The Ombibulous

Connor Brekke

The Ombibulous podcast is all about the world of alcohol. I talk with friends and local businesses about all kinds of topics. From beer styles, to alcohol laws, to spirits, distillation, and special episodes featuring local businesses, there's something for everyone. Join us as often as you like to hopefully learn something new. The show is broken into 2 series, Tasters and Mixers. The Tasters series consists of beer, wine, and anything not considered spirits. The Mixers series consists of spirits, cocktails, and other topics such as laws and odd facts. Please check out our Facebook page @theombibulouspodcast for photos, happenings, and the latest updates. Cheers! Available on the following platforms. Apple Podcasts Amazon Music Castro Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Stitcher Facebook@Theombibulouspodcast integrated podcast player read less
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Episódios

Beer History Part 1: Ancient Beer
18-03-2022
Beer History Part 1: Ancient Beer
On this episode, we start a 3-part series on the history of beer. The first part covers some ancient history starting 13,000 years ago up to the Roman in Britain. We welcome back Dylan Schafer of Mandan, ND's Dialectic Brewing Company to help guide us on our adventure through history. Cheers! https://www.facebook.com/theombibulouspodcast   History Of Beer- Part 1   SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:03 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous the show about alcohol. From beer styles to cocktails, and from local businesses to history, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's show, we returned to Dialectic Brewing and discuss beer history with Dylan Schafer. This will be a three part miniseries beginning with ancient beer history. I'm your host, Connor brekkie. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:04 Hello, everybody. And welcome back to another show. We've got a pretty epic topic to cover, we got a three part series coming up on the history of beer. The first part we're going to go back in time, start with the ancient history, pretty much from basically ancient Israel all the way up to the Romans. And then the next part, we'll be doing kind of the Dark Ages, Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. And then after that, you know, modern history for the third part. So first of all, we need to get kind of like a baseline and what exactly beer is. So we are going to talk briefly about what, what is beer today. And then joining me again is Dylan Schafer of Mandan'sialectic Brewing Company. Welcome back.   Connor Brekke  00:34 It's good to be back recording again. I feel like it's been a little while.   Connor Brekke  00:56 It's been hot minute, you know, there's always time. So we are going to dive into this. Beer, today... it means different things to different people, I think. I think everybody has their own conception of what beer is. But basically, it's water, some type of malt grain, and then hops.   Dylan Schafer  01:41 Yeah, and ferment it out with yeast. I mean, at its at its root beer is really fermented malt sugar is whatever fermented grain sugar is kind of, I guess, the broadest definition you could use of it.    Connor Brekke  01:55 And now as a, as a brewer, does beer have like any other meanings to you? Like, for me, I don't make it I don't have that intimate connection with it. So I wouldn't say it's just something I drink to me. There's, you know, doing this show, it means... I see the craft and I see what goes into it. So it's not just a drink you enjoy to me, there's more kind of value to it to me.   Dylan Schafer  02:17 Oh, absolutely. Like the cultural and social value attributed to beer. I mean, especially in my case, I make my living off making and selling beer. So I guess there's another definition you can use. It's literally how I make my living. But on top of that, I feel like every society and every group has had their own definition for what beer means culturally, to them. It's been something that's been ingrained in human history since... I mean, as
Jell-O Shots- Breaking The Mold
01-03-2022
Jell-O Shots- Breaking The Mold
On today's episode, we have a chat with Rachel Praus of Mandan, ND's Thomas And Moriarty's about the surprisingly old history of gelatin shots. Cheers! theombibulouspodcast     SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Rachel Praus   Connor Brekke  00:05 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation and spirits, and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we talk about the history of jello shots. Joining me today is Rachel Praus of Thomas and Moriarty's. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:39 All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. I am down here at Thomas and Moriarty's once again, and joining me today is Rachel Praus.    Rachel Praus  00:47 Hello.    Connor Brekke  00:48 Helcome to the show.    Rachel Praus  00:49 Thank you.    Connor Brekke  00:50 You can find her mixing up some drinks at Thomas and Moriarty's if you want to come in later and taste some of her stuff. But she's got some interesting facts about jello shots. Yes, the wiggly, jiggly stuff of college time jello shots. Believe it or not, there's quite a history to it. We're gonna run through it real quick for y'all.   Rachel Praus  01:10 Yeah, so um, I like it I think it's kind of funny and ironic because I personally am not a fan of jello. It's just not my thing. And I have honestly never had a jello shot, doesn't really pique my fancy. But the history is very interesting. So I thought it'd be fun to talk about.   Connor Brekke  01:32 And I myself, I think I had one... maybe? Doesn't really ring a bell. College was a while ago.    Rachel Praus  01:38 Right?    Connor Brekke  01:38 Yeah. So I mean, first of all, Jell-O is a brand name. It's like Kleenex, dumpster Port-O-Poty, it's basically just gelatin. And gelatin has been around for a long time. Let's put it that way. So jello shot is basically take gelatin and then put alcohol in it...    Connor Brekke  01:57 ...and eat it and then you get tipsy and keep going and do whateverl else. So the brand name was coined in 1897... Le Roy, New York by Pearle Bixby Wait. So he basically just used a gelatin, sugar fruit flavored mix, which he patented, which was actually patented back in 1845. You know, again, prior to that it was just whatever gelatin mix you had.   Rachel Praus
Quest To Icewind
16-12-2021
Quest To Icewind
On today's episode, we meet with Tyler Mangin and hear the tale of how Icewind Brewing came to be in Mapleton, North Dakota. Cheers! https://www.facebook.com/theombibulouspodcast   SPEAKERS Tyler Mangin, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:04 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation and spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we stopped by Icewind Brewing of Mapleton, North Dakota. Joining me today is Icewind's, Tyler Mangin. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:37 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I'm currently here at Icewind Brewing in Mapleton, North Dakota... and joining me today is Mr. Tyler Mangin. Welcome to the show Tyler.   Tyler Mangin  00:48 Hi, Connor. Thanks for having me.   Connor Brekke  00:49 Yeah, thanks for inviting me out here. So you are one of the owners and brewers of Icewind Brewing here in Mapleton, North Dakota, you guys have a lot of really cool stuff. I've made it out here once prior, and most of the stuff I've had is in cans over at DePorres House in Dickinson. So minor shout out to them. But yeah, let's talk Icewind Brewing and a little bit about this place and a little bit about yourself. So how did you get into the world of craft beer?   Tyler Mangin  01:15 So this goes, you know, I would say for me, it kind of started when we used to go... my family used to go skiing out in Montana. And uh, like Red Lodge in Bozeman. They'd always have little breweries that you could stop at. Like Red Red Lodge Brewing. So that's kind of how I got into it. The tap room atmosphere out there was just so much fun. People were... you know, in the town that was kind of like, what are we talking maybe early 2000s? So tap rooms were still pretty rough tt that point, a lot of them, you know?They had that field like you were out in someone's garage or shed and I just enjoyed that atmosphere.   Connor Brekke  01:49 The early 2000s. Yeah, that was... kind of not quite the I call it the beer boom of like, the 2010s and onwards. But I imagine there's still a lot of cool stuff to explore out that way, too?   Tyler Mangin  02:00 Yeah, there wasn't as many breweries. And the beer that kind of got me into craft more than anything else was Deschutes Mirror Pond.   Connor Brekke  02:10 Ah, Deschutes. Yep. Deschutes is good. I hear that a lot from people who get into craft beers. Deschutes is like the one that kind of opened up the spectrum for them a bit.   Tyler Mangin  02:20 Yeah, they're so easy to find. And a lot of the things they have are very approachable and solid beers.   Connor Brekke  02:26 So are you a, North Dakota native then?   Tyler Mangin
Finding Hidden Cave Cidery
29-11-2021
Finding Hidden Cave Cidery
Today's episode brings you to Hidden Cave Cidery in Middleton, Wisconsin. We have a talk with Walker Fanning about his innovative ciders and how they came to be. Cheers! https://www.facebook.com/theombibulouspodcast   SPEAKERS Walker Fanning, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:03 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation and spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we pay a visit to hidden cave cidery of Middleton, Wisconsin. Joining me today is hidden cave cideries Walker Fanning. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:36 Hello, everybody and welcome back to another episode. I am in Middleton, Wisconsin, and I am at the Hidden Cave Cidery. Joining me today is Walker Fanning. The head of this amazing facility. Welcome to the show.    Connor Brekke  00:50 Thank you for inviting me out here. I heard about this place on an NPR show a little while ago and it was like, "oh, I need to get out here really, really soon." ...so...    Walker Fanning  00:50 Thank you.    Walker Fanning  01:00 Awesome.    Connor Brekke  01:01 cider and fall go really well togetherI think. So hidden cave cidery you are located in Middleton, Wisconsin. Let... tell us a little bit about yourself. You're... you make cider here. You make a lot of herbal based ciders. How did you get into the cider industry?    Walker Fanning  01:18 Yes. So I'm a local Wisconsinite, grew up here, went to school here, and got a degree in agronomy from the UW Madison. And agronomy, for people who don't know, is agriculture for fuel, fiber and feed. But I was always interested in agriculture, more of like specialty crops like fruit crops. And so when I graduated college, I was looking to use my degree and I wanted to do something in fruit crops. And I was looking for a job all summer long, I was having a really hard time because I also wanted something where I could still live in downtown Madison with my friends. And I ended up finding a small apple orchard that had a cidery in the South Madison area, about 30 minutes from where I was hoping to live downtown.    Walker Fanning  02:17 So they didn't have a job posting up or anything like that. But I decided I would just reach out and ask them if I could volunteer on their farm to learn about the ins and outs of being an orchard assist. And I sent them the email, they invited me out to take a tour of the farm. There were 200 Different apple trees, every single apple tree was a different variety than the last. And they showed me the cidery, I tried dry cider for the first time in my life. I actually turned it away the first time I was offered. He said "do you want to try some ci
Nordic Beer
10-11-2021
Nordic Beer
On today's episode, we take a trip out to the Nordic countries and discuss Nordic style beer. Be sure to check out our facebook page for photos and the latest updates. Cheers! https://www.facebook.com/theombibulouspodcast   SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:05 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process distillation, and spirits, even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we discuss Nordic style beer. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:40 Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm joined once again with Mr. Dylan Schafer. Thank you for coming back.    Dylan Schafer  00:46 Oh, absolutely.    Connor Brekke  00:47 And we have an interesting treat for everybody. We got a series of... things to talk about. Stuff that I'm very unfamiliar with. But, a lot of good information. Today we're gonna be learning about kind of a, like a Scandinavian style beer outreach. We'll be talking about different countries in Scandinavia, we'll dive into a bit about gruit and Sahti. It'll be a fun ride. So, Dylan, take 'er away.   Dylan Schafer  01:12 Yeah, it is a really, really fun topic to discuss. You don't see a lot of these traditional Scandinavian beers around very much outside of that region. We're actually experimenting with a recipe on it here down at dialectic. So we thought it'd be a good one to dive into. I think first things first, it's really important to note of what exactly we're talking about when we talk about traditional Scandinavian beer. As with a lot of beer around the world, country's borders don't really mean all that much when it comes to beer culture. To some extent it does. But for the most part, the brewing culture existed before a lot of these countries had delineated borders. So, there were just kind of regionally styles of brewing. So generally speaking, when we're talking about the Scandinavian beers, we're going to be diving a little bit into, you know, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, to some extent, this spills over into Finland. Pretty much any of that area of Northern Europe, that's known as that Scandinavian peninsula. There is definitely also some spillover with kind of Russian, German and styles from the Netherlands and Belgium and stuff. Again, it was that region's styles of beers, and there was a lot of spillover and brewing culture in that area.   Connor Brekke  02:24 And as we're talking about Scandinavian brewing, you... again back to the borders didn't really exist back then it was a bunch of different Germanic tribes. You know, there was a bunch of influence and cross culture mixing and beer as an alcoholic beverage as you drink has been around forever. So you know, it's not like it's one specific style. It's, it's this broad spectrum of different things that evolved throughout time in history.   Dylan Schafer
Prairie Rose Meadery
26-10-2021
Prairie Rose Meadery
On today's episode, we bring back Susan Ruud and introduce you to Fargo, North Dakota's Prairie Rose Meadery. Learn a bit about the buisness and how they came to be. We hope you can get a chance to try some of their award winning meads. Cheers! https://www.prairierosemeadery.com   SPEAKERS Susan Ruud, Connor Brekke Connor Brekke  00:04 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation, spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we learn how Fargo North Dakota's very own Prairie Rose Meadery came to be. Joining me today is Susan Ruud of Fargo, North Dakota's very own Prairie Rose Meadery. I'm your host Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:41 Hello, everybody and welcome back to the show. I'm joined once again with Susan from Prairie Rose mediary here in Fargo, North Dakota. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming back on. We're going to talk about North Dakota mead. The previous episode we talked about what mead is. But, I'm going to introduce you to Susan and Prairie Rose Meadery today. All right, so Susan, let people know who you are and how you got into the mead world.   Susan Ruud  01:09 Hi, I'm Susan Ruud. My husband and I, my husband Bob, and myself have started prairie Rose Meadery. We started making mean I guess at home in the early 90s. I work at, I also work at NDSU in plant pathology. So some friends of mine, we would sit at coffee, coworkers, and they were homebrewers. They made mead. So I would listen to them talking about brewing and. I think I went, went over to their house a few times tried some home beers and some home meads. And from the first second, we tried mead, both my Bob and I absolutely loved mead. I think a week or so after we had our first mead, we had a friend out and he was showing us how to make mead we we sat on our deck and made a batch mead and drink some beers and more mead. And yeah, it was a great time. I remember the date October 12, 1996 my first mead, I only remember that because it was my parents anniversary and the couple that was showing us how to make the mead it was their anniversary. It's kind of fun.    Susan Ruud  02:20 So we started making mead in 96. Got into home brewing both mead and beer. When I go into hobby I go gung ho so, entered a few competitions and won a few medals, both in beer and mead and and then I joined the American Home Brewers Association and ran for their board. Oh, at that time, it was a board of advisors. And actually I won I don't know how. I actually attribute that to some of my really good homebrewing friends in Kansas City. They had a fairly big club at the time and I went down to some of their competitions. And so I think them and the Minneapolis crowd probably voted for me so I have to thank them because that just got me into many, many years of being immersed in home brewing and meat making all across the US. You go to their conferences, you meet people on the East Coast people on the West Coast, center the country, so I get to know a lot of homebrewers a lot of mead makers, both home and professional and it just grew from there. So I believe I was on that governing... er it was a board of advisors turned into a governing committee for the American homeowners association for almost 20 years
Trappist Beer
07-10-2021
Trappist Beer
On this eposide, we do a spin off of Belgian Beer and talk about Trappist Beer. We will also be tasting some Trappist Beer from Spencer Brewing out of Massachusetts, USA. Check out his link to watch the tasting on Youtube. https://youtu.be/cghlMZsoX7M And feel free to check out our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/theombibulouspodcast for the latest photos, updates, and links to our guests.  Cheers!   SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:04 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation in spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we talk about Trappist Monk beer. Joining me today is Dylan Shafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:37  Welcome back everyone to another wonderful episode of The Ombibulous. I'm back at Dialectic Brewing with Mr. Dylan Shaffer. Thank you for joining me again.    Dylan Schafer  00:46 Absolutely.    Connor Brekke  00:47 And then we are going to touch up on an episode we previously did about Belgian ale. We're going to do a spin off on that about... Trappist beer. It's very interesting style beer. It's actually fortunate that the United States actually has a Trappist monastery that brews accredited Trappist beers, so we will be trying that style from Spencer Brewing out of Massachusetts today on the show. So let's let's get into it Trappist beer. In short, Trappist beer is basically just brewed by Trappist monks. I mean, that's that's the short story. Historically, it's been pretty much just for the monks and people who visit. Now it's kind of blown up into other things, but we'll get into that shortly. Currently, there are 14 monasteries, six in Belgium, two in the Netherlands, one each in Austria, Italy, England, France, Spain, and of course the US. And then we can currently produce accredited troposphere as per the international  Trappists Association ITA.   Dylan Schafer  01:55 And us being us having one here in the US we are kind of an outlier because these Trappist monasteries and Trappist beers tend to be very regionally specific so having one in the northeast in the US is... we're kind of an outlier but it's a good thing we have it.   Connor Brekke  02:11 It is a very cool thing. I would figure that of all the places why not the US with such a massive beer scene and everything it's
Mead
15-09-2021
Mead
On this episode, we swing on over to Fargo and talk with Susan Ruud of Prairie Rose Meadery about mead. Be seure to check out our Facebook page for the latest photos and updates. Facebook@theombibulouspodcast Cheers!   Mead SPEAKERS Susan Ruud, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:03 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process distillation, in spirits, even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we learn a bit about the ancient beverage of mead. Joining me today is Susan Ruud of Fargo, North Dakota's very own, Prairie Rose Meadery. I'm your host, Connor brekkie. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:38 Welcome back to the showroom, buddy. Today I'm joined by Susan Ruud of Prairie Rose Meadery here in Fargo, North Dakota. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me over.   Susan Ruud  00:48 I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.   Connor Brekke  00:52 And then we're going to talk about one of our... well, my kind of weaknesses here... mead. I love it. It's a... it's a really great beverage. Got a lot of history to it. And yeah, let's have at it. What is mead for the audience?   Susan Ruud  01:07 Well, in its basic sense, mead is fermented honey. So that base of everything is honey. People will call it a honey wine, but where wine is made from grapes or other fruits. Mead is the majority of the fermentable, honey, and then you'll add some other fruit or spice to change it up or fruit and spice or you can do so many things with it.   Connor Brekke  01:26 Yes. And you guys have quite a few different flavors on the menu. But we'll touch on that a bit later here. So it's an old beverage. It's been around for a while.   Susan Ruud  01:36 Yeah, there's probably history of it about a little over 9000 years ago in the pyramids. And then there's conjectural and history of it about 40,000 years ago in Africa. So yeah, very old.   Connor Brekke  01:50 Because we're just looking at some pictures. And there's pottery that dates back from at least 7000 bc in China. So kind of like the proto-mead. I mean, it's a bit different back then. But   Susan Ruud  02:01 hey, well, originally they would have made it probably I mean, they're using natural yeasts. And so might have been a little more sour than ours, it would have been, it would have taken local fruits and spices and stuff and thrown it all into a container along with whatever honey they could find. They would have done that probably Initially, it was originally found by a beehive getting what else tree splitting open or water getting in somehow. And they came along and Oh, hey, let's try this. And oh, that tastes good.   Connor Brekke  02:36 Everybody loves alcohol, that hasn't changed. It's funny how that works. Because Same thing
Belgian Beer
30-08-2021
Belgian Beer
On this episode, we talk about Belgian beer styles. Be sure to check out our Facebook page, Facebook@theombibulouspodcast for the accompanying photos. You can also head over to https://youtu.be/-9c4UN_yB74 to check out our first tasting video too. Cheers!   Belgian Beer SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:05 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation in spirits and even liquor laws there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we have an overview of Belgian style beers. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:39 Welcome back to the show everybody. I'm back at Dialectic and joining me is Dylan. And we are going to go through some... kind of a broad topic actually, it's... we're going through Belgian beer styles. It's a very diverse topic, but we're going to kind of give you a rundown. That way we can branch off into future episodes. Welcome back, Dylan. Always good to see you.    Dylan Schafer  01:00 Yeah, thanks again for having me.    Connor Brekke  01:01 Well, it's... I guess you're having me since...    Dylan Schafer  01:03 Oh, yeah, I suppose.    Connor Brekke  01:06 So today, we actually have kind of a different episode as we have some visuals. So we're going to do some video with our Facebook page. And we're going to do some photos. So be sure you check out The Ombibulous Podcast at Facebook so you don't miss out on any of that. But, let's, let's kick it off. Belgian ales. Right, let's kind of just briefly run down what exactly's out there. There's some familiar ones like Stella... I think most people are familiar with Stella.   Dylan Schafer  01:35 Yeah, absolutely.    Connor Brekke  01:36 And then beyond that, it's...   Dylan Schafer  01:38 And it's it's funny that you mentioned Belgian ales, because I was going to point out that a lot of the Belgian beer styles that we do see, are going to be ales. I think I mentioned in a previous episode that we can kind of... here in the US especially and in a lot of Europe, we generally break down beer into two categories based on the type of fermentation. So ales are going to be anything that is a top fermenting or warm fermenting yeast and then lagers are going to be anything that's cool fermented or bottom fermenting yeast. And a lot of the Belgian beer styles that we see do fall into that ale category. So any of your stuff like your... I will even your Belgian saisons, your doubbels, your trippels, all that
Origins of Thomas And Moriarty's
09-08-2021
Origins of Thomas And Moriarty's
On today's show we formally introduce you to the buisness you've been familiar with from past episodes, Mandan North Dakota's Thomas And Moriarty's. We have a chat with Michael Kashey and lean how he and his buisness came to be. http://www.thomasandmoriartys.com/ SPEAKERS Michael Kashey, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:11 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation in spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we talk about the origins of Mandan's very own Thomas Moriarty's. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:48 Alright everybody, welcomeback to the show. Today we have a special episode. I'm joined here with Mr. Michael Kashey of Thomas Moriarty's. And today we're going to learn a bit about how he and his business came to be. So, Mr. Michael, thank you for coming back on the show.   Michael Kashey  01:05 Yeah, thanks for having me again.   Connor Brekke  01:07 Always a pleasure. So tell us a bit about yourself. And how you became, you know, the cocktail wizard of the area.   Michael Kashey  01:16 Uh... wizard's kind of a, kind of a strong word. But hey, I'll take it. Yeah, so I actually grew up around here grew up in Linton. Joined the army right out of high school, moved over to Germany, where I stayed for a few years after getting out came back. And I was planning on going to college to be a history teacher. So I got a job over in Bismarck bartending. I was just going to do it for... kind of put my way through college and ended up really kind of falling in love with it. And a few years later, well, long story short, here we are.   Connor Brekke  01:49 Could you explain to us how like, you came to like, all the knowledge of all this stuff? Was it just trial and error? Or is it just previous bartending experience, self study, little all of the above, I guess?   Michael Kashey  02:02 A little of all of the above. But, what really got me into it was, I was lucky and had trained under Kate Gerwin, who is.. if anyone's like, kind of a cocktail geek... she was the first American and the first woman to hold a major world's title in bartending. And she had won the Bols World Championship in 2015... 2016? So I got a lot of knowledge from her a lot of the kind of the training program from her and then another guy called Tobin Ellis, who's really brought back free pouring, which is what we do. So if you ever watching us, we don't use jiggers too much, you know, the little measuring things? But we're actually... we're accurate with our poures, we test ourselves daily. Um, so I learned from them, and then a lot of kind of geeking, out reading books, podcasts, working different like big cocktail events. San Antonio Cocktail Conference is still
Rum
01-08-2021
Rum
Where's the rum!? Well, on today's episode, we learn a little history about rum and where you can find some.   Rum   SPEAKERS Michael Kashey, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:07 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation, in spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. On today's episode, we discover the history of rum. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:42 Welcome back to the show everybody. Today... the question is... where's the rum? Well, luckily, we have an answer for you. I'm joined again with Mr. Michael Kashey. And today's episode, we're going to go through a little bit of history about rum, and where you might be able to find some hint, there's a place in Mandan. Alright, so rum, what is rum in short?   Michael Kashey  01:06 So basically, rum is going to be a once again a distilled spirit that's going to be made from sugarcane or a byproduct of like sugarcane production. So either a sugarcane juice or molasses, which is going to be what's leftover when you boil sugarcane down.   Connor Brekke  01:25 And then the name rum is kind of uncertain, I suppose. There's a few, few ideas out there where it came from. One of them being, I believe the word rumbullion. The beverage of boiling sugarcane stocks.   Michael Kashey  01:40 Yeah, that, to me seems more like the... what would be most likely the actual origin of the word rum. But honestly, who knows?    Connor Brekke  01:52 It's a mystery.    Michael Kashey  01:52 It's been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, probably actually even longer than we even think.   Connor Brekke  01:58 Yeah, cuz anything alcohol, it's like, "oh, here's something let's ferment it." And "poof" there there you go.    Michael Kashey  02:03 Well, then distilling is possibly older than we thought, as well.   Connor Brekke  02:09 So rum is fermented from molasses sugar cane, and then are there... like how do you get it to that fermented stage? There's different types of yeasts?   Michael Kashey  02:21 Yeah, so you can either do... most distillers or a lot of distillers, I should say are going to use like a specific yeast strain. And then other distillers are going to actually basically do an open air fermentation where they allow all of those random, wild natural yeasts to get in there. And then those are usually get, you'll have like a little bit of a funk to those because usually though, but, actually once again, rum is insanely confusi
A Tale Of DePorres
15-07-2021
A Tale Of DePorres
On this episode, we are pleased to introduce you to a great place from Dickinson, ND. It's a traditional barbershop, cigar shop, and craft beer lounge. Their craft beer selection does a fantastic job of highlighting North Dakota craft beer. There's always something interesting to fine here. Please check out our Facebook page for photos and links to their buisness.  deporreshouse.com SPEAKERS Patrick Ahmann, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:03 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation, in spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. Joining me today is Patrick Ahmann of DePorres House of Barbering and Lounge here in Dickinson, North Dakota. On today's episode, we introduce you to Dickinson's very own DePorres House of Barbering and Lounge. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:38 Welcome back to the show everybody and it is my pleasure to introduce Patrick Ahmann. Welcome to the show, and thank you for coming on.    Patrick Ahmann  00:46 Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.    Connor Brekke  00:47 So this place is a it's a traditional barber shop, cigar shop and a craft beer shop. The craft beer portion does a really good job of highlighting North Dakota brews and has all kinds of other fun stuff for you to try... coffee shop and some beer cocktails. But uh, why don't you introduce yourself and yeah, have at it.   Patrick Ahmann  01:09 Absolutely. So again, Connor said my name is Patrick Ahmann. I'm the lounge manager here at DePorres House of Barbering. I've been in that role for about a little over two years. I am a part time manager I guess. My full time job is as an eighth grade math teacher at Dickinson Middle School. I've been in Dickinson for about six years. We've moved from a variety of different places. We've lived in Idaho, Maine, Hawaii, I grew up in in North Dakota in Williston, North Dakota. We got back to Idaho and decided we want to get back to... to back to North Dakota here. So we've been here for about six years, and I've been teaching and coaching and had an opportunity through a couple of mutual friends to meet the owners ofDePorres here, Paul Ellerkamp and Matt Ellerkamp. And from there just as..., over the last three years, this... the partnership that I've had with the two owners here is ust kind of gradually grown and we got some really good things going on here. So outside of that, my own personal life, I've married to my wife, 15 years, her name is Tiffany. I have a daughter who's 10. She'll be a fifth grader this year, and we adopted a little boy, his name is Justin. He'll be a third grader this year. He's eight years old. And we recently just got a dog. Her name is Frannie. She's a fantastic dog. So just a little bit about myself... yep, that's that's what I got for you.   Connor Brekke&nbs
Soju
06-07-2021
Soju
On this episode, we travel across the pond to eplore a Korean drink called Soju. Lean some history, serving techniques, and how it's made. Cheers!   Soju SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Marty Lee   Connor Brekke  00:09 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics about alcohol. From beer styles, the brewing process, distillation in spirits and even liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to discover. Joining me today is Marty Lee of Noodlezip in downtown Bismarck, North Dakota. On today's show, we talked about soju. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:45 Alright everybody, welcome back to the show. And it is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Marty Lee, owner of Noodlezip in Bismarck, North Dakota, thank you so much for joining the show with me appreciate it.   Marty Lee  00:57 I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much for having me here, Connor.   Connor Brekke  01:01 And we're gonna have a great time today because we have a new drink to talk about. It's, it's Korean drink called "soju."    Marty Lee  01:09 That's right.    Connor Brekke  01:09 It's very delicious. It's got a very good characteristic, good flavor. It's something that I'd like to kind of bring to the area.. more knowledge of because.... I don't really know where else you get it. To be honest with you, everybody knows sake but right, this is something a little more special to us. So I guess let's kick off with what is soju in short?   Marty Lee  01:31 Okay, so the short version of short soju just basically a distilled liquor. A pure, you know, tasteless, scentless, with a little bit of flavoring. So off sweet. But Yep, it is a traditional affordable drinks that you can get in Korea.   Connor Brekke  01:53 Soju the name actually refers to like, how it's made kind of as far as...   Marty Lee  01:59 Oight traditionally. "So" in Chinese character, or, or in old Korean means "burning."   Connor Brekke  02:05 And that has to do with basically the heat of distillation if I'm not...   Marty Lee  02:09 Right. It's a process.. it's the process of distilled grains, usually rice, that's what we have most abundance from the history of Korea, rice, barley. You put it all together, let it ferment. You make it first, you know, the base liquor which is Makgeolli or, or sake, or clear liquor, and then you put that into a big pot of... boiling clay pot... and then you just distill it, distill iy until you have it and you have this dew. Alcohol has a little less boiling point than the water itself. So, it's just you know, all the vapors collected altogether, and then you put it into one little jar. And there you go. It's..  you have your traditional soju.
IPA Special Part 2; Hops
24-06-2021
IPA Special Part 2; Hops
On part 2 of the IPA special we discuss various hop varieties, mostly the ones important to brewing IPA style beers.   Hops SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:07 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. On today's episode, we kick off part two of our IPA special where we discuss various types of hops. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:49 Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the show. I'm joined once again with Mr. Dylan Schafer of Dialectic here in Mandan. And we're going to continue our IPA special with a little discussion about hops. All about hops today.    Dylan Schafer  01:04 Yeah, in case you guys didn't know that's that really is what makes an IPA and IPA is the hops.   Connor Brekke  01:10 Would you say that it makes people... hoppy?   Dylan Schafer  01:17 It sure makes me hoppy so... But yeah, there, those hops are definitely kind of the critical component of the IPA style. Generally speaking, when you're looking at beer styles, you're going to have some beers that are more, what we call "malt forward." So getting more of their flavor characteristics from the grain itself. Then you're going to have beers that are going to be more "hop forward," where you're getting more of the flavor profile from the particular hop varieties that we're using. And for everyone who's really new to the, to the beer scene, or to the brewing at all... hops are just the the herb or the flower that gives beer it's bitterness to balance out the sweetness of the malt in there. We do also have beers that are going to have dominant flavor characteristics coming from other additives, lactose, fruit, things like that. But generally speaking, you are going to see a beer that is either malt forward or hop forward. And IPAs are kind of the quintessential hop forward beer, for sure. And there's just a huge, kind of wide variety of different characteristics you can get from those hops, depending on what particular strain of hops you're using. So that being said, I will, I'll make a note that all hops are not created equal. Well, I love the flavor profile of just about every hop variety I've ever brewed with. They're very, very, very different depending on the strain you get. And there's... oh man, dozens, if not hundreds of unique hop strains that are out on the market today. And every single year, the industry is coming out with new experimental varieties of hops. And that definitely seems to be a trend nowadays is to get ahold of those new experimental ones and start brewing with them as soon as you possibly can.   Connor Brekke  03:10 And it sounds like you have a new distributor, and you have, sounds like, some better access to some of this stuff now.   Dylan Schafer  03:19 Absolutely. So up until this this last year... here at Dialectic, we'
History Of Dialectic
15-06-2021
History Of Dialectic
On this very special episode, we have a talk with Dylan Schafer, our friend and fellow brewmaster at Dialectic Brewing Company in Mandan, ND and talk about how he and his buisness came to be.   dialecticbrewingcompany.com SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:12 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, the show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beers styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even the history of certain liquor laws. There's a fascinating world to explore. On today's episode, we delve into the origin story of Mandan's very own Dialectic Brewing Company. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Bialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to, The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:56 Welcome back to the show Dylan, always a pleasure to have you. Today, you will be telling us your story, the history of how you and Dialectic Brewing became a thing.   Dylan Schafer  01:08 Yeah, so I'm going to talk today a little bit about Dialectic Brewing Company, kind of our story and how we came to be. It is a story that I can get a little long winded on, but I do think everything I have to say, plays a pretty significant part in what got me to where I am today.    Dylan Schafer  01:27 Um, so I guess I kind of want to start things off by saying... I do not have any formal education in brewing despite going to college for seven and a half years. None of that was for anything related to brewing beer. That being said, I do think my college experience did still have an impact on me opening up Ddialectic Brewing Company. So first off, we do have, apart from me, we do have two other owners. It's me, my wife, Hannah, and then my older brother Jake. So we are very much a family affair here at Dialectic Brewing. And we kind of have our own little niche spots that we do in the business.    Dylan Schafer  02:09 What kind of led us into starting a brewery I guess is back in 2013, I had the opportunity to both me and my wife, we had the opportunity to transfer to the University of Oregon. At the time we were going to undergrad in Minnesota. And with our GPA and everything else like that we had the opportunity to transfer out to the University of Oregon, and get our in state tuition and everything. And we at the time, we were doing a significant amount of moving and exploring and stuff. So we figured we'd take that opportunity and move out there.    Dylan Schafer  02:43 So when I moved out there was kind of my first experience in the craft beer world. And in a couple ways. For one, we moved into the Whitaker neighborhood. And within five blocks of our house, there was probably, I think it was five brewery tap rooms within five blocks of our house. So as far as beer goes, we were surround
IPA Special Part 1
15-06-2021
IPA Special Part 1
In part 1 of the IPA special we break down what an IPA is and some popuilar varieties.   IPA Special SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:09 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. On today's episode, we kick off part one of our IPA special where we discuss various types of IPAs. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:50 Alright, everybody, we are back with a special episode for you today. I'm joined again with Mr. Dylan Schafer, and today we are going to kick off a special series, that is our IPA series today. We're going to run down kind of a history of the IPA and some modern, new styles that are kind of widely available everywhere.    Dylan Schafer  01:14 And I think an IPA is a good one to cover too, because it is really ubiquitous with the craft beer world today. I mean, it kind of started gaining popularity and honestly, probably in the 1990s around the states and has really held true is a mainstay style for a lot of breweries, a lot of craft breweries. The style does date back a lot farther than that. So the IPA for those who don't know, is the India Pale Ale. And it gets its name from right around the late 1700s, around 1780. All those who were British individuals in India, were looking for one of their paler beers. So they were exporting... they were successfully exporting beer to India at the time. And a lot of those beers were your porters your darker maltier beers. And they were looking for something lighter, crisper, more refreshing to import to the hot India weather. And their solution to doing that was basically taking a British, a classic British Pale Ale and cranking the hops up on it and cranking the alcohol up on it a little bit. So it wasn't necessarily that much more alcoholic than some of the other beers they were exporting. Just the alcohol act as a natural preservative and a lot of the styles they exported. But hops being a natural preservative were another good way to kind of make sure that beer can make this six month voyage all the way over to India.    Dylan Schafer  02:47 So that was kind of the start of the style. Again, it was originally a British style of beer. So anytime you see on the market today, if you see like an English pale ale or sorry, an English IPA, that's going to be a little bit more close to what you would have seen on a traditional IPA. So again, that was kind of... came into practice in the late 1700s and really gained popularity in the 1800s. The style kind of fell by the wayside for quite a while. And then as the United States craft beer market kind of started picking up, which was really kind of the late 1970s is when American craft beer started become a thing again. And so that's where we saw the IPA kind of gain a resurgence in the United States at the time in Great Britain, they weren't really brewing IPAs at all, It had fallen by the wayside. And new American craft brewers wanted to kind of bring back some of those traditional styles, the IPA being one of those.    Dylan Sc
Gin
03-06-2021
Gin
In honor of the beginning of summer, this episode is all about gin. Cheers!   Gin   SPEAKERS Michael Kashey, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:08 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws. There's a fascinating world to explore. On today's episode, we have a discussion about gin. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to... The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:44 Alright, everybody, welcome back to another riveting episode of The Ombibulous. Joining me once again is Mr. Michael Kashey. Thank you for coming back on the show... I haven't scared you away yet, so that's that's good thing.   Michael Kashey  00:57 Ah, you're gonna have to do do worse.    Connor Brekke  01:00 So today we have an episode about a favorite summer drink with summer... North Dakota summer, hopefully approaching pretty quickly here.   Michael Kashey  01:11 I mean, we could also get summer in December. Who knows?   Connor Brekke  01:14 Yeah, who knows? It's North Dakota. But we got an episode about gin today. You know, for people that know me, I didn't really know anything about mixed drinks or cocktails or anything. Gin was introduced to me buy this place two years ago and I really like it. It's... it's a good summer drink.   Michael Kashey  01:37 It has a... I would say an undeserved reputation. Gin is... it's a... one, it's a diverse spirit. But it is made right in the right cocktail it is fantastic. I think we've turned a lot of non gin drinkers into gin drinkers in the three years we've been open.   Connor Brekke  01:54 Yep. I'm one of them, definitely. So gin, it has a pretty far reaching roots... the history of it anyways. You know, a lot of this stuff is medicinal, you know, in origin.    Michael Kashey  02:07 Yep.    Connor Brekke  02:09 To my understanding that gin dates back to the medieval times.   Michael Kashey  02:13 Yeah. So gin, if you're going to trace it back to its origins actually originated in a Dutch spirit called ginever. Ginever literally, literally means juniper. And this is, it's a little bit different than the modern gin that we have today. It uh.. 1500s was a it was basically a rye malt that was distilled with juniper berries. So it's going to be a little little malty kind of has some whiskey characteristics, but then there's that also that kind of like, like freshness, that kind of like piney almost juniper kind of flavor to it. Basically, about 100 years later, or so..
Sazerac
02-06-2021
Sazerac
On this episode we journey to New Orleans and discover the origins of the Sazerac.   Sazerac   SPEAKERS Michael Kashey, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:08 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. Today we take a trip to the Big Easy, where we explore the origins of the Sazerac. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to.. The Ombibulous.    Connor Brekke  00:48 Alright, everybody, welcome back to another episode. And Mr. Kashey, thank you for joining us again.    Michael Kashey  00:55 Anytime.    Connor Brekke  00:57 And we got another mixed drink, another cocktail, another adventure into the spirit world today. We will be talking about the Sazerac. It's.. a pretty important drink I would say.   Michael Kashey  01:12 I think that the people of New Orleans would probably agree with you.   Connor Brekke  01:15 So to get started, you mind giving us kind of a brief rundown of what the Sazerac is and why it's such a big deal?   Michael Kashey  01:25 Yeah. So with the Sazerac, we're gonna have to, one go down to New Orleans. And then we're going to have to do a little cocktail history. Yeah. So the legend has it that the Sazerac is the first cocktail, created by a guy named Antoine Peychaud out of his pharmacy, and he used to serve it in this... it was a cognac cocktail made from Sazerac cognac, and he served it in this egg cup called a Coquetier. And of course, Americans being American, can't pronounce French words because, you know, while we won the war, and that word became cocktail. And that's basically the legend that we've kind of, I wouldn't say grown up knowing, but drinkers, like kind of amateur cocktail geeks had heard. Unfortunately, every single word of that was total rubbish. Now, the word cocktail actually first appeared in print in 1806. It was described as a sugar spirit bitters and water. We don't know who invented it. But it was it was basically just a format. Any, any drink with sugar, spirit, bitters, and water is considered a cocktail. So you could have... if tequila would have been a thing, you could have had a tequila cocktail, you could add a vodka cocktail. The other problem with that story is Peychaud was actually born in 1803. So if he did invent the cocktail, he was a prodigy. But yeah, so the cocktail as we know it, originated a little bit earlier, a little more obscure, not sure who created  it. Actually the Brits were drinking a gin, Old Tom gin, which is sweetened with sugar. They would have this thing called Stoughton's bitters. So there's your bitters, and then they would dilute it with water. So if you trace it long enough, we can go back to the 17th century as being the creation of the cocktail. So the Sazerac wasn't the first cocktail, wasn't the first American coc
Absinthe
29-05-2021
Absinthe
On this episode, we kick off the Mixers series with the mysteries of absinthe.    Absinthe   SPEAKERS Michael Kashey, Connor Brekke   Connor Brekke  00:00 Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. On this episode, we kick off the mixer series by exploring the mysteries of absinthe. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:49 Alright everybody, welcome back. Today I am joined by Mr. Michael Kashey, owner and procurer of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.    Michael Kashey  01:01 Yeah, thanks for having me.    Connor Brekke  01:03 So today, we're going to kick off something a bit different. It's not about beer. Today, we're going to be talking about absinthe. And absinthe is to me, and to a lot of people kind of a mystery. I honestly didn't even know it was legal until recently. It's kind of got this.. mysteryousness.    Michael Kashey  01:22 Yeah, we get that a lot. There's a lot of misconceptions about absinthe, what it is, what it is, and what it does and doesn't do.   Connor Brekke  01:31 Well, I was hoping today that you could teach everybody a little bit about absinthe. Do you want to break down kind of like a brief history of it for us and what it's all about, and maybe iron out some of these myths and rumors that people hear?   Michael Kashey  01:46 Yeah, we can do a super quick thing. So absent is a it's a black licorice flavored, star anice flavored distilled spirit. It's not a liquor, doesn't have any sugar added to it. That originated in Switzerland in the late 18th century, the first kind of actual references we have to absinthe would have been around 1799. And it.. from there, it spread into France, Belgium, Netherlands and throughout Europe a bit. So absinthe started getting started getting really popular with French soldiers. And a little bit later on in the 19th century, French soldiers in Algeria would be well, obviously, kind of fighting you know, for the, the French. I don't know if you'd call it Empire at the time, but whatever that was, and they would be also fighting malaria. So one of the very popular kind of remedies for malaria was absinthe, and they would do something called absinthe or mixing the called absinthe soup, which sounds super weird, and it kind of is they would water down absinthe with red wine. So after the French conquest of Algeria, they came back to France and they brought with them their love of absinthe. And then it started to kind of grow from there and really started to hit the hit the streets.   Connor Brekke  03:13 Because, the thing about this type of substance back then, as we know it is hard liquor today, it
Black Ale
14-03-2021
Black Ale
On this episode Dylon and I talk about a style of beer with no real rules... the black ale. A slightly hoppy, slightly malty beer style which acts as an open canvas for brewers to play with.   Black Ale Wed, 8/25 11:10AM • 17:57 SPEAKERS Connor Brekke, Dylan Schafer   Connor Brekke  00:10 Hello, everyone and welcome back to the Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws. There's a fascinating world to explore. On this episode, we continue the taster series with a discussion about the black ale beer style. Joining me today is Dylan Schafer, owner of Dialectic Brewing Company here in Mandan, North Dakota. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.   Connor Brekke  00:52  Welcome back, Dylan. I see you've got another darker style of ale for us today.    Dylan Schafer  00:59 Yeah, I figured it's winter time. So we'll we'll stick with drinking some dark beers and tasting some dark beers for now.    Connor Brekke  01:06 That sounds good to me. It's still technically winter.    Dylan Schafer  01:09 Despite the weather It is a beautiful February day, but it's still February. So...   Connor Brekke  01:14 Yes   Dylan Schafer  01:15 Yeah, so today I brought our Stoop Dog black ale. First off the the beer does carry the name from my, a couple of my dogs actually. I have dogs that notoriously just love to lay out on the back porch. No matter the weather. No matter what time of year, the only thing they want to do is just lay out on the stoop. So, hence the stoop dog. One of them is a black lab too. So that's a little bit fitting. But as far as the beer goes, the first thing you'll notice is it is a quite dark beer. Darker than the wee heavy that we talked about on the last beer tasting. And it's got a little bit mellower head on it, not quite as big firm head on it. But it is a nice dark brown, little bit of a reddish hue to it. At a little bit lower light it does come off as just straight black as well. With this beer the color can be a little bit deceiving for a lot of people. Again, it looks like it's gonna be a big dark heavy beer. And it really isn't it's it's a fairly easy drinking beer for, for how dark and how malty it is. So in general, I just kind of want to address the the concept of a black ale. It's it's another one that's a little bit... arguable if it is an actual style or not. If you're familiar with the craft beer world, a lot of the times you'll see black IPAs or Cascadian dark ales. Those two are the same type of thing. It's it's basically a hoppy, dark beer. We did take a really similar approach with this. But when you see the Cascadian dark ales or the black IPAs, they're typically going to be that high Ibu. So high hop bitterness, high hop flavor, high hop aroma. And we took a little bit of different approach with this one. So being as the the New England IPAs, and the hazy IPAs have been ridiculously popular lately. The whole thing with