Episode 109
Eric "Cooler" Rottier Brews Your Favorite Beers at McFleshman's
Joining McFleshman's in 2021, Eric "Cooler" Rottier shares the major differences of big brewers to craft and his contributions to the tap list at the brewery.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer!
01:26 Meet Cooler the Brewer
02:57 Traditional Brewing Deep Dive
05:15 Why They Call Him Cooler
07:00 Schwarzbier to Stowaway Origin
08:40 Happy Accident Beer Science
12:43 Brewery Roles and Work Balance
16:31 Favorite Beers and Winter Talk
18:56 Sales Obsession and Style Trends
20:30 Brewing Mistakes and Filtering
21:43 Dream Beer Styles
22:38 Dortmunder Redemption
23:14 From Homebrew to Pro
25:42 Mad Scientist Flavors
26:54 Support us on Patreon!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Bobby Fleshman - https://www.mcfleshmans.com/
Allison Fleshman -https://www.instagram.com/mcfleshmans/
Joel Hermansen
Gary Ardnt - https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.huss.52/
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow - https://davidkalsow.com/
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:My name is Gary Arndt.
Gary Arndt:With me as usual, the man who is at the intersection of Karen Carpenter and Robin Yo.
Gary Arndt:'cause he's both a carpenter and a brewer.
Gary Arndt:Mr. Probably Fleshman that's solid, younger than one, and not as thin as the other.
Gary Arndt:So too soon
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": he did ride his motorcycle into the brewery one day.
Gary Arndt:So
Bobby Fleshman:true.
Bobby Fleshman:True.
Gary Arndt:I don't know if you've ever watched community.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Oh yeah.
Gary Arndt:There's this one scene where Troy has an at TV in the library and goes, you can't have that there.
Gary Arndt:He goes, yes I can.
Gary Arndt:It's all terrain.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": If you like pop culture references, I'm your guy.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, dad jokes are gonna rain today
Gary Arndt:with us on the other side of the mic for the first time.
Gary Arndt:Carrie Guerin, the publican here at Mc Fleshman, former guest now taking over co-hosting duties very slowly climbing your way
Cari Gieran:up the ladder, apparently so.
Gary Arndt:And our, so we talked to Bobby a lot about brewing, but the truth is he doesn't do it all himself.
Gary Arndt:There are other people here who help out and sometimes create new beers whether intended or not.
Gary Arndt:And one of them is with us.
Gary Arndt:The brewers here at Big Fleishmans today.
Gary Arndt:Eric Roter, A to AKA Cooler.
Gary Arndt:Welcome to the show.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Thanks for having me.
Gary Arndt:So do you wanna start out with, uh, your, your most recent invention?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Oh.
Gary Arndt:Or
Gary Arndt:why don't, before we do that, why don't you, why don't you explain how you wound up here.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Well, it all started actually with a, uh, beer engine.
Gary Arndt:Uh, oddly enough, I was working at t Town brewing up in Green Bay, and I'd noticed we had a beer engine sitting on a shelf in the basement.
Gary Arndt:And knowing that Bobby had a couple of 'em here, I reached out.
Gary Arndt:To see if they wanted to purchase it 'cause we weren't using it.
Gary Arndt:And, uh, that started a conversation with, uh, the tapper manager, general manager.
Gary Arndt:I'm not sure what her position was.
Gary Arndt:Stephanie?
Gary Arndt:Stephanie, yeah.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Who happened to be a, a high school friend of my wife's.
Gary Arndt:So we got to talking and.
Gary Arndt:Grew into a conversation and ended up meeting Bobby, talking to him for a while, and it just seemed like it would fit.
Gary Arndt:So we, uh, uh, started here as, uh, a little bit of everything.
Gary Arndt:I, I was part-time in the brewery for a while.
Gary Arndt:I was doing deliveries and sales, a little bit bartending one night a week.
Gary Arndt:Just, uh, whatever I could to get in with, uh, with what I thought was a really good bird.
Bobby Fleshman:This is
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": 2021.
Bobby Fleshman:21. I think it was right in the early part of 21.
Bobby Fleshman:Stephanie in this very room.
Bobby Fleshman:She brought cooler into this very room and she, before she did to meet me before then, she said, you're gonna hire him.
Bobby Fleshman:So I don't even know if you want to go through this, because she says everyone loves cooler.
Bobby Fleshman:She says, everyone's gushing on cooler.
Bobby Fleshman:She's not wrong.
Bobby Fleshman:Dammit.
Bobby Fleshman:And that may be the reason that no one likes him is because everybody likes it.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Oh, well, thank you.
Gary Arndt:Uh, so what did you notice working at other breweries that.
Gary Arndt:Separates the approach here at Mc Fleishmans.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": The one brewery I have worked out was a larger production brewery.
Gary Arndt:So everything was kind of geared towards keeping the timing down and all that kind of stuff.
Gary Arndt:Uh, so we didn't really do anything different than just single infusion mashes, 60 minute boils, knock it out.
Gary Arndt:And talking to Bobby, it was really nice to see them doing a little bit more of the traditional stuff.
Gary Arndt:I mean, we do a beer with three different decoctions that takes.
Gary Arndt:All day.
Gary Arndt:Two shifts to do one beer and a lot of the other one we do that's a half beer, I think.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": A lot of the other ones we do will have different rests.
Bobby Fleshman:Debacle, dopple, ba
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Pirates, Cove's got a a, a Decoction and a couple different rests.
Bobby Fleshman:We do the, the he aight in, in a real traditional way with a lot of rest.
Bobby Fleshman:Just brewer stuff, you know, it's fun to geek out with, with the process and, and all the different things.
Bobby Fleshman:And it was.
Bobby Fleshman:It just delicious beer
Bobby Fleshman:overall.
Bobby Fleshman:Just a masochist.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yes.
Bobby Fleshman:I never thought, there was actually a point I tried to talk Bobby into doing a decoction on a beer, which I never thought would happen.
Bobby Fleshman:I thought for sure it would be the opposite.
Bobby Fleshman:But we, are we
Bobby Fleshman:talking about it with this wortz beer?
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah, that was the alt beer Beer.
Bobby Fleshman:The alt beer, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And doing it in the open fermentor.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, trying to go real traditional with it.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:I know a lot of people they, this isn't a brewery thing, but just a company thing.
Gary Arndt:Some people like working for smaller companies because you see the impact that you make when you're in a bigger company.
Gary Arndt:A lot of people could just not show up to work and nobody would notice we're in a smaller company.
Gary Arndt:You make a big difference.
Gary Arndt:Everybody does, and you can really tell.
Gary Arndt:And you know, with brewing so many different styles of beers here, there's probably also more.
Gary Arndt:Challenge,
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": more challenge, uh, a lot more opportunities to make mistakes.
Gary Arndt:But I feel like that gives an authenticity to the beer, um, that, that some other places might miss.
Gary Arndt:And yeah, uh, the smaller companies.
Gary Arndt:I, I've worked for family owned businesses in the past.
Gary Arndt:That didn't go very well, so I was a little hesitant with that, but Bobby and now are great.
Gary Arndt:It's just a pretty, but you've never made a
Bobby Fleshman:mistake brewing.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Oh, correct.
Bobby Fleshman:Of course not.
Bobby Fleshman:No, not, not a new beer on tap that we have right now, either
Bobby Fleshman:kinda related to the, the subject of the episode at some level.
Gary Arndt:Uh, well, why don't we, why don't we get into that then?
Bobby Fleshman:Well, you wanna get over, let's get his name.
Bobby Fleshman:Let's figure out why everyone calls him cooler.
Bobby Fleshman:We have to get that out the.
Bobby Fleshman:Have often
Gary Arndt:wondered this.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Get, get the boring.
Bobby Fleshman:You're a
Gary Arndt:big fan of the great escape.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Get the boring story outta the way.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Uh, no, it happened, uh, actually about what, 21 years ago now.
Gary Arndt:Um, group of friends, uh, were having a party that I was not at and something happened with a cooler and a vehicle, and somebody came back in the house asking who the cooler man was.
Gary Arndt:And that's just kind of where it ended that day.
Gary Arndt:Uh, about a week later, we were having a fire at my friend Clayton's house, and we were all taking turns calling that person and leaving them a message that said they were not the cooler man.
Gary Arndt:And it got around to me and I had no idea what was going on.
Gary Arndt:So when it was my turn, I said, ignore all previous messages.
Gary Arndt:I am the cooler man.
Gary Arndt:And it stuck.
Gary Arndt:And so it's, it's been cooler, man.
Gary Arndt:It's been cooler.
Gary Arndt:Cool, cool.
Gary Arndt:Hairy for a while.
Gary Arndt:I thought
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": you playing a
Gary Arndt:guessing game where people said you were hot or cold and you were just really bad at it.
Bobby Fleshman:So imagine the, the igloo cooler font cooler.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Oh yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh.
Bobby Fleshman:Is it Igloo?
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Uh, Coleman.
Bobby Fleshman:Coleman, yeah, Coleman that font.
Bobby Fleshman:And so he made a sticker with that font.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a cooler man,
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": right?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, I had friend, friend, a friend Michelle that does graphic design and uh, she made me a superhero sticker for my birthday.
Bobby Fleshman:And then I asked her to, to do the Coleman logo as cooler man, and uh, got some downstairs.
Bobby Fleshman:It's pretty cool.
Bobby Fleshman:We
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": should hang around the brewery somewhere,
Bobby Fleshman:put that on our merch store and do something with it.
Bobby Fleshman:It's,
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": oh yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Not all heroes wear capes is what we've been saying.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": We,
Gary Arndt:we have our old, you know what they call a cooler in Australia?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:An esky.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Okay.
Gary Arndt:There you go.
Gary Arndt:Eskimo.
Gary Arndt:Because first time I heard it, I had no clue what the hell they were talking about.
Gary Arndt:Said Uh, so there's a new beer on tap here at Mc Fleshman.
Gary Arndt:Called Stowaway.
Gary Arndt:And uh, so why don't you explain, you
Bobby Fleshman:wanna start with the beer bit predated stowaway.
Bobby Fleshman:You want
Gary Arndt:you,
Bobby Fleshman:you want start,
Gary Arndt:you know more about it than I do.
Bobby Fleshman:Let's, lemme start from the beginning.
Bobby Fleshman:Stowaway is kind of the punchline I think to, to this the, the style of beer that seems to resonate with brewers.
Bobby Fleshman:That it continues to be Swartz beer, which is a, a black lager.
Bobby Fleshman:And I mean, cooler can talk all about it, but basically kind of embodies little toast, little roast, little coffee, little chocolate, little this, little that.
Bobby Fleshman:And, but it's not overpowering in any of those ways.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, I bring it up because our last brewer here was, uh, head brewer.
Bobby Fleshman:Here was Shane Butner.
Bobby Fleshman:Also, his arguably favorite style was Swartz Beer and Cooler has been wanting to brew one of them for a while.
Bobby Fleshman:Since, since he joined the team here, we finally had a window of time to open one or to get one in the schedule.
Bobby Fleshman:And, uh, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Why don't you talk about the Schwartz Beer, Schwartz Beer General and your Schwartz beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, started out just doing a pilot batch, and I think we ended up releasing that one right around the solar eclipse from two years ago.
Bobby Fleshman:It
Cari Gieran:was, it was for the Eclipse.
Cari Gieran:I remember because I, I opened the tapper early that day to serve beer.
Cari Gieran:Beer.
Cari Gieran:Eric "Cooler": It just a, uh, that day we were like, well, you know, we got this beer, there's an eclipse, it's black.
Cari Gieran:Let's, let's throw it on.
Cari Gieran:We'll call it totally eclipse.
Cari Gieran:And, and it was a, a pretty big hit.
Cari Gieran:So we, I think we've done two batches so far in the big system.
Cari Gieran:Um.
Cari Gieran:Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a dark beer, but it's very light bodied.
Cari Gieran:Uh, I've heard it say it's a black beer with a golden soul.
Cari Gieran:So we tried a few fun things on this one.
Cari Gieran:We tried a different mask schedule that we've never done before.
Cari Gieran:Also tried out, uh, something from the.
Cari Gieran:Chocolate world actually called Dutch.
Cari Gieran:They, they let the pH get a little bit higher results in a little smoother bitterness and a darker chocolate.
Cari Gieran:So the idea is you let the mash pH get a little bit higher and it rounds out that bitterness.
Cari Gieran:So we tried that and uh, it worked pretty well.
Cari Gieran:I think the beer turned out really good.
Cari Gieran:You don't get a really strong coffee note.
Cari Gieran:It's more of a dark chocolate kind of bitterness to it.
Cari Gieran:And to bring it around to the stowaway.
Cari Gieran:We use the same yeast on it that we do in our Pirate's Cove, and we were brewing a batch of the Pirate's Cove and pitching yeast from the Schwartz beer just straight from one fermenter to the other, and it was moving real slow.
Cari Gieran:I was watching it and I turned my back for.
Cari Gieran:Felt like a minute and put about a barrel of beer, the Schwartz beer into the Pirate's Cove,
Bobby Fleshman:reminding you that this is a black beer going into a light beer.
Bobby Fleshman:By definition, Hellas is light
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": our darkest beer into our lightest beer.
Bobby Fleshman:And, uh, yeah, so it gave it a little more roast character than we wanted, a little more color than we wanted, so we couldn't call it Pirates Cove.
Bobby Fleshman:So we brainstormed a few ideas, uh, of what to call it and.
Bobby Fleshman:Bobby came up with Stowaway, which I think fit pretty well.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, and I, the, the funny thing that about Stowaway the night before, you know, if anyone listens to this podcast, they know I fuck around with styles all of our beers, and I was gonna fuck around with Pirates Cove about three ways that day, and I ended up being restrained in many of those ways.
Bobby Fleshman:One of them was, I was gonna add a little more Munich malt, which is, uh, a little darker, a little more flavorful biscuity, kind of a German malt you'll see in a lot of box and you'll, you'll, it'll show up in a hell.
Bobby Fleshman:Its definitely in a swartz beer.
Bobby Fleshman:And, uh, I decided not to, 'cause I'd already turned a few other knobs, some salts or whatever, and.
Bobby Fleshman:And if anyone's ever seen this, the movie Final Destination, how there was a plan and they, and it was going to follow through one way or the other.
Bobby Fleshman:It found a way to get that Munich malt in that beer at the end of the day.
Bobby Fleshman:And it, it actually fell into this stowaway at about the percentage of Munich I was kind of thinking about.
Bobby Fleshman:Of course, it brought out some blacker malts along with it.
Bobby Fleshman:But anyway, so it, it just kind of, how funny how that.
Bobby Fleshman:All happened anyway, even though I did show restraint for once in my life on not messing with the recipe, uh, it turned out okay though.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, the label's got a little black cat and a crate on top of a pirate ship deck.
Bobby Fleshman:So it all connects with the Pirate's Cove theme as stowaway.
Gary Arndt:So is this something that's gonna become a.
Bobby Fleshman:Nope.
Gary Arndt:Regular?
Bobby Fleshman:Nope.
Gary Arndt:Just a one time thing.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, mainly because we don't have, there's no way in the world we have any capacity to brew that on top of all the other beers we got going on, so this'll be a one and done.
Bobby Fleshman:This
Gary Arndt:is just salvaging.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, what do you call salvaging is a, it's an excellent beer, and I think it's let us explore new, those, those flavors we'd intend to explore anyway.
Bobby Fleshman:We'll pull back on maybe some of those.
Bobby Fleshman:Those, uh, I think it's even a little bit of a roasted malt.
Bobby Fleshman:If I recall.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": We put a tiny bit of roast
Bobby Fleshman:into it in the SWT and that gets diluted 20 times over.
Bobby Fleshman:So it's, it's just microscopic.
Bobby Fleshman:So these things we would, we wouldn't include, we wouldn't include any of those really dark malts.
Bobby Fleshman:In our Pirates Cove, Helles, but it let us explore those things.
Bobby Fleshman:So, salvage is not quite the right word.
Bobby Fleshman:It came out very delicious and it came out sort of in the trajectory we were aiming for anyway, at five in the morning that day.
Bobby Fleshman:But we got there a different way by the end of it.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, so yeah, we, once in a while we do one the off beers for one reason or another.
Bobby Fleshman:This is one of those days.
Gary Arndt:How big was the batch?
Bobby Fleshman:15 barrels, give or take.
Bobby Fleshman:So.
Bobby Fleshman:I forget the math on that.
Bobby Fleshman:That's
Gary Arndt:not tiny.
Bobby Fleshman:No.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Oh no.
Bobby Fleshman:And with, with the addition of that
Bobby Fleshman:4,000 pints,
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": with the addition of that barrel of Schwartz beer, it overflowed the tank when I was done knocking out that second batch.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, that's true.
Bobby Fleshman:That extra barrel.
David:That's so true.
Gary Arndt:So what are the, what's the division of labor between you guys?
Gary Arndt:How this
Bobby Fleshman:goes?
Gary Arndt:What, what are you doing?
Gary Arndt:And you doing
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Cooler gets, he should get all the credit.
Bobby Fleshman:I should get all the blame.
Bobby Fleshman:Let's start with that.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, he's, he's tasked with doing a lot of crazy shit.
Bobby Fleshman:He doesn't complain.
Bobby Fleshman:I tend to get the ingredients ordered, do a lot of the recipes, except in this case he did 99% of this.
Bobby Fleshman:And I arguably it's in our top three or four beers of all time.
Bobby Fleshman:This Schwartz beer is just amazing.
David:It's so good.
Bobby Fleshman:And it was needed in the lineup.
Bobby Fleshman:So anyway, I'll get like the ingredients all staged up and take care of that ordering, staging, milling, whatever that entails.
Bobby Fleshman:And then I'll get it in the brew house on the day we brew and I'll do the first half.
Bobby Fleshman:It takes two times to brew into our tanks cooler, will bring it home and do all the hard work of cleaning the fucking system up at the end of the day.
Bobby Fleshman:So, and he does all, he does leads packaging almost entirely.
Bobby Fleshman:That's Cooler's job.
Bobby Fleshman:He's leading our packaging side of things.
Bobby Fleshman:He's.
Bobby Fleshman:Doing 99% of our cellar work, which is all the thinkless stuff in the middle that no one ever sees, where people, you know, dry hop and filter and all the cool stuff that makes the beer.
Bobby Fleshman:The beer at the end of the day, but yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:What do you do?
Bobby Fleshman:What's your day in the life for?
Bobby Fleshman:Cooler?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Well, it depends.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, if, if, yeah, if we're doing a double brew Bob will start it out in the morning.
Bobby Fleshman:Let me know when to come in and hand it over.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, if we're doing, uh, smaller brews, it's he'll have the grain ready for me and then I'll take it from there.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, other than that, if we're filtering, you know, do that, like he said, kegging a lot.
Bobby Fleshman:Um,
Bobby Fleshman:you guys work the same hours.
Bobby Fleshman:Or do you like?
Bobby Fleshman:A little staggered?
Bobby Fleshman:I'm usually a little earlier.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": I'm convinced Bobby sleeps here sometimes, so no, we don't work the same hours.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Labor of love.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": No, I, I, I get pretty much into a habit where I, I sometimes the first one here and sometimes the first one gone, but I'm pretty much here eight o'clock, about four 30 or so.
Bobby Fleshman:I tend to wrap it up and then.
Bobby Fleshman:Bobby's here all the time.
Bobby Fleshman:Actually, this is, this is a good point.
Bobby Fleshman:I didn't even know we were gonna go there, but Cooler has taught me about balance.
Bobby Fleshman:He's, he's one of these, you know, I, I always had this 20-year-old mentality approaching this place.
Bobby Fleshman:Just go, go, go, go, go.
Bobby Fleshman:And even if it looks like I'm always going, I, I've turned it down a little bit.
Bobby Fleshman:Tried to, to seek that balance.
Bobby Fleshman:You know, we have Allison and I have our now 7-year-old, and we're, and cooler's taught me a lot about work life balance over these many years.
Bobby Fleshman:He's been here.
Bobby Fleshman:Which I endorse.
Gary Arndt:When you start a a business, you kind of have no choice.
Gary Arndt:I mean, I've done it several times.
Gary Arndt:When you start it out, you have to throw everything into it.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And then once you've achieved kind of a, you know, a level where it can sustain itself, then you can back off a little bit.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:But when it starts, it's, you kind of have to,
Bobby Fleshman:yeah, it was brutal the first few years.
Bobby Fleshman:It was really brutal.
Bobby Fleshman:We were, we were literally still building this place while we were running it as a business.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, there was a door at the end of the hallway that separated the tap room from production, and behind that door was nothing but tables of tools that we were using to actually build the place that would become the what would make our beer.
Bobby Fleshman:We were making it across the alley at the moment, so yeah, we were all in at that point.
Bobby Fleshman:I was looking for a team like cooler.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, Emmy now runs Tap Room before her, Ben, and, and Carrie's sitting across from me now.
Bobby Fleshman:When she was our first hire, we had to start surrounding ourself with people to, to run this.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, and then our original partners, uh, Shane and Layla, they are, they, they, they were integral to us being where we are now.
Bobby Fleshman:Being able to step back when we do
Gary Arndt:so cooler.
Gary Arndt:I'm gonna ask you a question.
Gary Arndt:We've asked a bunch of different people on the show, and Carrie, I'm gonna ask you this too, 'cause I don't think.
Gary Arndt:We asked you when you were on the show last time, what is the, your favorite beer that you make at Mc Flesh Men's
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": favorite beer to make or favorite beer to drink?
Gary Arndt:To
Gary Arndt:drink?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Ooh, uh, that changes all the time.
Gary Arndt:Uh, uh, the one that's in front of me is probably the, uh, the closest answer I can give you.
Gary Arndt:Uh,
Gary Arndt:what is in front of you?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Right now it's the Schwartz beer, but it could be the Heifer Heights and it could be 5 47 Doppelbock I've really enjoyed, it depends on the season, depends on my mood.
Gary Arndt:The only one I'm usually won't drink is the stones throw.
Gary Arndt:Uh, that Irish Red's just not a style that I am a big fan of, but that's probably the only one I can think of that I don't enjoy drinking.
Gary Arndt:And then while we're at it, what's your favorite one to, to, to make?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Uh, probably, uh,
Gary Arndt:and why?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Probably the public house pint.
Gary Arndt:It's a pretty basic brew day, but I really enjoy the dark beer brew days.
Gary Arndt:Uh, the smell in the brew house on those days is amazing.
Gary Arndt:And it's a, I mean, and it's an easy beer to brew, so it kind of is a, a. Not really a day off.
Gary Arndt:I can't shut my brain off completely on it, but I've brewed enough and it's, it's simple and straightforward that it's, it's kind of a relaxing brew day.
Gary Arndt:And Carrie, what's your favorite beer?
Cari Gieran:I kind of.
Cari Gieran:Fall in line a little bit with cooler where I really appreciate every beer that we make.
Cari Gieran:Um, if I had to pick one, I tend to be more of a hop head, uh, especially the West Coast styles.
Cari Gieran:So, uh, look, I'm drinking a little todo right now.
Cari Gieran:I love that.
Cari Gieran:Uh, I was super happy when we brewed that because I love the 5 47, but it is 8.9% a BV and I have to be able to drive home.
Cari Gieran:So, uh.
Cari Gieran:I, I steer toward the tornado, but that public house pint I love so much.
Cari Gieran:The huff of Itin on a warm summer day or the cold, you just can't beat that on a warm summer day sitting out in the beer garden.
Cari Gieran:So it is very situational for me.
Bobby Fleshman:We're pause while we fantasize about K weather.
Cari Gieran:I know, right?
Cari Gieran:Uh,
Bobby Fleshman:where it's negative 10 right now.
Bobby Fleshman:When we got the window.
Gary Arndt:Yeah, I heard a heat wave's coming through.
Gary Arndt:It's gonna actually be positive.
Bobby Fleshman:Hit zero.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:All day.
Cari Gieran:I think in a few days we're gonna hit double digits above zero.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:How, how Wisconsin do we sound right now?
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Back to single stamp weather.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh boy.
Cari Gieran:Yeah,
Gary Arndt:but I, you know, I know that's kind of the interesting thing.
Gary Arndt:You brew so many different beers and you have such a comprehensive menu.
Gary Arndt:Everybody kind of has their own.
Gary Arndt:Thing that they like.
Gary Arndt:And yeah, there are a couple things like 5 47 and, and whatnot that people gravitate to.
Gary Arndt:But you know, I've been here many times where half the menu is something that I'd be more than happy to drink.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, I, when I, mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:When I look in on our sales every day, I, this is a, I don't, this is my confession I always look at, and, and, and one day is never a good enough statistic to base any decisions on, but.
Bobby Fleshman:Over a given period of time.
Bobby Fleshman:If I see one beer lagging in our sales, I just cannot, it, it just, it bothers me to no end.
Bobby Fleshman:I want to make sure everything on that menu is as good as it can be in that category.
Bobby Fleshman:We're not just trying to throw a dart and just put everything up on that wall.
Bobby Fleshman:It always bothers me when any one of those, even if it's not one, I don't personally, like, when I see it not selling, I just can't stop obsessing about what, what it would take to make it sell better.
Gary Arndt:I think there are certain styles that people just don't, they're not familiar with.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:Like I don't, I mean, I don't think your cask beers are ever gonna be your number one sellers.
Bobby Fleshman:They're kicking our ass in the tap room.
Bobby Fleshman:I'll tell you, they, if we're going through 'em really quick.
Bobby Fleshman:But yeah, out in the wild, those styles, even if they're down on cag, the English ales are a little passe, I guess.
Bobby Fleshman:But they're some of our best beers.
Bobby Fleshman:I know what you mean though.
Gary Arndt:Cooler.
Gary Arndt:Do you have any other notable screw ups, ones that maybe you weren't able to salvage?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Uh, I don't think we've had to dump anything.
Gary Arndt:I set up the filter wrong one time after we cleaned it and the beer wasn't actually going through the filter pads and just went straight into the tank.
Gary Arndt:Going through
Bobby Fleshman:real quick though.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:I was wondering why it was going so fast, and then I realized why.
Bobby Fleshman:But when the filter's set up, it's hard to explain, but basically.
Bobby Fleshman:You, you send the beer through.
Bobby Fleshman:The way we do it, you send it through these cellulose fiber pads and you're able to pull out some of the larger particles, and then you go through another stage, uh, to pull out even smaller particles.
Bobby Fleshman:And at the end of the day, you make a product that's, that's very clear, but also very stable to shelf life or that has a good shelf life.
Bobby Fleshman:But if you don't.
Bobby Fleshman:There's one, there's one plate.
Bobby Fleshman:If you don't have it oriented correctly, you can just shoot right through both of those and not ever actually pass through either sheet on the way to the ator.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:That happened.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Bob, I mean, Bobby knows what he's doing.
Bobby Fleshman:He's, he's one of the smartest people I know.
Bobby Fleshman:So if there's ever an instance where something doesn't go the way we plan it, we can usually spitball a way to make it into something else, and, and, and it works out.
Gary Arndt:What beer would you like to s see Mc Fleshman Brew that they haven't brewed yet?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Oh boy.
Gary Arndt:Um,
Bobby Fleshman:Schwartz was one of them.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:I
Bobby Fleshman:mean, it'd been a while.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, we'd done a Schwartz before, but it had been a minute.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": I mean, uh, it's probably gonna be a weird obscure style that wouldn't sell.
Bobby Fleshman:So it's, I mean, there's, there's a lot of historical styles.
Bobby Fleshman:Adam, beer cot, booster, uh, uh, smoked beer that I think would be fun to brew.
Bobby Fleshman:But
Bobby Fleshman:if Jay's listening, he got re he's
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": also that
Cari Gieran:one all over that one.
Cari Gieran:Eric "Cooler": Yeah.
Cari Gieran:Um, I wouldn't say so much a beer as just different processes I'd like to try.
Cari Gieran:We did a party guy a while ago that was really fun to figure out how to take one mash and get two beers out of it.
Cari Gieran:That was our, and how to manipulate our system.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": To get that to work.
Bobby Fleshman:So, yeah, I, I'd probably say different techniques and things, not so much a certain beer.
Bobby Fleshman:I think, not to hijack that question, but I feel like Dortmund has been knocking on my door for a while.
Bobby Fleshman:Which was the first beer I ever brewed as a home brewer.
Bobby Fleshman:It's the one I messed up and didn't put all the sugar in, and I'm on video that I took of me fucking that up.
Bobby Fleshman:So you
Gary Arndt:wanna get revenge,
Bobby Fleshman:I wanna get rid revenge on that style.
Bobby Fleshman:It's also kind of like a bigger hellas.
Bobby Fleshman:People ask what it is.
Bobby Fleshman:It's, it's a like a bigger hellas, a little more mineral, a lot more mineral character.
Bobby Fleshman:So it, it would be a fun one to revisit and that accentuates sort of the hoppiness and the dryness of the, the style.
Gary Arndt:What was your experience in beer before you started working in breweries?
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Uh, my dad was an avid craft beer drinker.
Gary Arndt:I can remember being a kid and driving around, pointing out the red hook signs I saw at bars, 'cause that was one of his favorite beers.
Gary Arndt:Uh, so I was exposed to it right after I turned 21 pretty much.
Gary Arndt:And then started home brewing about five years before I got a job at a brewery.
Gary Arndt:Tried, uh, friends.
Gary Arndt:Home brewed beer and decided that, hey, I can do that.
Gary Arndt:So brewed a couple of those, started entering competitions with it and, and just kind of fell in love with it and jumped at the chance to get in at a brewery anywhere.
Gary Arndt:That is pretty much the same story.
Gary Arndt:Every brewer we've talked to has had.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Started out with home brewing and then they decided to go pro.
Gary Arndt:Eric "Cooler": Yeah, except for Aaron, I think, uh, I don't think Aaron has brewed, uh, at home at all and Nope, he's brewing here.
Gary Arndt:I don't think so.
Bobby Fleshman:Aaron is very rare in that regard.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:His first brew was on our 30 gallon pilot system here at the brewery.
Bobby Fleshman:As far as I know,
Gary Arndt:he just enjoyed being around stainless steel.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, yeah, he does, he does come from a metallurgy or a, a metal fabrication and art background, so yeah, there you go.
Bobby Fleshman:He was our first stray, one of our first strays.
Bobby Fleshman:We adopted, he was our, one of our pub clubbers had done 200, 300 visits a year.
Bobby Fleshman:It was ridiculous.
Bobby Fleshman:And he was
Cari Gieran:our first to 101
Bobby Fleshman:and then two and first
Cari Gieran:to 200
Bobby Fleshman:and unofficially three.
Bobby Fleshman:And, and then he eventually got hired back here to, to work for us.
Cari Gieran:Well, he was just here so much.
Cari Gieran:Apparently he might
Bobby Fleshman:him
Cari Gieran:in
Bobby Fleshman:bed.
Bobby Fleshman:She
Cari Gieran:kind put him on the payroll at that point.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Gary Arndt:So how, what made you hire someone who was a regular.
Gary Arndt:Drinker here.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:To
Bobby Fleshman:work.
Bobby Fleshman:It wasn't even a brewer.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, Aaron's an incredible soul.
Bobby Fleshman:We'll get him on here soon.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:He's, he's incredible.
Bobby Fleshman:He's, I'm not sure there's a more, like all present company excluded.
Bobby Fleshman:There's a more likable person on this team here.
Bobby Fleshman:I if, if Aaron doesn't like you, you're, you must be a real asshole at the end of the day.
Bobby Fleshman:He just, he rolls his sleeves up and does anything no matter what it is.
Bobby Fleshman:And he always smiles and with
Cari Gieran:a smile on
Bobby Fleshman:his face.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:A hundred percent.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, he's talented too.
Bobby Fleshman:He is.
Bobby Fleshman:He's a talented woodworker which metals speaks to my heart and then metal, he doesn't.
Bobby Fleshman:I
Gary Arndt:noticed the stairs are almost done.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:That's Alex Schultz.
Bobby Fleshman:One day we'll get him on here.
Bobby Fleshman:If we ever find him.
Bobby Fleshman:All we find is traces on him.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh,
Cari Gieran:half empty glasses of beer laying around.
Bobby Fleshman:Aaron though, he's, he's learning to brew.
Bobby Fleshman:He's, he's very much, his mindset on the beer side is he loves flavors.
Bobby Fleshman:He really likes to play with flavors.
Bobby Fleshman:So I call him unofficially.
Bobby Fleshman:Our, sort of, our, our, uh, pilot manager or innovation manager would call it.
Bobby Fleshman:He's back there doing, he's got so many jars of concoctions on the shelf.
Bobby Fleshman:It's straight up out of, you know, young Frankenstein where they have all the Abby normal.
Bobby Fleshman:Brain anyway.
Bobby Fleshman:You got jars of stuff all across the shelf that he puts into these beers.
Bobby Fleshman:That'd be a
Gary Arndt:good beer name.
Bobby Fleshman:It's Abby Normal.
Bobby Fleshman:I've thought about it.
Bobby Fleshman:If we get into the Belgian doubles, I thought an Abby Normal would be a good beer.
Bobby Fleshman:I hear Jay again.
Bobby Fleshman:What's that?
Cari Gieran:I hear Jay ears
Bobby Fleshman:ring it again.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh God.
Bobby Fleshman:So yeah, that's what Aaron does.
Bobby Fleshman:He's he, he just, anything we need done, he does it.
Bobby Fleshman:And he's so talented when it comes to blending flavors.
Bobby Fleshman:We're all committed to making the the flagships, and that's gonna be more true this year and more true the next year.
Bobby Fleshman:And it, I don't want to ever lose sight of, of our innovation that we do.
Bobby Fleshman:And nevermind the non-beer stuff that we do.
Bobby Fleshman:And Aaron's just leading the charge on that.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric "Cooler": Yeah, we need to get him a lab coat so he can look like the mad scientist that he is.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:All right.
Gary Arndt:Well that'll wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kelso, and without David, there would not be a show.
Gary Arndt:Please join the Facebook group to get updates and to support the show over on Patreon where you can listen to the bits that don't make it into the regular show.
Gary Arndt:And you'll also get access to special events here at Macle Men's and special beers available only to Patreon and Pub Club members.
Gary Arndt:Links to both of these are in the show notes.
Gary Arndt:And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
