EPISODE S.4, E.25

Toby (00:09):
Happy Halloween from the Brew Deck Podcast. A couple of years ago, we did one of our favorite fall episodes. It was a season two episode 20 called Tales from the Brew Deck. We highly recommend you go listen or re-listen to these scary and strange short stories to get you in that holiday spirit.

(00:24)
Today, we’ve got another fun, festive one for you. First, our resident cicerone Heather will be sharing a Halloween candy and beer pairing menu just in time for candy to go on sale everywhere tomorrow too. Plus this may give you an excuse to do something adult oriented with the leftover pillowcase full of candy that the kids bring home.

(00:43)
Then we’re joined by Jeff Bunton. He’s the owner head brewer of Concession Road Brewing in Jarvis, Ontario to hear about their Channel Your Flannel pumpkin porter, whether you’re a pro pumpkin beers against them or simply impartial and just like drinking any beer, you’re not going to want to miss spending time with us as we grill Jeff on the subject at hand. So put on your trunks with me and let’s just dive right in.

Cheyenne (01:09):
Before we jump into today’s episode, we want to take a quick moment to highlight this year’s Pink Boot Society hot blend. We are joined today by Cat Wiest of Yakima Chief Hops. Cat, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your role at YCH?

Cat (01:23):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I am the copy-writing manager for Yakima Chief Hops, so I am responsible for assembling all of our public facing content blogs, things like that. I’ve been involved with the Pink Boot Society since I started out as a brewer in 2012 and have had many volunteer and leadership positions within the organization. Have received two scholarships and have recently been elected as the co-lead for the Portland chapter. So Pink Boots is very close to me and I’m really happy to be working at YCH who also values the Pink Boot Society and its mission.

Cheyenne (02:00):
Very cool. Congrats on the lead role over at Pink Boots. That’s awesome.

Cat (02:04):
Thank you.

Cheyenne (02:05):
Yeah. So could you tell our listeners a little bit about how this year’s blend was chosen and what varieties are included?

Cat (02:13):
Yes. First and foremost, everybody wants to know what’s in it so we can get the fun stuff out of the way. The seventh annual blend will be comprised of HBC 638, Idaho 7, Ahtanum and El Dorado. So we’re expecting tropical citrus, juicy orange, rip berry, a little bit of herbal in the backing, and we’re expecting about 12.5% alpha acids. Of course, that’s 2023 crop year dependent.

(02:42)
And the blend this year was selected in two phases. The blend is very much by the members. So first thing we do is we send out selection kits to chapters all over the world. Anyone who signs up gets a kit mailed to them and they can do an in-person sensory experience. They get a ballot, they get a lexicon, they rub some hops, and knowing that the hops that they’re ranking will be going forward into the final blend selection.

(03:09)
So it’s not just about playing favorites, it’s about who is a good player in a potential blend. So of the 14 hops that were sent to chapters all over the world, they were ranked and the top 10 went on to phase two, which is the in-person blend selection event that takes place in Denver during the Great American Beer Festival. It’s an in-person hands-on meeting, and I think it’s a really exciting event. It gives a lot of members opportunities to rub hops, evaluate hops, have a sensory experience that if you don’t go to selection, it’s a hands-on raw materials experience that a lot of brewers just don’t have an opportunity to do.

Cheyenne (03:50):
That’s very cool. I love how member-driven the selection processes.

Cat (03:53):
Yes. It really is. When I say it’s by the members, for the members, it could not be more true.

Cheyenne (04:01):
Yes.

Cat (04:01):
So everybody evaluates the hops that are on the table and then puts blends together that are then voted on. We say, “Okay, bring in the top blends.” Everybody evaluates those. And this year it actually came down to a tie.

Cheyenne (04:16):
Oh, wow.

Cat (04:17):
We had Teri Fahrendorf Pink Boots founder, former Brewmaster, GABF judge, she was on site and decided to cast the tie breaking vote. We gave her a few quiet minutes of thoughtful evaluation away from the crowd, and she selected the one that we’re going with HBC 638, Idaho 7, Ahtanum and El Dorado.

Cheyenne (04:40):
What a cool story. I love that Teri got to cast the tie-breaking vote. That is very cool.

Cat (04:45):
Yeah, and her intention was to make sure that it wasn’t necessarily just something that would be in a hop driven beer like an IPA, but something that is really universal and can create a lot of different applications. So big sensory notes or big berries, citrus, stone fruit, herbal, that’s something that can, it could work in a cider, it could work in a saison. The spirit of this is collaboration, and with Pink Boots membership being open to all women and binary people in all aspects of fermentation, it’s very inclusive and in that range of inclusivity, there are just so many opportunities to try different things and be creative in new ways.

Cheyenne (05:26):
Well, that is fantastic. The YCH Pink Boots Hot Blend is on presale now through December 15th. Go ahead and contact your CMG sales rep if you’d like to learn more.

Adam (05:37):
All right, the best part about Halloween beer and candy, let’s talk about it. So we have a very, very special guest on here.

Heather (05:47):
Flattery gets you everywhere.

Adam (05:49):
Certified cicerone. She knows a thing or two about podcasting. She likes candy.

Heather (05:57):
She does like candy.

Adam (06:01):
That’s a terrible intro for you, Heather. But our very own Heather Jarrett has put together a list of candy and beer pairings just in time for Halloween.

Heather (06:11):
Yeah. Well, we wanted to do something fun because, well, this is my favorite holiday.

Cheyenne (06:17):
I think it’s all of our favorite holidays.

Heather (06:18):
All of our favorite holidays. We were talking about this before we got rolling, but Adam, can you talk about your favorite Halloween costume because I think it was amazing.

Adam (06:29):
One year, I was still bartending at the time, so before I got into this side of the industry, I went as a piece of chewed up bubblegum under a stool. So I went to Ikea, bought one of those little kids plastic stools and put it on my head. And I’m bald for those in podcast land. I painted my head pink, my face pink, my arms, I was covered in pink. It took days to get it out of me. But I lost the contest that night to some dude that was wearing a monks, they don’t have habits, but whatever monks wear.

Heather (07:09):
Yeah.

Adam (07:09):
And he had a couple bags of potato chips safety pinned to it, and he went as a chipmunk.

Heather (07:16):
Oh.

Adam (07:16):
Older dad me is like, “Yeah, that’s an awesome one.” But at the time I was just like, “No, there was no effort put into that.” So clearly I’m still 15 years later, I’m still angry.

Cheyenne (07:26):
The fun one out on that one.

Heather (07:27):
It’s pretty clever. Cheyenne, what was your favorite Halloween costume?

Cheyenne (07:32):
One of my favorites actually was from my childhood and I got to dress up as Pippi Long Stockings. My mom made the costume for me and Pippi has red hair, which I do not. And so my mom got the brilliant idea that she would dye my hair using Kool-Aid.

Heather (07:47):
Oh my goodness.

Cheyenne (07:48):
It went about as well as it sounds, which is terribly.

Heather (07:52):
No, I’m sorry. If you live through the nineties, I know Cheyenne’s a bit younger than Adam and I are, everybody dyed their hair with Kool-Aid.

Cheyenne (08:00):
Yes, it worked out terribly. I had sticky candy Kool-Aid hair for Halloween, but it was very fun and I loved it.

Heather (08:06):
Oh, I love it. Yeah.

Adam (08:08):
What about you, Heather?

Heather (08:10):
I think in my adult life I handmade myself a peacock costume one year, which I think was my absolute favorite. But as a child, yeah, my mom used to make my costumes for me all the time as well, and she made me a Rainbow Brite costume and it was so top-notch. For the eighties babies out there.

Adam (08:33):
Well, I was going to say I’m in my late forties, so I distinctly remember in my childhood, I was one of those kids that had the plastic masks on that you couldn’t see out of, and the eye slits were so tiny and yeah, it’s no surprise you would just walk out and almost get run over every time you’re trying to cross the street trick or treating.

Heather (08:53):
And because we’re all from the north, I would say, a little bit north up here, did everybody get their Halloween costumes over top of their snowsuits?

Cheyenne (09:02):
Oh yes.

Heather (09:02):
Okay.

Cheyenne (09:03):
Oh, yes. It really ruined the costume. I was always so upset every year.

Heather (09:09):
Yeah, it never worked out well.

Cheyenne (09:10):
No.

Adam (09:15):
If you go as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, get yourself all warm underneath.

Heather (09:20):
It’s true.

Adam (09:22):
Moving on.

Heather (09:23):
Moving on.

Adam (09:25):
Okay, so we’ve got four beer and candy parings, correct?

Heather (09:29):
Yeah. So I wanted to obviously pick from the four food groups of candies as well as some of my favorite beers to give everybody a good variety of things to choose from. Also, through all of this, because I did meet with Cheyenne to go over them to see her thoughts and feelings on them before we recorded. And we did discover there’s a lot of discrepancies between Canadian and American Candy.

Adam (09:58):
We’re going to put that later.

Heather (10:03):
Okay.

Adam (10:03):
We’re going to go down a rabbit hole on there and then we’re going to forget about beer altogether.

Heather (10:08):
It’s also very true. But I did, for once, because pretty much almost all of them, I chose candies that apparently are only available, either only available in Canada or there’s better versions in the US. You’ll find it with our first one, because I don’t know what Red Vines tastes like, but our very first pairing is a nice, clean, crisp pilsner with I said Twizzlers, Cheyenne said Red Vines, because apparently…

Cheyenne (10:33):
Red Vines.

Heather (10:33):
Twizzlers aren’t yummy. But I’ve never tried Red Vines and I actually really like Twizzlers. So I will put…

Cheyenne (10:40):
It’s a big argument here in the States, the Twizzlers versus Red Vines argument. And after you and I talked and realized that they’re very different in the States versus Canada, I was doing some Googling. I always just thought Red Vines were red licorice. I never really gave it any thought at what flavor it is because of course licorice is licorice. Apparently Red Vines are supposed to be raspberry licorice flavored, which I did not know. And then Twizzlers are supposed to be strawberry flavors.

Heather (11:07):
Yes.

Cheyenne (11:07):
So that’s the difference.

Heather (11:09):
So I’ve never tried Red Vines, but I’m certain that this would work really, really well with Red Vines as well. I did this with, I was really lucky to get some pFriem pilsner. Well I was down in the US a couple weeks ago.

Cheyenne (11:21):
One of the best pilsners.

Heather (11:21):
Yeah, one of my absolute favorite beers, and every time I go down to Washington, I grab some. So that’s what I chose for this pairing. What’s really great about it is that neither of the flavors are overpowering. While Twizzlers, or Red Vines I’m assuming, are sweet. They’re not super, super sweet. They match well with the multi-sweetness that does come out of the pilsner. Pilsners are light and crisp. And while again, the candy definitely has a lot of flavor, it’s not overpowering the nice light flavor in the pilsner as well. So I found it to be a really good pairing.

Cheyenne (11:56):
And so you went out when you were doing all this work, you went out and you bought all of these candies and you bought all of these beers and you actually did the taste test, correct?

Heather (12:04):
All right. Look, sometimes you just have a real boring Friday night. Yes, I did. I always do. And I know that we had talked about it and everybody was surprised that I did it. I always do it. I’m never going to do a beer and food pairing recommendation without actually tasting everything first. I just think that’s A, the fun part of it.

Cheyenne (12:25):
100%.

Heather (12:25):
Because who doesn’t want to sit around and drink beer and eat candy? But yeah, you always want to make sure. Because sometimes things come to my mind and you try it and it’s actually quite disgusting. So I never want to recommend things that aren’t going to be tasty for our listeners. So yes I did.

Cheyenne (12:46):
I love the dedication. It’s truly dedication here.

Heather (12:49):
Yeah, I’m really serious.

Adam (12:50):
I’d like to actually be a fly on the wall when the finance team looks at your expenses.

Heather (12:56):
I don’t know if my boss is going to approve those expenses, but we’ll see. It’s an awful lot of candy on here, Heather.

Cheyenne (13:03):
I love pairing. This is actually, of the four that you chose, this is my favorite. I’m very excited to try this pairing.

Heather (13:10):
And Adam, you had pulled up some other pilsner recommendations that might be good if you can’t get your hands on the beautiful pFriem Pilsner that I love so much. What were some of the other ones that you found?

Adam (13:24):
Yes, I did. Actually, I got some from the Great American Beer Fest category winners for pilsner. So there’s three categories for pilsner, American, Bohemian-Style and German-Style. The American Pilsner was Wibby Brewing out of Longmont, Colorado and their Wibby Jibby.

Heather (13:46):
Oh, that’s fun.

Adam (13:47):
I’m really glad that I got to say that today because it’s the best. And then two from Lazarus Brewing out of Austin. They won in the Bohemian-Style and the German-Style, so that was really cool.

Cheyenne (14:00):
Oh, wow at look at…

Adam (14:01):
Yeah, the Crazy Horse was their Bohemian style, and Prodigal Pils was their German-Style. So if you want some great award-winning pilsners to go with your Twizzlers.

Cheyenne (14:16):
Or Red Vines

Heather (14:17):
Or Red Vines

Adam (14:20):
Or nibs, I’ll throw that in there too.

Heather (14:21):
No pick Nibs out of there. Nibs, I think it would be too sweet. I feel like Nibs would be too sweet. It’s my professional opinion.

Adam (14:33):
There you go. There’s a couple of options right there. All right, what’s the next one?

Heather (14:35):
So I said for Sour Gummies and then nice hazy IPA. Now for Sour Gummies, this one I did know that is not available in the US because I think everybody in our company asks me to bring these when I’m going to be coming to see them.

Cheyenne (14:52):
We do.

Heather (14:54):
Everybody. I believe it was Shelby who hit up four people that were coming down from Canada to the US and she got so many bags of these. So they’re called Fuzzy Peaches. If you haven’t tried them, they’re absolutely amazing. They are a sour peach gummy candy. So I chose Fuzzy Peaches. As well, Sour Patch kids would work as well too. And I will say that for the Sour Patch Kids, I found the red and the blue, not just because they’re my favorite flavors, but the red and the blue worked the best. Reasons for this pairing, I think that tropical and stone fruit flavors that are going to come out of a really well-made hazy IPA match really well with the Fuzzy Peaches. But there’s so much big flavor in both of these candies. You’ve got sweet, you’ve got sour, you’ve got bitter, you’ve got fruit, and so they don’t, again overpower each other. You need something for both of these to go with any of the sour candies as well as with a good hazy IPA. You need a lot of flavor from both of them.

Cheyenne (15:51):
What was the IPA that you chose on this one?

Heather (15:55):
So I chose Steam Works flagship IPA. Steamworks is located here in Vancouver. Yeah, their flagship IPA has been one of my favorite hazy IPAs since I think I first got to try it. So 10 out of 10 recommend if you can’t get your hands on that one, obviously there’s a lot of great hazies out there. Cheyenne, do you have some down in your area that you would recommend?

Cheyenne (16:19):
Oh gosh, yeah. We have a ton of hazies here. From brewing hazies, hazies I feel like they get a lot of hate sometimes because they were the really trendy style for a long time. They’re actually really difficult to brew. So I have a lot of respect for a good hazy just from the technical side of it. And then Adam, you also found some more from GABF to list off, didn’t you?

Adam (16:45):
I did the gold winner in the hazy IPA category was a 1852 Brew Company out of Visalia, California, and that one was called Away Days.

Heather (16:56):
Nice.

Adam (16:57):
Yeah. This all, I keep looking at this. So here’s the thing, I am a type two diabetic and so I shouldn’t be taking any of this. However, I don’t care. So I do it anyway.

Heather (17:16):
Yeah, I will say if anybody, I’ll throw it out there. If any of our American listeners really want to try some Fuzzy Peaches and want to try and do this pairing, send us an email. I will mail you some Fuzzy Peaches.

Adam (17:28):
Oh, wow.

Cheyenne (17:30):
Now that is dedication. I thought you doing all of these taste tests before logging on was dedication, but you being willing to share the Fuzzy Peaches with the Americans, that’s truly dedication.

Heather (17:39):
I’ll share them with the American people.

Cheyenne (17:40):
All right, your next one, Heather. We discussed this in our team meeting before hopping on, this one’s a little controversial.

Heather (17:50):
Well, A, I got slack for the choice of the candy.

Cheyenne (17:54):
Yes you did.

Heather (17:56):
From Haley. Does not like this choice of candy, which is the Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme bar, which I’ve always loved because I really love white chocolate. I think this is just delicious. It’s cookies and cream. Yeah, it’s the Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme bar with a dunkelweizen. And I know Cheyenne and I discussed, well maybe it would be good with a hefeweizen as well because dunkelweizen aren’t as widely made as a hefeweizen. And I tried it with both and it does work with a hefeweizen, but I 100% recommend doing it with a dunkelweizen. I got an Erdinger, It’s a classic. You should be able to find it pretty much anywhere. And it literally tastes like banana cream pie. I am not making it up.

Cheyenne (18:41):
It is a very controversial pairing, but I’m excited to try this one. I think it’ll be interesting.

Heather (18:46):
Yeah, 10 out of 10 recommend. This one’s cross border. Everybody can get the Hershey’s Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme bar. So yeah, just the phenols that you’re getting, hefeweizens, dunkelweizens are notorious to have those banana notes to them, adding in that creamy white chocolate and it was just, yeah, it was perfect. And then a little bit of rustiness coming from that, some darker malt that they’re using in that beer. Yeah, banana cream pie. Try it.

Cheyenne (19:17):
Interesting choice, but I’ll give it to you. I like it.

Heather (19:21):
And I don’t really have any, I see dunkelweizens come and go as seasonals, so I just obviously recommend the Erdinger. It’s classic. It’s perfect. It’s everything you want in that beer style, and I think everybody should be able to find it at their local liquor store.

(19:39)
All right, and last but not least, of course, we have to go to a dark beer. And because this is our Halloween episode and it’s very seasonal, I chose a pumpkin porter with a Mars bar, which again, I will say I read that maybe Mars bars aren’t available in the US but they said Milky Ways are the exact same thing.

Adam (20:01):
They’re not. They’re not.

Heather (20:02):
Okay, we’re not arguing about the candy until we finish the recording.

Cheyenne (20:10):
I will say, I don’t think I’ve ever had a Mars bar. I’ve heard of them, but we have them Milky Ways here in the States.

Heather (20:16):
Well, it’s basically a chocolate bar, it’s with nougat and caramel covered in chocolate. I think they’re pretty much the exact same thing. Again, we’ll maybe taste test this next time I come down there. I picked the Parallel 49, also located here in Vancouver. Shout out Graham. They’re Lost Souls pumpkin porter. Obvious notes with this, lots of dark rich flavor in both of them. The sweet caramel contrasts really nicely with the bitter roasted malts. And then you get that little bit of sweetness and all the spicy flavors coming out of the pumpkin porter that just made them go so well together. It’s like dessert.

Cheyenne (20:55):
It sounds really good. I would go for this one.

Heather (20:56):
It was really easy. And Adam, you had a pumpkin porter recommendation as well.

Adam (21:01):
I do. I’m actually going to be having one tonight at Concession Road brewing here in Ontario, just up the road from where I live. Shout out to Jeff and Shannon. They make a delicious pumpkin porter. And it also happens to be in the same building where my daughter does her piano lessons.

Heather (21:18):
How convenient.

Adam (21:20):
I researched this before I sent her for piano lessons.

Heather (21:25):
Is there a brewery close by?

Adam (21:28):
Or attached?

Heather (21:29):
Or attached to it? Yeah. So those are my recommendations. I would love to hear anybody’s thoughts and feelings on them. Again, like I said, I’ll send some Fuzzy Peaches anybody’s way if they’re interested in trying the hazy IPA with the Fuzzy Peaches. Yeah, thoughts and feelings?

Cheyenne (21:46):
This is going to be a great little fun thing to do on Halloween night when we’re waiting for all the trick or treaters to come. You can crack open a couple of beers, get your candy. Don’t eat all the candy before the trick or treaters get there.

Heather (21:58):
I don’t follow your rules.

Adam (22:04):
Rule are dumb. I’m going to take mine as a traveler with me as I walk my children around.

Cheyenne (22:12):
Oh, there you go.

Adam (22:12):
The dunkelweizen, and every time my child gets a candy that I think pairs up with it, I will take it from her.

Heather (22:15):
I do want some beer and candy pairings from the trick-or-treating road. So please report back on those.

Adam (22:24):
Excellent. Okay, so here we go.

Heather (22:30):
Oh, I think we’re going to have to have our most controversial discussion that’s not Red Vines versus Twizzlers. Probably the most controversial discussion we’re ever going to have on this podcast. Small bags of potato chips, particularly ketchup.

Cheyenne (22:44):
Not something we give out.

Heather (22:44):
Yeah.

Cheyenne (22:47):
Not in the States. We don’t give out chips. It’s only candy, unless you’re really, really uncool and you give out floss or pennies or apple slices.

Heather (22:56):
We’ve already talked about those people.

Cheyenne (22:59):
Don’t be those people. But no, we don’t give out chips. And that’s something you guys do up in Canada. You give out bags of chips as well as candy,

Adam (23:08):
They’re little bags of chips. And in fact, there’s Halloween boxes of them. They come in, I don’t know how many bags are in there, 20 or 30 bags in this box. And you just hand out, they’re little personal size ones. Smaller than your personal size in the store.

Cheyenne (23:22):
And it’s not just that you give out chips, but there’s a certain flavor that we also don’t have in the states, which I find really weird, but you guys say is very good.

Adam (23:31):
There’s a couple of them.

Heather (23:32):
All dressed is definitely one of them. But ketchup, yeah, ketchup chips I think are something that Canada is almost notorious for.

Cheyenne (23:40):
I have never tried ketchup chips. But you know what? You dip french fries in ketchup. So I can see the connection. Potato chips and ketchup.

Adam (23:48):
It’s a seasoning. You’re not putting, you can put ketchup on, but it’s fantastic.

Heather (23:55):
They’ve been my favorite chip since I was a kid.

Adam (23:57):
You have to stop arguing with us on this one, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (24:01):
I’ll take your word for it.

Heather (24:03):
I’ve been sending, ever since we first had this discussion, I’ve been sending Cheyenne pictures of boxes, Halloween themed boxes of potato chips everywhere I go because they’re everywhere right now.

Adam (24:16):
There’s this Irish dude on Instagram, he tries different foods from different countries and he did ketchup chips and it was pretty hilarious.

Cheyenne (24:32):
Did he like them?

Adam (24:32):
He loved them because they’re fantastic.

Heather (24:32):
They’re so good. Cheyenne, I will bring them. I am going to have to check a bag for CBC next year. And all it’s going to be is…

Adam (24:40):
Another really good reason to come to our booth next year is just to eat Canadian candy.

Heather (24:43):
There might be ketchup chips. Ketchup chips and other Canadian stuff there. Yeah, I just thought it was really entertaining. Not entertaining, just really interesting, the differences that we had in candy. Which I always knew that we had a lot more of the Cadbury candies that come from the UK we get in Canada a lot more than they get in the US but I just had no idea.

Cheyenne (25:05):
I honestly had no idea there was so many differences either. The Twizzler and the Redvine thing though, I can’t get over it.

Heather (25:11):
Okay, well that will have to taste test when we’re in the US as well. Next time I’m down there.

Adam (25:16):
Also, Smarties. The difference…

Heather (25:18):
Oh, Smarties versus Rockets. Yes.

Adam (25:21):
So in the states you guys call the powdery candy little…

Cheyenne (25:27):
Chalky, like Tums style candies. Yes, those are Smarties.

Adam (25:32):
Call those Smarties. Up here, we call them Rockets, but we have Smarties that are this milk chocolate, little disc of milk chocolate with this candy coating on top.

Cheyenne (25:44):
So it’s like smashed M&M.

Heather (25:47):
It’s better than an M&M though.

Adam (25:51):
God.

Cheyenne (25:51):
I think the whole lesson here is that we just have to go up to Canada to try all of the Canadian candies and chips.

Heather (25:57):
And beer.

Cheyenne (25:57):
And beer.

Heather (26:00):
Well, this is always one of my favorites. We did this last year for our holiday Thanksgiving episode talking about beer and food. And definitely A, goes off the rails. B, it’s always one of my favorite things to talk about.

Cheyenne (26:15):
Well, I think we all have our assignments for Halloween now. We’ve got some good pairings to go try out

Adam (26:21):
And here we are. It’s the Spooktacular Pumpkin Palooza.

Toby (26:27):
Say that again real fast, Adam.

Adam (26:29):
I don’t want to.

Toby (26:30):
It’s a lot we mashed into that title.

Adam (26:33):
There is a lot. I’m Adam Adam here with Toby, and our guest today is Mr. Jeff Bunton from Concession Road Brewing in Jarvis, Ontario. And I think that if I take a look at a map, Concession Road is the closest brewery to my house. So Jeff and I have become pretty good buddies since my time, not only here at Country Malt, but before as I love his beers. So welcome, Jeff. Thanks very much for taking some time to join us today and talk all things pumpkin beer.

Jeff (27:12):
No problem. Thanks for having me, guys.

Toby (27:15):
If I were to put a map up, Adam in Ontario, I could pick anywhere in Ontario and I think I’d be right. First of all, I’m further south away from y’all, but gosh, tell me where that is.

Adam (27:34):
Okay…

Toby (27:34):
You said close to your house. I don’t even know where you live.

Adam (27:36):
It’s a good point. So I’m in Port Dover, Ontario.

Toby (27:42):
Okay, got it.

Adam (27:45):
We are a small little town and there’s two counties here that are pretty much connected to each other, Norfolk and Haldimand. Haldimand is where Jarvis is, and Norfolk is where Port Dover is. And they’re about 20 minutes down the road from each other. It’s about two hours southwest of Toronto.

Toby (28:06):
There you go. I got it now.

Jeff (28:08):
Almost Friday the 13th.

Toby (28:10):
What? Really?

Adam (28:13):
So yes, this actually ties into the Halloween thing.

Toby (28:16):
Look at that. Before we move on, Adam, just give the listeners your home address and your social security please.

Jeff (28:23):
And your CVV numbers on the back of your credit card.

Adam (28:28):
Come on by for drink, everybody.

Toby (28:30):
Yes. So Friday the 13th. Is it Haldimand County, Friday the 13th, or did you say Jarvis?

Adam (28:39):
So it’s referred to as PD 13, Port Dover 13. So Jeff, you want to explain what it is?

Jeff (28:47):
Yeah, so every time there’s a 13th of the month that falls on a Friday, there’s a huge bike rally and it’s the only one I know of in North America. And everybody rides up to Port Dover, blocks off all the streets and the craziness ensues. So I believe, don’t quote me on this, but the story starts with a gentleman who used to road trip up here from Florida or somewhere deep south. And that’s how it all started probably I think maybe like 30, 40 years ago. I don’t know how many there’s been now, but it’s a pretty big deal. It’s what Port Dover’s known for.

Adam (29:32):
Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. We’re a small little town of, I don’t know, seven or 8,000 people. We’re a little beach town. And we just had one Friday, October 13th and there was about 50,000 people in town.

Toby (29:47):
Wow.

Adam (29:49):
It’s always a good time. They come in on Thursday, and our house actually backs it on the main street, so you just hear the bikes rumbling into town. It’s constant for a day and a half. So it’s pretty cool. It’s pretty…

Toby (30:01):
Sounds like a good time.

Adam (30:03):
It is always a good time. So all right, let’s get back. We’re going to get out of that rabbit hole and we’re going to move into a different rabbit hole. So Jeff.

Jeff (30:11):
Yes.

Adam (30:11):
Explain how you got into brewing. Explain what Concession Road Brewing is all about.

Jeff (30:18):
Sure. Yeah, in a nutshell, Kohl’s notes, I got into brewing as a home brewer, but I was a chemical production worker for close to a decade. And so I was brewing chemicals in tanks anywhere from a thousand to 80,000 on a daily basis. Long story short, worked for a large multinational corporation who sucked the absolute life out of me and decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. And then went down the rabbit hole of home brewing with the full intention of opening a brewery. So I went out one day to a local brew shop, which unfortunately since has closed, called The Brew Monger and bought myself a Rubbermaid mash ton and a Turkey deep fryer, because at that time all in one kits didn’t exist and just started brewing and formulating recipes.

(31:18)
And I would hide beer in the lockers of guys I worked with for feedback. And if they liked the beer, they would shoot me a little cash for materials and if they didn’t like the beer, they would tell me everything they didn’t like about it. And then over the course of the next couple of years, built out a business plan, convinced a bunch of dumb bankers to give me some money. And that was how it started in 2018. We built out, we got into our space in 2017. Took about seven months to build it out.

(31:53)
And we’re not a very large brewery. We have about a 2,500 square foot facility with our taproom and production area in an old fire hall. And we have a five hectoliter, three vessel brew house. And we’re up to now, we just since expanded 4, 5, 6, 10 HEC fermentation vessels to 10 HEC bright tanks. And yeah, we’ve just been going at it pretty hard ever since. And nice to be back at it in the last year and a half to two years. There was a lull there, but no, it’s going strong. It’s a lot of fun, great community. And yeah, just brewing stuff for people and brewing what we love.

Toby (32:38):
And y’all were the first craft brewery in the county, is that right?

Jeff (32:42):
We were, yeah. So there’s since another brewery, and it’s a gentleman named Steven Oranje Sons, and he is a small, I guess it would be pico brewery they call them now. So he’s in his garage actually, and he just does retail, but he makes excellent beer and we’re really great friends. But yeah, so there’s still only two breweries in Haldimand County six years later.

Adam (33:10):
There’s two there. And over in Norfolk, so again, just these two are attached to each other. So probably within, I don’t know, a 50 kilometer radius, what are we up to, Jeff? Seven or eight breweries now?

Jeff (33:23):
I think. Yeah, eight to nine even, because I think there’s seven or eight just in Norfolk alone, and then us two over here in Haldimand.

Adam (33:37):
Yeah, we’ve got a good glut of breweries down our way, which is pretty fantastic. The other good thing about the brewery, Toby, is that within the same building is a music school. So every Wednesday night my daughter does piano lessons, and I have volunteered every Wednesday to take her to piano lessons because I’m such a good father and I don’t go just to go sit down and chat with Jeff and drink his beer.

Toby (34:06):
There you go. I thought, didn’t you used to tickle the ivories a little bit, Adam, yourself?

Adam (34:11):
I play guitar. I play guitar. I’m really bad at…

Toby (34:13):
Nice, I’m way off

Adam (34:19):
I’m not that great at guitar either, but at least I fake it better.

Toby (34:22):
That’s pretty cool. Yeah, that’s a good use of space for sure. We had an episode one time where we talked about breweries that had other things going on within their brewery. This is the first I’ve heard that there’s a music school that’s pretty cool.

Adam (34:36):
It’s pretty awesome. Yeah, they do some cool things. So let’s get to the reason of the episode. We are talking pumpkin beers here today.

Toby (34:46):
Punkin beers, as my son calls them.

Adam (34:52):
Punkin. Jeff, tell us about yours.

Jeff (34:54):
Yeah. So a little backstory on it. I said I would never brew a pumpkin beer, I hadn’t had any I liked. And one day a gentleman by the name of Darren Local home Brewer brought in his pumpkin porter and convinced me to try it despite my best efforts not to. And it was fantastic. So oftentimes, unfortunately when people bring you home brew, they’ll make you drink it in front of them, which is really difficult sometimes.

Toby (35:26):
I’m guilty of that.

Jeff (35:28):
And it was great. It was honestly, I said, “Dude, this beer is fantastic. How would you feel if we were to scale this up and invite you in on the brew day?” And we called it Channel Your Flannel Pumpkin Porter. And scaled it up, and this is, I believe the fourth year we brewed it. And it’s a fantastic beer. And to be honest, I still hate most pumpkin beers. I know I’m a little biased towards our own, but I truly do love this beer.

Adam (36:02):
Very cool. Now you got your beer style chosen from there, but I guess what makes a porter different from any other style of beer when it comes to using pumpkin and the spices as ingredients.

Jeff (36:20):
Well, in my personal opinion, I find that a lot of breweries tend to choose a lighter style, whether it be a golden ale or an amber ale to do their pumpkin beer base with. And I just find that it becomes very unbalanced. The spice kit can be very overwhelming. And for me personally, I think the porter is a great beer because it’s got such a robust base with really, really nice body. And then the pumpkin, really the pumpkin itself, the way we do it, we do our own process where we roast the pumpkin and whatnot before we add it into the mash.

(37:04)
And it more adds body. As you know, pumpkin has a lot of starch, so you do get a little bit of conversion with the excess enzymatic activity in the malt, but it’s more adding the body. And then, the gold is really in the spice kit. The spice kit is what really takes your brain into that pumpkin pie, pumpkin season, pumpkin spice realm. And I find that the base of a porter really can stand up against that and create a balanced beer in a style that I find is generally unbalanced.

Toby (37:45):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And just jumping back to what you mentioned about you personally avoiding pumpkin beers in the past, I don’t think that’s uncommon. Most of the breweries, or brewers that I talk to who’s down here in the states when it comes to pumpkin or seasonal beers, they’re like, “Ah, I got to make one of those again?” So you run into the occasional brewer that is similar to you, it’s just not a style that they’ve been into, but there’s some that absolutely love the challenge of getting in and doing something different with pumpkins. It sounds like you’ve nailed that right on the head, so that’s cool. You mentioned four years ago, has your ingredient list or process for making that beer changed at all? Do you put a twist on it every year, or is it the same?

Jeff (38:39):
Oh no, for sure it’s changed. So our first year we went out and we bought 20 pie pumpkins. I processed them all and roasted them all in our oven, on my barbecue, literally anywhere I could get a tray of pumpkin in to roast it and get that maillard reaction and start extracting those different flavors through that caramelization process. And it was so labor-intensive that our second year we switched over to a locally sourced canned pumpkin puree, a commercial provider. It is from London, Ontario, so it is local Canadian pumpkin. But the amount of work that was happening to process those pumpkins was just not realistic. And so then we switched to the puree. Still roasting it, so we still roast it all and we add in some maple syrup and some vanilla and some other things while we roast it to get some cool caramelization and flavors happening there. And then we go from there and build it out.

Adam (40:00):
So you’ve been roasting the purees, and you’ve got the maple syrup. And I have to say this, I personally am in that same boat as you, Jeff. I don’t enjoy most pumpkin beers, I just don’t. It’s not my thing. However, I sat there last night and had myself a couple sleeves of that pumpkin porter and it is so well-balanced. Because my problem with most pumpkin beers is I don’t like cloves. And I find that cloves with lighter pumpkin beers tend to take over that ingredient bill on it. And that does not come out in your beer at all. Are you actually using any cloves in there? What other spices are kicking around in there without divulging everything?

Jeff (40:57):
It’s not a proprietary secret by any means. So the reason you don’t taste a lot of cloves is because I don’t use a lot of cloves. I’m very clove averse myself. It’s a reason why I struggle with a lot of Belgian beer, unfortunately. So I keep the addition of cloves into the spice kit, very, very low. And then we’ve got obviously cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and then there is vanilla. And then in the roasting of the pumpkin, we’ll use some vanilla, maple syrup, brown sugar just to get that. We roast the pumpkin in trays until you get that crispiness on it on the outer layers. So then you’re getting a bit of that caramelization, a little bit of that smokiness if you will.

(41:52)
So we’ve honed that in year over year and every year because it’s easy to go too far with the spice kit, so every year we’ve, until this year I believe we’ve undershot, and so every year I’ve increased that spice kit by about 15% until this year. And being the fourth year, I said “No, I think we really nailed it this year,” where I’m really, really happy with how everything expresses itself. If anything, I’d like more pumpkin, but to physically get more pumpkin into that beer is not going to work. I’m loading it up with rice halls and still barely trickling off on my runoff as it is. So it’s not an incredibly easy beer to brew from a time standpoint, it takes all day. But that’s okay. It’s a once a year beer, and I’m happy to do it for the people that love it, including myself and Adam.

Toby (42:52):
For people I know, and Adam. Sounds like he spends a lot of time out there. So do you brew it beginning of October and it’s on tap all month. When do you typically have it available?

Jeff (43:09):
Yeah, pretty much. So generally it’ll hit the brew schedule, we’re always, in my opinion, slightly a little bit late on it. We run a little bit late on everything. And it seems like year over year the general public wants everything earlier. They were talking pumpkin spice in freaking August this year. Historically in this year we had it released right at the beginning of October, and it will probably make it just to Halloween or just past. Come November, it gets really hard to sell pumpkin spice anything. So the goal is to run out November 1st. We only do a single batch of it, so our net yield is just shy of five hecta liters. So as a smaller brewery, it’s not really hard for us to sell that pretty quickly.

Toby (44:06):
Yeah, wow. How much of that does Adam drink? Half of it?

Jeff (44:12):
Between him and me, we probably take up a HEC for sure.

Adam (44:18):
Support local Toby.

Toby (44:20):
Absolutely. What’s the ABV?

Jeff (44:22):
Hey, I’m not going to…

Toby (44:24):
I’m sorry to interrupt you there. I was just going to ask on a porter, typically a lower ABV. What’s the ABV on this one?

Jeff (44:33):
Yeah, we’re just sub 5%. Right around, I think it’s 4.8 this year. I’d have to look at the label. Honestly, we do so many things that I forget.

Toby (44:43):
Okay.

Jeff (44:44):
But yeah, it’s in and around there between I think 4.8 or 5%. So a little bit stronger for a porter, but right where we like it. Most people around here don’t really want anything super heavy, or super light. Well, light can sell always, but yeah.

Adam (45:05):
What’s your malt bill on it?

Jeff (45:08):
Offhand? Actually, you know what, I can pull it up. I have a fancy application on my phone.

Toby (45:15):
And while you’re looking at that, I will say that we had to do an abrupt mid stop here during the recording because we had a grain delivery show up.

Jeff (45:25):
Yeah, from Country Mall Group.

Toby (45:25):
From Country Malt Group, right?

Jeff (45:28):
Yeah.

Toby (45:28):
So I just going to point that out. And I heard it was a quick order, by what 3:00 PM yesterday, and it shows up bright and early in the morning.

Jeff (45:36):
Under 24 hours.

Toby (45:37):
There we go.

Jeff (45:39):
Luckily, the driver said he’d wait, he’d give me 20 minutes. I said, “Yeah, give me 20 minutes.” So we’re using Thomas Fawcet, Maris Otter as our base.

Toby (45:50):
Beautiful.

Jeff (45:51):
We’ve got Munich in there, about 20% Munich. Flaked oats obviously for some really good body. And then we’ve got some chocolate, some Blackprinz. I tend to prefer Blackprinz being that it doesn’t have that accurate bitterness that you get from a lot of the darker malts. And some couple different crystals. Crystal 120, Crystal 40, just to round things out. Very simple Hop edition, 60 minute Magnum, just for a bit of bitterness to balance things out. And then surprisingly, actually we fermented with, we started last year using Voss Kveik for the fermentation, and it’s gone really well with that. We were behind the eight-ball last year, so we had to pump it out quick. And those Kveikes can be really great for that because they ferment super quick, they attenuate super fast, and they don’t really have a lot of problems when it comes to diacetyl and VDK and stuff like that.

Toby (47:02):
Yeah, it sounds wonderful, Jeff. You guys are doing…

Jeff (47:04):
Thank you. Thank you.

Toby (47:04):
Doing a great job.

Adam (47:08):
I know that you’re now a little bit short on time because you got to go get our wonderful malts, but…

Jeff (47:11):
No, no, it’s okay. By all means does the driver seemed happy to wait, so I’ll just tell them I was on a meeting with the supplier that you’re supplying me with. So if there’s demerits charge, you might get charged it, Adam.

Adam (47:27):
I’ll keep an eye for that one.

Jeff (47:29):
Yeah.

Adam (47:29):
How many, you were saying that you’ve got a lot of stuff on the go. How many beers are you brewing or do you have for sale at your one time?

Jeff (47:38):
So we have 11 taps, and then generally in our fridge to go, we’ll have at least eight plus offerings. Right now, we’ve got some cool seasonals in our tank. We’ve got a very cool experimental piquette ale we’re doing, which is a white wine skin co-fermentation. Then we also have, today actually, I’ve got to go pick and process quince fruit. Quince Fruit is a weird old world tart pair apple hybrid that we use in a quince hibiscus witbier once a year. So we’re getting into that season where there’s cool seasonals getting into the tank.

(48:22)
And we’ve just got a lot of stuff going on. We just brewed yesterday a light dry hopped lager we’re going to call Hospitality Weekend, and that’s a kudos to all the people who work in hospitality. So Monday is our weekend. We spend all weekend working and providing fun and good times for the public, so on Monday we just want to crush a bunch of light dry hopped lager and be left alone.

(48:53)
Just keep rotating through. We have some of our regular offerings, and some of our flagship ish type beers, and I say ish because we don’t always have them, but we always come back to them. So we’ve got a beautiful blonde ale, an awesome hazy IPA, and then yeah, we’ve got our west coast coming back, which we haven’t brewed in over two years. So we’re starting to rotate back into that back catalog, if you will. Being a brewery that’s now been around for coming up on six years, we can start rotating back through some beers that we haven’t brewed in quite some time.

Toby (49:30):
That’s great. Well, for those folks that are up in Haldimand County, specifically in Ontario, specifically in Jarvis, go up and see Jeff. And Adam for that matter. He’s going to provide all of his personal information here shortly. Yeah, really awesome. Hey, continued success to you, Jeff, and your team and what y’all are doing. It sounds awesome and appreciate you jumping on telling us a little bit about your pumpkin beer.

Jeff (49:58):
Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for having me. I appreciate being on the BewDeck. This is a great resource.

Toby (50:04):
I appreciate it. Well go tell that driver to come unload that stuff in your place and we’ll let you get back to business.

Jeff (50:11):
Yeah, I’m going to go unload that malt and get some more beer in the tanks. Thank you so much guys.

Adam (50:18):
Thanks Jeff.

Toby (50:18):
All right, thanks Jeff.

Jeff (50:19):
All right, thanks guys.

Toby (50:21):
Thanks a bunch to Jeff from Concession Road for convincing us to give pumpkin beers a try this holiday season. And thanks to Heather for planning the perfect beer pairing for after we go through our kids’ trick or treating loot. Don’t forget the Pink Boots Hop blend is available for pre-order now through December 15th while supplies last. And we’ll be back in two weeks with a barrel of fun. We can barely wait. Have a great Halloween. Cheers. Bye.