ex Novo Brewing, most interesting lager in the world.
The one that I mentioned earlier, that one’s pretty good.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, and also Ex Novo Brewing’s Puff Puff Passionfruit Sour,
which I haven’t seen again either.
So that might be seasonal or something.
I don’t know.
That one’s pretty good.
That sounds like a seasonal thing.
Yeah, they seem to rotate beers anyway.
Mm-hmm.
I’ve liked most of what I’ve had from them.
And then Rogue’s Jam Sesh, I liked that.
I have not seen that one again.
I have seen lots of other rogue beers,
including the Honey Kolsch, which I also like,
and I can get anytime I want.
But the Jam Sesh, I haven’t seen again,
and I would really like to have that again.
So I’ll just go with those for my favorites.
I’ll stop there.
All right.
Now, what sticks out the most as things
that maybe we could have done without?
Peter, list your (bell dings) brews.
Yes, our list.
Yes.
Let me go down the list here.
Well, I had a Guinness.
I actually, no, I give that a thumbs up.
Nevermind.
Moving on.
Hop water, hop water.
Yeah, I don’t remember giving a, did I really give,
I might have to go back three episodes back to episode 37.
To see if you gave it a thumbs up.
Oh, that was the non-alcoholic.
That was Guinness Zero.
That was Guinness Zero.
Oh, okay, okay.
Yes, and I was like, for a non-alcoholic beer,
it’s not that bad.
Yeah, hop water, you basically gave a thumbs down
based on what you said to me.
Yeah, no, it was not, I mean, it was like,
yeah, no, just no, just don’t do it.
By the way, sometimes I paraphrase things that you say
when I’m compiling our reviews,
but I paraphrase myself too.
Yeah, but I mean, we should, but you used to ask me,
is it a clear thumbs up or a thumbs down?
That was pretty easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But if you don’t tell me, I go based on your comments.
Yes, fair enough, fair enough.
Yeah, JacksAbby, that guava thing,
I mean, pineapple guava, not really, not so much.
Yeah, I mean, most of the beers we’ve had we liked, which I guess, you know, it’s good.
We keep it positive when we can.
You have made me want to create a thumbs up or thumbs down filter for this view.
I think we should.
I might look into that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I’m not seeing, it seems like I’m liking most of the beers that I’ve had.
Well, I think that’s because when you go to the store, you have a pretty good idea of
what you like and try to choose accordingly.
And again, another non-alcoholic option.
Yeah.
Who wants to spend money and calories on beer that they’re going to wind up hating?
But people give me beer sometimes.
And those are often the ones that I don’t like.
Like Run Wild IPA.
I bought that one.
Again, athletic brewing.
That was alcohol-free.
Yeah, no.
Son of Juice IPA also.
That one has alcohol.
Didn’t really care for it.
But what about the Blueberry Matcha IPA?
I think that might be the only IPA you’ve ever liked.
You mean the one from Dunkin Donuts?
Yeah, yeah.
Surprisingly good one.
Yeah, no one sits out.
So yeah, none of the bad ones really stick out.
I always think about the one that your wife had,
like if I was desperate, that was a favorite.
But that’s it, that’s about all I got.
Yeah, and they’re nothing,
the bad ones don’t, they don’t stick out in my mind.
And that’s good.
That means I’m focusing on the positive
and that shows progress.
That’s right, that is progress.
Now that you’ve admitted that A, you need help
and you’re alcoholic, and by focusing on the positive.
Now that you’ve stated your negatives, I’m going to state mine.
Bierly Brewing’s Blackbird Stout, I was really looking forward to that one, and that one turned
out to be a disappointment. I really thought this is going to be a good one. The name and the type
of beer, it’s a gluten-free, but the way they describe it is a malted millet and malted rice
for a dark earthy, roasty flavor, and it really sounded good. But it is by far not the best
gluten-free beer I’ve had. I don’t recommend. Okay. Not the best. Not the best.
Not the best. Let’s see, what else have I had that I didn’t like? Oh, delirium red.
These delirium beers, I don’t know what is about them, but they’ve got the
whole… what would you say is with these? They’re Belgiums. They’re ba-how come I
always say that like I’m from Kentucky? Belgiums? They’re Belgiums, damn it!
They’re Belgians and you have said that you like yourself a Belgium red, am I wrong?
I don’t know that I’ve had a Belgian red.
I’ve had Belgians and I’ve had reds and I’ve liked them both.
So the odds are I would probably like it but I don’t know.
But this was like drinking cherry syrup.
If I had a bad cough I would expect this to help me with that.
That’s about the only thing I can say for it.
I don’t like it.
I don’t want it.
Get it away from me.
Is that clear enough?
Fair enough.
I get that.
I get that. That works.
Okay. I said it in a manner of comprehensiveness to everybody.
I downgraded. I said no. I thumped down.
The Berlick Beer Company’s Oat Soda. If you remember, you and I both had that.
I believe that was when you were here and we had high hopes for that.
Right. But we were not desperate.
And I said to you in the podcast,
have you ever had a Pilsner that was better than just okay?
I think that Pilsners are a nice beer for a pizza, but not a beer you would just grab.
And since then, I’ve had some Pilsners that I’ve liked quite a bit.
This was not one of them.
I just cannot recommend the Bear Lick beer oat soda.
I’m sorry.
Sorry, oat soda.
Just get away from me.
Sorry, oat soda.
Yeah.
Very, very sorry.
What else have I not liked?
This is so hard.
Oh, the Rogue.
Here’s one from Rogue I did not like.
Santa’s Private Reserve 2021.
I think they’ve had some, I think every year they have a Santa’s Private Reserve and I
think there have been some that I liked.
This was not one of them.
It said it was aged on rum barrel chips and I could tell and as I said in my review, I
don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing.
I don’t like things that taste like smoke.
I don’t like things that taste like wood.
I don’t like things that taste like a leather chair.
I just don’t.
I’m sorry.
people pay more money for that leather chair taste. If I was a dog…
Pencil lead. Notes of pencil lead. That’s my favorite.
If I was a golden retriever, I might want the leather chair, but I’m not.
Yeah. Now, so I largely, I agree with you, but sometimes something like a smoky flavor
can pair well with a steak or a burger, for example.
If it’s smoky. A smoky burger.
Yeah, because I’ve had like a smoked ale. I think JacksAbbey makes one like that. And
it’s, you know, if you just drink it straight, it’s like, yeah, this tastes like smoke. That’s
really weird. But if you have a burger that tastes a little like smoke, that’s good. And
so if you have a burger with a beer that tastes like smoke, that also can be good.
All right, I’ll just list one more. And this was a disappointment to me both for the beer
itself and for my inability to read. And that was the Cascade Lakes Brewing Company’s pineapple IPA.
I saw the word pineapple and stopped reading. Right, and the word IPA right below it that’s in
slightly bigger letters did not register with me. And so I was so looking forward to it,
but it was very much an IPA. The pineappley taste was great, but too hoppy. It was disappointing.
can’t recommend, do not want.
Huh?
And as I said, I don’t understand the appeal of IPAs, Peter, I still don’t.
And I said, I bought this because somehow while I did see and get excited
by the word pineapple, I completely missed the all caps IPA right below it.
And I could not miss the IPA in the taste.
Maybe I missed it on the label.
Didn’t miss it when I took the glugs of the beer.
So that’s that.
There you go. There you go.
That’s it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for putting up with us.
Hoof.
Hoof.
Peter says hoof.
Peter, hoof.
Is that a cloven hoof, or…
We’re getting into dietary restriction territory here.
Okay, so Peter, you…
What the hell, dude? You went to Puerto Rico.
You didn’t even say you were going.
I didn’t even know you were going.
It was kind of… it was kind of an impulse.
I guess, but it’s like…
Hey, let’s go. We got out of town for five days. It was fun.
Yeah, I suddenly realized,
I don’t think Peter’s gonna be podcasting this week because he seems to be in a different country.
Uh, but I wasn’t. I was in a protectorate of the US. I mean, so…
I don’t care if they say, “Oh, when America says something is its protectorate,
that means we’re squeezing it to death in the most loving way possible.”
Yeah, I like Puerto Rico. The people are nice, the temperature…
It was a little hot. It was a little unseasonably hot when I was there.
It was in the high 80s and 90s, which was a little warm.
Did you wear one of those bikinis that you were talking about the Germans wearing?
No.
Because it was so hot?
Oh no I did not.
Okay.
I wore, you know, I bought a nice white linen shirt and I had a nice Colombian hat.
Wow. Oh my god.
So I went native-ish.
Was your girlfriend suitably impressed? Did you look suave?
I looked suave and deboner.
Deboner.
There’s so many jokes I could make about do you really want to be deboner when you’re on
vacation with your girlfriend but I’m not going to.
But you kind of just did.
Let’s move on as rapidly as possible. What did you do while you were there? Did you do any of the same things that you did the first time?
No this was Puerto Rico not Costa Rica.
But did you do any similar things?
Yes that is that the answer to that is yes.
We went sailing which is something that we had done on both sides both in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico.
A lot of dining out. We saw a flamenco show with an amazing guitarist and dancers.
That was a lot of fun. We went running, went running around the, you know, the whole island is essentially, you know, was built up to be a giant fortress in the 1800s, which is kind of cool. Because they were awaiting America’s loving embrace or some other reason.
Well, I mean, they were awaiting liberation from the Spanish, you you know,
but we also went power snorkeling. And you know,
that’s power. Yeah, that’s when you breathe. You take a deep
breath, you go underwater and just exhale as hard as you can.
Oh, I thought it was when you put on your mask and say we’re going snorkeling.
Not really. Yeah. And we’re gonna mean it. No, it’s actually
when you use a power assisted little impeller. So you get this
little thing. That is cool. It is cool. It is cool. And it’s a lot of fun.
That sounds like my kind of snorkeling.
It was fun. It was a lot of fun. And, um, you know, it was like my girlfriend was looking at the thing and as we were getting ready, she was like, we should see if we can get one of these on Amazon.
And you know, for a minute, I was tempted to buy one of those things because they are really cool.
But I’m like, where am I going to use it?
I was about to say, I don’t, what’s the river that goes past your house?
I’m not going to jump out into the Mystic River and go snorkeling in that. Although,
Upper Mystic Lake, it’s only three miles away and it is connected.
I could kayak up there, jump out, snorkel around in there. So it’s possible for sure.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun zipping around underwater.
It was like, if you saw, I know you don’t watch the Marvel movies, but some of our listeners may.
Wakanda Forever, the second Black Panther movie, there’s a scene where the, you know, one of the heroes is using something like this.
You get underwater and it just pulls you along. And this was fun. It was a really fun thing.
So how much would it cost to buy one of these impellers? I imagine that a decent one is not that cheap.
Amazon’s got them for like under 500 bucks.
Are they gas powered? What are they? Battery electric. Oh, excellent. Nice.
Electric rechargeable. And they make them faster. The ones we had, I think were probably plenty
fast. But yeah, zipping around in the lagoon, we saw a barracuda that lives there.
I was about to ask you, what kind of creatures do you see when you go snorkeling in Puerto Rico?
Barracuda, sea turtles.
So did the barracuda approach you?
No, it was just like, “Oh, F off,” and it went in the direction.
Oh, okay. That’s good.
The sea turtles, however, were like, “Yeah, we’re coming up for air. Get out of our way.”
And then came up, took a little sip, and then bobbed back down again. So yeah, it was a lot of
fun.
Nice. Well, it is their house.
I get that. I get that. So we tried to give them their space, you know? Yeah.
But yeah, power snorkeling. That was a lot of fun. You know, and then just checking out local food,
the signature dish, mofongo. It’s made out of plantains and maybe shrimp or chicken
or beef.
Had that a few times. That was really good.
Plantain chips?
Nope. Mashed. Savory. But you can also get, I forget the name of it, but they also make a version with the sweet plantains.
I was going back to your incorrect introduction of me.
So it’s like a sweet plantain with mission.
With the plantain chips thing.
It was yummy. It’s pretty good. Yeah, well, I mean chips. You’re the chips guy, so yeah.
Good. That sounds amazing.
Yeah. No, it’s fun. Pretty affordable too. I think, you know, I’m generally like maybe
cheaper than Boston for most things. Like food anyway.
Oh, well, God, I hope so.
But everything’s turnyeah. Well, I mean, I thought Costa Rica was comparable when I was there.
To Puerto Rico or to Boston?
to Boston, and price-wise, yeah. So, but definitely, at least, again, we were only in
Old San Juan, so, you know, in the capital district.
Seemed to have, like, you know, all the same modern conveniences as Boston, with most of the cool, fun-to-do things and tropical, you know, climates of Costa Rica.
So, kind of cool, you know, I liked it.
I think one of my friends that I haven’t talked to in many years, and I would love to figure out
how to get a hold of again.
I think my friend John Grace’s wife is from Puerto Rico. I think.
Yeah, I gotta find that guy. John, if you’re out there and for some reason you’re listening,
give me a call. I’ll post my phone number on the internet for you.
That sounds amazing. That sounds great.
Yeah, it was fun. It’s a four-hour flight from Boston.
Costa Rica, we agreed you could buy some property there.
Yes.
And be El Gringo non grata. but
absolutely
could you do that in Puerto Rico?
I didn’t look seriously at properties but I took a couple of real quick looks because you know I always do that whenever I go somewhere
apparently a lot of people do and I see you know found a couple of two-bedroom things that they looked like
I think they they’re probably cheaper than than the Boston area again but again not saying a lot
there’s only two markets in the U.S. that are more expensive than Boston so there you go
Yeah. Two things Peter’s known for whenever he goes anywhere is looking at the alcohol
by volume content and looking at the land prices.
And the ABV on those beers was relatively low.
Again!
Okay.
Well, it’s a hot climate kind of thing.
Yeah. And I’m guessing that in countries like that, where it is catering towards to, I imagine
that there’s a lot of people drinking beer throughout the day. So probably the lower
or alcohol by volume beers are a better idea.
Yep. And, and again, you know, they do the,
the good old, you know, evening party thing,
like every day at the end of the day in this,
at least in this neighborhood we were in, you know,
the bars are all out and the people are out in force doing,
you know, doing their, their end of day drinking and stuff.
It was fun.
The rum, you know, for whatever reason,
rum’s pretty popular down there.
I don’t know if you knew that. Maybe I’ve heard something about that.
Did you partake of rum?
We did. I did. Not straight. I thought about going on a rum tasting, but we didn’t actually do that.
But went and tasted different rum drinks. At one point my girlfriend got a Cuba Libre,
which is like rum and Coke, right? And she gets it and she takes a drink.
She hands it back to the bartender and she’s like, “There’s too much rum.”
So the solution was for her to sip a little bit and the bartender poured more Coke into the thing.
I was like, yeah, you don’t, you don’t say that.
Well, yeah, I mean, she is the one that has to drink it.
Yeah, I guess so. But you know, normally that’s not a complaint that people have.
It’s usually I can’t taste the rum.
Yeah. He probably thought what, what is wrong with these people, but you know,
that’s his problem, not hers.
Yep. So anyway, yeah, there you go.
What else is new with you?
You put something in about Jurassic beer.
Yeah. Jurassic beer. And I don’t know anything about this.
My brother just sent me this picture and I don’t know… I want to find the article that’s associated with it.
But this microbiologist says he awakened yeast that was 25 million years old and had been imprisoned in amber.
Then he later co-founded a brewery which produces beer with a kind of yeast, Peter, that is 45 million years old.
So you can… I don’t know if that sounds appealing or not. Does that sound good to you?
I mean, I don’t know, what’s the shelf life of yeast?
If it’s 45 million years, then sure, why not?
It’s at least 45 million years.
Yeah, we know that now.
Let’s try it.
But you have to put it in amber though.
You can’t just stick it in a jar on the counter.
Maybe I should have some of the yeast I have in my freezer right now.
I should just stick it into, you know, stick it in amber.
Yeah, go find yourself archeologists, microbiologists, geologists, whoever can provide you with amber that you can inject your yeast into.
What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing. You might one day find velociraptors bursting out of your cabinet.
There you go. Yeah, anyway, I thought that was pretty fascinating.
You know what? Let’s do. Let’s see if we can track this stuff down and order some.
I’m serious.
I know that sounds like fun. Okay.
Shouldn’t be that hard. I mean, he’s got his his logo and everything right on the beer. Yeah. San Francisco. What does it say? I can’t read this.
If we can’t, but Peter, if between you and you and I, if we can’t figure out how to find this guy,
let’s just quit the internet. Let’s quit our jobs because clearly we don’t deserve them.
Because we can’t internet.
Oh yeah, we can’t even.
San Francisco East Bay. Okay.
Year old yeast beer. 45 million year old yeast.
There’s a slight difference there, Peter.
Well, that would be funny if they did sell here’s some year-old yeast beer and right next to it on the shelf is 45 million Year-old yeast beer and there’s nothing in between, you know,
you’re the one who missed the word You know the big giant ipa on the pineapple, right?
That’s true. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I missed the 45 million part
But um, yeah. Yeah. No, I was just laughing because it made me think what if they’d sold both and there was nothing in between
So, I don’t know if you got this apparently this was covered in wired magazine in
Oh, okay. I’ll go dig under my bed for that issue.
But then again, the California Sun covered it again in 2021. So… and also it was covered
in 2017 and 2016. So it looks like this comes and goes.
Well, you can’t just crack open any rock and find a bunch of amber containing 45 million
year old yeast, Peter.
I mean, maybe he’s making it again and again, right?
I mean, maybe he makes it regularly.
But how?
There’s no way he has samples enough
that he’s just cranking out huge batches of this stuff.
Well, it’s reproducing, so sure.
Once you make it, you have the yeast,
you can keep reusing it and stuff.
But is that the same as saying
that it’s 45 million year old yeast?
I mean, you take the yeast, it reproduces.
So-
Yeah, but that’s brand new yeast.
Right. But it’s also, you know, maybe daddy’s 45 million years old. Peter’s what I’m saying.
Bingo.
Child ain’t 45 million years old.
Right. No, child is, you know, 45 seconds year old or something.
Right. You can’t sell that particular beer as 45 million year old yeast beer.
That’s what I’m saying.
Derived from 45 million years.
Loosely related to,
well, let’s track him down and we’ll see what we can do. I mean, if he’s still around,
I’m still finding these are, I’m doing real time research here and I’m not, not finding,
But I’ll find I’ll search we’ll find out. He’s microbiological. It might be hard to find him
fossil fuels Brewing Company
that sounds amazing and
It looks like their website has gone down. Oh
Yeah, he goes there and it redirects to an IP address in
Thailand
they don’t say Russia. Okay.
Nope. It’s Thailand and it’s trying to take over my browser
So get rid of that think we’re done. I’m not gonna try to buy this. I’m not buying anything from this website
I hope you had maximum malware protection loaded at the moment
maximum
Type cookie you idiot.
There’s a new virus in the database
Replicating eating up memory. What do I do type cookie you idiot?
I made my username is password So it’s easier that way. I just have to type password twice
Okay, let’s talk about speaking of cookie you idiot let’s talk about AirPods Pro because that is a segue
Yeah, AirPods Pro you idiot. It’s a segue
For segue. Yes. So as you know, I had had I had many problems with AirPods turns out
It was just Apple Bluetooth
I had over the year or so the last year year plus had some issues with my AirPods Pro first generation
Sometimes they wouldn’t charge, right?
Sometimes one of them would just get hot when it wasn’t charging in the ear. No
Oh in the trailer, but it was when it was in the charger, but not charging
So it was just using you know
Dissipating heat instead of actually, you know, like storing the energy or something
Hot enough like the whole case would get hot as a result of that. So I was like, okay, that’s not cool
Okay, I have a question for you and I’m sure that the answer is no, but just for listeners benefit
When those things happen, did you examine both the stem of the air pod and also down in the body?
bottom of the case to make sure there was nothing in there interfering with the charging. No gunk or something like that?
Right.
Yeah, no, no. Because it gets usually, well, that’s the thing is like, the problem would
eventually fix itself, but not always. It wasn’t always fixable by just reseating the thing and
closing the lid. So sometimes I’d have problems for a day or two. And then, yeah, so recently,
the cheapest I’d ever seen the AirPods Pro second gen was 200 bucks, and one of those sales came
around again a few weeks ago. So I was like, “All right, fine, I’ll cough up the money
because, you know, who knows, these guys are… yeah, they act a little bit weird every now
and then.”
Hey, if you’re coughing, I’ve got a Belgium red for you that might help with that.
That’s awesome. Belgium red cough zone. Well, now what’s going on is the one on the left
that was most recently having problems has an audible humming noise coming out of it.
So if I put it in my ear, first off, there’s a little bit of a static crackle.
Yeah.
That’s a known issue.
Yep.
But also, it’s not doing it right now, but when I first noticed it, it sounded like if
you ever had water in your ear or your sinuses and you hear like, it sounds almost like a
metallic echo quality, it would do that.
And I didn’t even check to see if it’s, yeah, it persists along with pass-through transparency
or with noise reduction.
Oh, I was going to ask you, is that with it on noise- is it worse with noise reduction or it doesn’t matter?
Same. It’s unchanged.
So this left one is shot.
But what about the middle setting where it’s neither transparency nor- Neither transparency nor-yeah, I didn’t actually try that,
but I can because I can go into my settings and turn off.
And when I turned it-ugh. Well, when I turned it off, yeah, it’s quiet.
It has something to do with it’s attempting to correct the sound for you and it’s failing miserable. Yep, and it’s failing. Yep
So anyway, the solution is I just use it one at a time with no. Oh, nope. It’s starting to do it again
So what I’ve been doing is just using the right one and I’m using it like here it’s my computer air pod now
Okay, so and I just leave this one here at my desk. I don’t pair it to the phone or the iPad or whatever
I just leave it here. How sweet you gave your computer an AirPod. Yeah, here you love your computer
And that’s generally what happens as my one, you know, my earbuds tend to fail one at a time. I will leave
It’s non-failing, you know the one that’s doing all the work. I leave that one at the computer
And that way I can hear myself speaking easily and not have to have something in both ears
Okay, so what do you think of the AirPods Pro second gen compared to the AirPods Pro?
first gen
Honestly, I haven’t noticed, you know, it’s a typical Apple incremental change.
Now here’s the thing, I had mentioned this to you, I think, maybe it was to Adam now, I don’t remember.
I had not really been stuffing these things really deep into my ear, and therefore I never really
appreciated the noise cancelling features of the AirPods.
So I only found out recently, just before I went on the flight, that you really gotta jam these suckers deep into your ear, in my ears anyway, and that makes a world of difference.
If the size of the tip that you’re using happens to mesh really well with your ear, you don’t have to jam it in that hard. The point is you have to get a pretty good seal, and for you,
For whatever reason it requires jamming it all the way into your ear.
Exactly. But once I do that the noise canceling is Amazing.
Now the problem is I never had a working pair of AirPods Pro first generation now
While I had after I had made that discovery so I can’t to make a comparison
Yeah, and I can’t do that now because it half works and half doesn’t so I will tell you that’s true. Yeah, that’s true
Yeah, but I think it is pretty good
I do love the AirPods again now, and I’m even using them for everything. I use them for my runs,
I use them at the desk, just listening to music.
My girlfriend has recently discovered South Park, and so she loves to just work on that or watch that all day,
and she is rather loud when she laughs. So I’ll just put on the AirPods and put them in noise reduction mode. I still can hear her, but it’s not that bad.
Not that bad.
So I was gonna say I like her already and and then you’re trying to shut her out. Jeez. It’s okay.
So yeah, I like the AirPods Pro. Would recommend. Would buy again. Have bought again.
Okay. Good. Yeah, I’m pretty impressed with the noise canceling too.
There are times where I’m wearing them and listening to a podcast and whenever I have them in my ears,
they’re generally in noise canceling unless I’m outside running and then they’re in transparency mode.
Yep.
But I will be grinding coffee or something and I’m like is this noise canceling really working?
That sounds pretty loud and then I take them out of my ears and I realize how loud that coffee
grinder we have really is and it’s like okay it was actually doing a pretty amazing job.
Yep yeah that’s where I noticed it too is like even grinding the coffee like yeah I can hear
the coffee grinder but it is nowhere near yeah you know as noticeable so yeah it works well.
It works well I can do things like if I have the faucet running and I turn my back to it I could
forget that I had the faucet running. Like I won’t even hear that anymore. I could totally
forget and leave the water running if I just turned around and forgot what I was doing and
wandered off.
Right, exactly. Yeah, but I mean it made a huge difference on the flight too. That
was nice. Like really shoving the… and then all of a sudden they’re like, yeah, everything’s quiet.
Yeah, there was a DC-10 or something that we flew on one year that I wished I would have had those for
because the engine was very cyclic it was like it made me nervous too it’s like should that
be that way but anyway whatever vibration it was and i don’t know how much of that would have been
noise cancelled because some of it was vibration
but i think it would have helped quite a bit
i flew on a dc-9 once also i don’t remember where i was going but man that thing was not
pressurized right i had such an earache after that it was insane
is that what it is dc-9 am Am I wrong about DC-10?
No, I flew on a DC-9.
Yeah, I said DC-10, but there’s probably no such thing.
Oh, there is a DC-10. I mean, I think there’s both.
Yeah, I think there’s both.
DC-9 or DC-10. It’s a tri-jet wide body,
but the DC-9 is the one I was thinking about.
That’s the five abreast single-aisle aircraft.
That’s right, it’s three on one side and two on the other.
That is the one I was thinking of, yeah.
Yep. DC-9.
Yep, first flight in 1965.
Only made 976 of those.
Mmm, and I think they were all made in 1965 too, every single one of them.
Because the one I flew on sure seemed like it was from 1965.
Yep.
Dangerous reputation, oh good.
Yeah, it precedes it. Your dangerous reputation precedes you.
Nice.
All right, Peter, well I appreciate it. I think we can probably call it a day.
Put a pin in this one?
Yeah, I think we can put a pin in our middle-aged crisis here.
Tell your friends.
Tell your friends.
Okay, Peter, can you punch our big…
Red…
Red…
Button!