Episode 51
Charlie Bamforth Lectures Us On Beer Being "Unhealthy"
The Pope of Foam graces us with an appearance! Charlie Bamforth, Bobby's mentor and current consultant for Sierra Nevada Brewing, joins us to talk about his career path and his view on low alcohol trends and beer being deemed "unhealthy."
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TIMELINE
00:00 Bow your heads for the Pope of Foam!
00:56 Charlie Bamforth's pilgrimage to beer
02:46 Pretending we know soccer scores
04:08 Is beer really that unhealthy?
12:55 The French Paradox: Why is wine "healthy"?
23:06 Moderation and Dry January thoughts
25:38 Low alcohol beers trends
31:00 Charlie will be back next week!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:My name is Gary Arndt.
Speaker:With me again are the usual suspects.
Speaker:The man who rolled dual spec astronomer and brewer, Bobby Fleshman.
Speaker:We got the historian of hops, Joel Hermansen, and Charlie, I have to say you have caused quite a fuss over at McFleshman's this week.
Speaker:So many people have been excited about this interview.
Speaker:Our very special guest this week is a man who several years ago, a, college of brewers got together and elected him and they announced it to the world by white foam coming up the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.
Speaker:The Pope of Foam, Mr. Charlie Banforth.
Speaker:Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker:Nice to be with you.
Speaker:I wish I could be there in, in, physically there with you as well, sharing a pint.
Speaker:But nice to be with you remotely.
Speaker:We'll make that happen again.
Speaker:But before we kicked off this recording, we were reminiscing and how you came here almost four years ago for a beer fest we were holding when you were the guest speaker before that, but yeah, we'll make that happen in person again, if we can, hopefully my wife, Allison can pop in and so I, Charlie, before we're going to go kind of organically through some stuff tonight, and I, I think people need to understand something about your background.
Speaker:And we have a very casual.
Speaker:up to, uh, informed beer audience.
Speaker:So you started with Bass, if I'm not mistaken, you started before that as a microbiologist, I believe, or at least overlapping with that.
Speaker:And then you were quality at Bass and then you worked with the brewing research Institute.
Speaker:Making your way to UC Davis and becoming the Endowed Professor of Brewing Science there by, uh, Anheuser Busch, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker:You taught me in 2013 in the Master Brewers Program, so I met you there.
Speaker:And then, uh, you made your way here and then somewhere along the way for that beer fest we had, and somewhere along the way you got hired by Ken Grossman and Sierra Nevada to be their senior quality advisor.
Speaker:So I don't want to discount all the publications you have there.
Speaker:It takes quite the thumbscroll just to go down the list, but you've touched on a lot of subjects.
Speaker:I brought you up here today on the premise of talking about how one incorporate beer into a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker:But I hope we get to meander through some of the other aspects of your career.
Speaker:Yeah, we can be under as much as you like.
Speaker:Um, so yeah, I've been, I've been in this business since 1978, which is, Probably longer than a lot of your listeners have even been on the planet.
Speaker:So, uh, yeah, but, you got the history approximately correct, but
Speaker:We have some soccer, uh, notes on the side.
Speaker:I'm, I
Speaker:All right
Speaker:but on my right and left, we have some of that as well.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, we were really glad that you were able to join us today in light of the fact that your Wolves lost 3 0 to Newcastle.
Speaker:Well, thanks for thanks for mentioning that yeah, it was it it was a bad a bad day at the office should we say, Yeah, they look bad.
Speaker:They look really bad today.
Speaker:It's, it's, it's not looking good this season, but who knows?
Speaker:As long as there's three other teams that are worse than us, then we'll be
Speaker:appeared to be that right now, I think.
Speaker:Isn't Ipswich the, the bottom
Speaker:No, no, Ipswich are just outside the relegation zone, Wolves are third from the bottom and underneath are Leicester City and, uh, my brain's gone blank.
Speaker:so there are, there are officially, uh, uh, two or three teams that are potentially worse than Wolves.
Speaker:The bottom three will go down.
Speaker:So yeah, Southampton are right at the bottom.
Speaker:They're, they're pretty awful.
Speaker:well, I I'm gonna be paying huge attention just to make sure you guys don't get relegated.
Speaker:well, thank you
Speaker:do what I can
Speaker:Well, yeah, send good vibes our way, you know, um, but, um, they're in theory, at least they have the players.
Speaker:They just, it's a case of bringing them all together.
Speaker:That's like anything in the world of brewing as well.
Speaker:It's bringing all the parts together to achieve a successful outcome.
Speaker:Right, so what do we jump in?
Speaker:Gary normally hosts.
Speaker:I'm the worst Gary's the voice and he keeps it rolling You have so meant such a diverse background and when the context of beer.
Speaker:I I think that You So Joel came in.
Speaker:He has some great prompts for me here.
Speaker:He's a teacher by by trade, and he left me with some, some prompts here, and some of which are highlighted.
Speaker:So I think we should ask the first one, right?
Speaker:Because I'm just gonna Charlie, I'm just gonna be honest for a second.
Speaker:I read your book this weekend.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Which one?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Beer is proof that God loves
Speaker:Oh, that one.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Loved it.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:I, I, as a, as an amateur brewer I've been a huge fan of yours for many years.
Speaker:I told Bobby that as a Grateful Dead fan.
Speaker:This is me talking to you today is like me talking to Jerry Garcia.
Speaker:So this this is kind of a big deal.
Speaker:So we we made some notes just so that we could be prepared uh to to speak with you.
Speaker:But one of the questions that So I'm going to ask you a question that I had is we feel I think Bobby and I share this thought that you have the greatest job on the planet.
Speaker:And when, when we look through all of your writings and all of your books and all of the things that you've done, it's just, it's spectacular.
Speaker:And we're wondering how you've been so lucky and how you feel about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I do feel lucky.
Speaker:Um, I guess I was in the right place at the right time.
Speaker:There's never been a master plan in any of this.
Speaker:Um, so I, you know, joining the brewing industry was, it was the first job, uh, that, uh, took my eye when I would finish as a postdoc in, in Sheffield in the north of England and uh, just so happened to be at the Brewing Research Foundation.
Speaker:So give me a job I can do that.
Speaker:So beer and um, enzymes as well, bringing them two together.
Speaker:And then, you know, Bass took a shine to me and, and, and, and, and so I went to Bass and that gave me the industrial experience and it was back to the brewing.
Speaker:And they also gave me quality, uh, a lot of quality experience.
Speaker:And it's back to the Brewing Industry Research Foundation, or BRF as it was called in those days.
Speaker:And I was also, my very close friend is a guy called Graeme Stewart, and he gave me the opportunity to be the visiting professor at Harriet Watt in Edinburgh.
Speaker:And so when they wanted a brewing professor at UC Davis, they wanted somebody who'd been in the industry, and actually had practical brewing experience.
Speaker:They wanted somebody who had a research record in brewing, and somebody who'd been in academia.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:So I was pretty much the only guy on the planet who checked all the boxes.
Speaker:So I came to Davies in, in 1999.
Speaker:And, uh, 20 years later retired.
Speaker:And, and Ken, Ken Grossman said, Hey, come up to Chico.
Speaker:I'll buy you lunch.
Speaker:I'll give you lunch.
Speaker:So I went up and I said, What can I do for you, Ken?
Speaker:He said, well, you're retiring.
Speaker:I said, Yeah.
Speaker:He said, No, you're not.
Speaker:He said, Do you, you know, You know, we'd like you to spend time, uh, with us, uh, advising us on matters to do with quality.
Speaker:And he said, you, you, you'll have a simple brief that is, tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear.
Speaker:So, uh, we, we have that relationship and, uh, you know, I would, I would not have done it for anybody.
Speaker:I would have retired right off the bat.
Speaker:But Ken is a special guy and, uh,
Speaker:I can back that up, uh, having, having gone through the master brewers program with, Charlie, his accolades, his, uh, praise for, uh, Ken Grossman.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:It rings true.
Speaker:Yeah, he's the most impressive guy I've ever met in all my 40 whatever number of years in the brew industry, 47 years in the brew industry.
Speaker:He's easily the most impressive person I've ever met.
Speaker:And, uh, so it's a real honor to be associated with Sierra Nevada.
Speaker:These days, I'm not sure Bobby whether you were the year in the extension class when they had the bingo cards were you were you were you the bingo card here.
Speaker:I don't recall that.
Speaker:Yeah, that was I was lecturing one morning I've been talking for about 20 minutes and this guy put his hand up.
Speaker:I was ready.
Speaker:Yes, I was.
Speaker:I said, I said, you got a question.
Speaker:He said, yeah.
Speaker:I said, he said, no, I'm not going to question it.
Speaker:He said, bingo, and he got a lie.
Speaker:He got a line and everybody in the class at a bingo card.
Speaker:And there's a, there's a something I said in every line.
Speaker:And I've been talking for about 20 minutes and this guy had drawn a line through four of my statements.
Speaker:And I'm sure one of them was Ken Grossman.
Speaker:I'm sure it would have been.
Speaker:Because
Speaker:I think you use the word Mecca and, and Ken Grossman and Sierra Nevada, all in the same paragraph.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so anyway, it's, it's, it's an honor to be part of it.
Speaker:So back to your question, it's, you know, I am, I'm very blessed, you know, I, I, to, to be working on a, you know, a field that I, I enjoy very much a topic that of course, so many people, you know, enjoy and relish in all sorts of ways.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, get the opportunity to, to, to speak about it like, like today and to talk and to write about it and so on.
Speaker:I, you know, it, uh, it keeps me going, you know and long may it continue.
Speaker:I think, I think your success, I'm going to put words in your mouth.
Speaker:I think because you say yes so much.
Speaker:You seem to, you seem to be out there in a good way.
Speaker:You seem to be promoting the science of beer, the quality of beer, and just the beer industry overall,
Speaker:Well, it's so important.
Speaker:Yeah, I do.
Speaker:And it's so important and it's not easy, you know, because if you, if you're on the inside, And you're trying to spread the gospel about beer as a wholesome component of life.
Speaker:You know, there are people out there, um, that are out to get you in a way.
Speaker:And, uh, they're not prepared to, to, to listen sometimes.
Speaker:But luckily, those people who do respect beer, and those people who are interested in beer, Uh, they do realize just how important it is to, to spread those positive messages about what is, you know, for thousands and thousands of years been an important part of, uh, of a civilized, uh, society.
Speaker:So, uh, yeah, I, I, I relish the opportunity.
Speaker:Some years ago, my wife made me put the words at a post posted by my office, uh, in the office by my desk, which said no.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And, and, you know, when people phone me up and say, hey, come and give us a talk, I was supposed to look at this and say, no, but I don't think I, I don't think I ever did it.
Speaker:Um, so I think, uh, I, I left that notice there for my success.
Speaker:I'm not sure whether he says no or not, but, uh, I, I very seldom did.
Speaker:I think we'll have time to come back to this later, but that was, that was chapter seven in, in your book.
Speaker:And I, I actually teach world history and I found a lot of intersections between, Your historical analysis of all of the forces that have acted against beer through the years you know ranging from religious to Social to economic forces that really resonated, uh with me.
Speaker:I thought that was excellent
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, I'm not sure who it was, so it's not that I'm paranoid, but it doesn't mean they're not out to get me.
Speaker:You know, and it's very easy when you're not careful to.
Speaker:To realize, uh, or to, to believe that, uh, there are, there are too many negative forces out there.
Speaker:In moderation, you know, beer is a real force for good, in my opinion.
Speaker:One of the things I used to teach the students, I hope, and talk about very much, was respecting the product.
Speaker:And I used to say, you know, there's no place, and this is to the students at UC Davis, 40, 000 students, there's no place for beer pong, you know?
Speaker:I mean, beer is not something you, as part of a, Inherent feature of a sport or a game.
Speaker:You don't throw ping pong balls at it.
Speaker:You savor it, you enjoy it, you respect it and you have
Speaker:feel like we should
Speaker:uh, you have it as a wholesome part, you have a, as a wholesome part of, of a lifestyle, you know, but, but don't, you know, it's things like, You know, some of the things that people do, perhaps it's no wonder that people have a down on on beer and other forms of alcohol, but as long as beer is treated with respect and enjoyed and and and cherished for what it is, then long may it be allowed to thrive.
Speaker:I recall you talking at some point, uh, during one of the lectures about the paradox of how the French drink so much wine and, and yet they, they seem to be so healthy and, and, and they eat so much cheese and so on and so on and so on.
Speaker:And you, and you said that there's correlation and, and can you expand?
Speaker:Can you, can you remember that?
Speaker:you,
Speaker:Can certainly remember it, and you know, it's one of those things at the moment, as you're probably aware, I'm sure you are aware, there's a bunch of reports been coming out and floating around recently that basically say there's, there's no, um, safe level of consuming alcohol, well, you know, That's nonsense, it's absolute nonsense and, and it's, it's, it's, it's coming at it from the totally wrong angle, but the, the point you were raising there was all to do with the so called French paradox, and it all kicked off a number of years ago on a television program called 60 and they were talking about this French paragraph.
Speaker:Paradox that, you know, there's the French.
Speaker:You remember I'm English, you know, so I, you know, inherently they're rude about the, the French are rude about the English and vice versa.
Speaker:So, and I, what I probably said on that day, Bobby is, you know, the French live badly, they eat all this rubbish and all this cheese and so on, but their arteries should be caked solid with bad cholesterol.
Speaker:And on 60 Minutes he said that it's because they drink red wine.
Speaker:And red wine cuts down the risk of atherosclerosis, blocking of the arteries.
Speaker:And, and basically, they, they push something called resveratrol, which is in the grape skins.
Speaker:And because when you make red wine, there's more contact with the red, uh, the grape skins than with white wine.
Speaker:You get more resveratrol, and therefore red wine is healthier than white wine.
Speaker:Yeah, what they don't say is, you know, to get enough resveratrol, you've got to drink over 100 bottles of red wine every day.
Speaker:You know, um, and it's not the red one.
Speaker:It's not the resveratrol.
Speaker:It's the alcohol.
Speaker:And there have been countless studies.
Speaker:Whether it's wine, beer, any alcoholic beverage, in moderation, will cut down the risk of atherosclerosis.
Speaker:And yet people are trying to just say, look, it's rubbish, all those studies are wrong.
Speaker:Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies.
Speaker:And they're just trying to, to sort of gainsay and say, nay, it's just an old wives tale, I think.
Speaker:Was one of the terms used by the, the former.
Speaker:chief medical officer for England.
Speaker:An old wives tale.
Speaker:Well, you know, they're, they're just selecting the research they want to select.
Speaker:And if you, if you look at that research, then, you know the stuff that points negative fingers, you, you can drive a, you can drive, and you can drive a truck through it, you know, and I'm not saying that if you consume alcohol to excess, it's, it's not going to do you any harm, but you know, For as many headlines you could have about it.
Speaker:alcohol and negative aspects of it.
Speaker:You could write those articles about pretty much anything else that you put into your body, uh, but they're just, they're picking on alcohol.
Speaker:Um, and it, it, it's, it, you've got to understand it for what it is.
Speaker:But again, back to the example you were talking about, that's the famous U shaped curve.
Speaker:With moderate consumption of alcohol, you reduce the risk of dying, basically, from blocked arteries.
Speaker:If you drink too much, the curve swings the other way.
Speaker:So there's a sweet spot.
Speaker:And this is what people are trying to deny at the moment.
Speaker:They say there's no sweet spot.
Speaker:Well, there most certainly is.
Speaker:Um, a sweet spot because there's a lot of evidence, uh, showing that, uh, that the moderate consumption, and when you remember it, I think I'm right in saying the number one killer in this country is actually coronary heart disease and uh, if it's true, and I believe it is, that moderate consumption of alcohol cuts down those risks, then let's have a conversation about that in the press because You know it's a complex area, and I'm sure we'll get into it.
Speaker:It seems like it's really confusing, too, as a consumer of information, one day that pendulum will swing one way, and they'll say what, what you just said, which is that when consumed with appropriate.
Speaker:you know, moderation that, that beer is actually part of a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker:And then, you know, a week later, there'll be another report.
Speaker:And then it'll, you know, and it's hard for the consumer of information to keep track of where, where the current trends are.
Speaker:And In your book, you actually cited a really good example and you, you related it to a crime and you, you said that you know, if somebody had committed a crime, uh, they were wondering if alcohol was a, was a, a, a component of the motivation behind the crime as opposed to, well, did they eat that, you know, that day did they do other things that very same day that may have also contributed to the crime?
Speaker:And we ignore all of those other mitigating factors.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, they're causal, causal relationships, you know, I mean, you've got to understand a direct relationship between a factor and the impact of that factor.
Speaker:So, as I'm fond of saying, people say to me, oh, you know, look at wine drinkers, they're, they're healthier than beer drinkers.
Speaker:And I said, how do you make that out?
Speaker:And they said, well you just have to look at them.
Speaker:And I said, well, you know, jokingly I will start them and say, Well yeah, wine drinkers sort of jog and belong to health clubs.
Speaker:And beer drinkers watch ball games and eat burgers, you know, I mean.
Speaker:It's not the alcohol, it's the lifestyle, you know, so.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So that, that, that is slightly tongue in cheek.
Speaker:But, you know, there was a study years ago in Copenhagen, and they checked what people were buying in the supermarket.
Speaker:And what they did was, they waited for people to come out of the supermarket, and they asked them for the printout of what they'd been buying.
Speaker:And so they, they went through thousands and thousands and thousands of these, And picked out those who'd been buying wine and those who'd been buying beer.
Speaker:And those who'd been buying wine had been buying sort of lettuce and water and cress.
Speaker:You know, people who were buying beer were buying red meat, burgers, cigarettes, potatoes, butter, you know.
Speaker:It's one of the beards keeping these guys alive, you know, but, but, but seriously, you know, it's, so it's a lifestyle thing and, and there used to be a excellent guy, a fair minded medic.
Speaker:Let me, let me, let me just call him that, um, who was based at Kaiser Permanente a number of years ago.
Speaker:His name was Arthur Klatsky, and he published a paper and he, and he highlighted the fact that when people are drawing correlations, whether it's a positive correlation or a negative correlation, let's be, let's be fair, between how much they consume and, you know, the impact, their lifestyle and their health situation it's on the basis of doctors saying, you know, Do you drink?
Speaker:And you say, yeah.
Speaker:Well, well, how much do you drink?
Speaker:Oh, I just have a, I have a beer every day.
Speaker:Well, no, you have two or three.
Speaker:Oh, I just have a glass of wine.
Speaker:Well, yeah, but what about the gin and tonic and the brandy, you know?
Speaker:And, and he said, basically it's, it's lying.
Speaker:And so they hope that one of those axes, you know, we can't draw a correlation between a health impact.
Speaker:And alcohol consumption.
Speaker:That X axis on alcohol consumption is, is, you know, often as not, declaration by people about what they're, what they're drinking.
Speaker:And they're lying, you know, there's no reliability on that axis either.
Speaker:Now that works both ways, you know, it works, whether it's a positive impact or a negative impact, but, but there's a, it's, it's fraud.
Speaker:Human beings, they're, they're You know, they don't just drink beer, you know, they eat different things, and they do different things, and they exercise to different extent.
Speaker:So there's multiple factors that are involved in anybody's lifestyle and one's risk of ill health or one's risk of death.
Speaker:And, and, you know, as, as somebody pointed out the University of Cambridge, you know, there's not, when people are saying there's no safe level of, drinking?
Speaker:Well, there's no safe level of getting in a car, you know, there's no safe level of swimming, you know, because who knows what, you know, what other people are doing.
Speaker:or, or, or what circumstances you're going to find yourself in.
Speaker:So, I mean, that's a slightly garbled response, but you know, it's human beings do not live by beer alone.
Speaker:And, and if you look at the numbers that they're talking about, the, and the risk of, of death, I was reading one report only today that was highlighted today.
Speaker:And, you know, and, and, and a drink a day.
Speaker:You know, increases, you know, somebody, one in a thousand people are gonna suffer from it.
Speaker:Well, what about the other in 999?
Speaker:You know, I mean, even if it's one in a thousand, it's probably one in 10,000, you know?
Speaker:So I'll take my chances, you know, I won't abuse it.
Speaker:And I do think that if I, you know, was drinking 20 points a day, I, I don't think they do me much good.
Speaker:But I, I, I, I, I should not be expecting to be made to feel guilty because I enjoy a Pinter two.
Speaker:Uh, as part of a convivial lifestyle, you know, and I, I think it's going to benefit me.
Speaker:And if you'd let me just go on for one more minute, my, I'll tell you a story.
Speaker:My mother, um, went into an old people's home and my brother took her to buy a new bed.
Speaker:And so she kept lying on these beds and stretching her hand out to the right.
Speaker:And, and my brother said, what are you doing?
Speaker:She said, I'm trying to gauge the height for my brandy glass.
Speaker:And the last thing she did at night.
Speaker:Was to, to have a, a tot of brandy and she died aged 102.
Speaker:You know, so, if she'd been a firefighter or if she'd been a, a hides, high wire trapeze artist, then chances are she probably wouldn't have made 102.
Speaker:But she did.
Speaker:And Brandy obviously didn't that do that much harm, did it?
Speaker:So, where does that leave us in the context of dry January and this movement toward zero alcohol?
Speaker:I, myself, my own opinion is we should moderate through the 12 months rather than binge.
Speaker:I don't want to say binge, but to completely shut completely off and then completely on at some point.
Speaker:I, I don't know what your opinion is of, of this.
Speaker:My opinion is informed by another story that was reported some, some years ago about the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.
Speaker:And the point, the point was made that it's, that's constant moderate consumption.
Speaker:So it's not sort of abstaining from, you know, Sunday to Friday and binge drinking the rest on a Saturday night.
Speaker:You know, that's, that is binge drinking and that's not healthy.
Speaker:So, you know, even, even if it's even if you're consuming moderately throughout the year, there's, there's going to be no advantage unless you're trying to count calories.
Speaker:From abstaining on, on, uh, throughout January, uh, for example, because if, if the benefits are due to a, a constant moderate
Speaker:consumption pattern for alcohol, then why, why jeopardize that by avoiding the alcohol throughout the month of January?
Speaker:So yeah, I agree.
Speaker:We're not, we're not talking about heavy consumption 11 months a year and then none at all on a daily basis.
Speaker:In January or whatever month you prefer to choose.
Speaker:But, uh, I, I, I, I think that it probably stems from the fact that, you know, people sort of eat richly and dying well over the Christmas holiday period.
Speaker:And then, uh, it's part of a sort of, uh, overall detox.
Speaker:They behave moderately, um, in January.
Speaker:And of course you know, alcohol gets picked on, particularly beer, because people say, oh, you know, all that beer gives you a beer belly.
Speaker:Well, it's, it's alcohol.
Speaker:And it doesn't matter whether it's beer or wine or spirits or whatever it is, that's, that's the main source of calories.
Speaker:If it's simply a case of, of watching your calorie intake, then personally, I would choose the benefits of moderate consumption of alcohol and I'd cut down some other source of calories from my diet in January.
Speaker:I might even have a bacon free January, but, uh, But I won't,
Speaker:Do you feel that the brewing industry has created their own problem when it comes to, let's say zero alcohol January, or when it comes to looking back in time seltzers and so on and so on, you, you, you, you've been involved in product development at many times over.
Speaker:You understand how the marketing and so forth goes.
Speaker:Yeah, I, I, yeah.
Speaker:I've got to be careful because, you know, all brewing companies are striving to continue to be successful.
Speaker:And, and, if somebody is being very, very successful with a certain type of product, then it's very hard not to also go into that space.
Speaker:So it's a very difficult area.
Speaker:Speaking strictly personally, strictly personally, I believe I believe brewers should brew beer.
Speaker:And when I think beer, I'm thinking malt, hops, yeast, and water.
Speaker:Now, you know, long standing adjuncts, you know, I have no difficulty with the rice, corn, candy sugar, invert sugar.
Speaker:I have no difficulty with those things.
Speaker:But I do have difficulty with bizarre ingredients.
Speaker:And I do have difficulty with trying to, to, if you're not careful, squeeze out the tried and trusted beers with alcoholic liquids that have got a different Provenance.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, you know, if it's, if it's the alternatives and the flavored alcoholic beverages, you know, they can only eat into the beer volume.
Speaker:I, I, I'm protective of the beer volume.
Speaker:I, I, I think people should be drinking beer.
Speaker:I, I, I'm not a huge fan of, of, of beer.
Speaker:of drinking adulterated beers with bizarre bits of animals.
Speaker:Or, uh, I'm not so keen on, you know, let's, let's name name, you know, alcoholic teas and those sorts of things.
Speaker:Because, you know, there's only so much liquid that people can consume in moderation.
Speaker:Um, how many times am I going to use that term?
Speaker:And if they're drinking a, an alcoholic seltzer, they're not drinking a beer.
Speaker:And I, I, I truly believe that the beer has stood the test of time.
Speaker:It's nutritious.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:And if you can't, if you can't make an outstanding product range from You know, malt hops, yeast and water, then God help you, you know, I mean, the wine guys seem to celebrate doing so much with just one basic ingredient.
Speaker:They only worry about grapes.
Speaker:They don't even worry about the damn yeast, you know, um, and they have put themselves and other people have put them on a pedestal for that.
Speaker:I think the world of, of the beer industry, I think they really do need to be celebrating what we have, you know, I'm delighted, for example, you know, the, the, the craft industry in the States has finally discovered something called lager, you know, I mean, that's just wonderful, you know, I mean, go with it, you know, there's plenty, plenty there to run with, you know, so yeah, beer, beer as, as, uh, A lot of people are suspicious, you know, they don't understand it.
Speaker:And I think the brewing industry has got a lot to do to celebrate this wonderful product.
Speaker:Charlie, thank you so much for those words.
Speaker:That is like my philosophy to a tee.
Speaker:Our motto at McFleshman's is respecting the beer and beer flavored beer.
Speaker:And the, the gentleman sitting right here who does all of this, he, he does great beer.
Speaker:And I also want to add one thing about this dry January business.
Speaker:Your current boss makes it impossible for me to do dry January.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Because celebration ale comes out.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And that is, I, I have stated this and I know you're not that far away from me on this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That is the best commercially available beer in the United States.
Speaker:across the United States.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A hundred percent.
Speaker:That is,
Speaker:when that thing comes out in late October ish, early November, like I'm lurching around to different stores just to find it.
Speaker:It is glorious.
Speaker:It is remarkable.
Speaker:Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker:I mean, but it's, it's one of the number of glorious products that, um, but, but yeah, you know, and, and my dear friend Terence Sullivan will be delighted to hear those, those words.
Speaker:And I'm sure Ken would too.
Speaker:Um, it's an amazing product, you know, and it, it, it celebrates as the name would indicate.
Speaker:you know, all that's good about beer.
Speaker:And of course, um, you know, with the wonderful fresh hops and, and so on, it's just, it is of course a delight.
Speaker:And, and I've got one just down, down, down the corridor here in my refrigerator and I'll be
Speaker:I was about to say, Charlie, I don't know if you need to grab one or if we're holding you from doing
Speaker:Feel like that's a good time to take a quick break and come back and continue or
Speaker:let's take, take a few minutes off and, and regroup for a second.
Speaker:And that is going to wrap up this episode of respecting the beer.
Speaker:Make sure to subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast players so you never miss an episode and join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and support the show over on Patreon.
Speaker:Links to both of these are in the show notes and until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
