Episode III: Equipment and Encounters
Jerry comes in with a wine buzz as we discuss the size and use of all the brewing equipment as well as Matt’s alien encounters, putting weird stuff in beer, what we want to see when we come into a taproom, Matt and Phil being dicks, and tambourines.
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4 Responses to Episode III: Equipment and Encounters
Dear 1717….
Longtime listener, first time commenting. Do you take requests? If so, I would really love to hear “Islands in the Stream” by Matt & Phil. It’s my favorite duet ever.
I’ll hang up and listen.
T
Stay tuned…
Couple things to note: There are definitely more local breweries than Exile doing a session IPA (Zoinks! from Iowa Brewing Company and Soundcheck from Peace Tree for example). Alluvial in Ames makes a fantastic ESB and so does close Minnesota neighbor, Summit, as well as plenty of other breweries nationwide. It is definitely not the most popular style of beer and maybe that’s for a reason? I would recommend making some more stops at local breweries, especially those that are successful, and instead of trying to knock them for doing what has worked well for them, take a closer look and try to mimic some of these things. I get it that you need to be different and set yourself apart, but don’t completely knock what others are doing just because you don’t agree. I think that is definitely setting yourself up for failure due to sheer stubbornness. A great example of this is Fox Brewing Company in WDM. The owner refused to brew an IPA for the longest time because he personally doesn’t like the style and now his business is sinking (for many reasons other than that one but just using it as an example). Sometimes you have to detach yourself from the business and look at what the people want. Maybe run a poll on the styles people are most interested in seeing from you instead of assuming you know? The local craft beer community in Des Moines is extremely close knit and it doesn’t seem like you’ve made much of an effort to get to know others which will not bode well once you open. Take No Coast Brewing Co for example. They are notorious for not playing well with others and I know many people across the state who have boycotted drinking their beer. I think you guys are hilarious but maybe start thinking before you passive aggressively slam other local breweries for what they’re doing.
Thanks for the feedback. We appreciate that you gave us a listen, and you make great points. We are open-minded and don’t plan on pigeonholing ourselves by being closed off to what works for others or by being one track-minded. There are a lot of great beers out there and sometimes in the midst of podcasting with five people, it’s tough to stay on track and mention all of them. That being said, there are some not-so-great ones too, which at times we’ll probably bag on. Unfortunately, every beer we make won’t be perfect, and we expect grief for it. It comes with the territory of putting your product out there. We try to be funny because brains isn’t in an abundance with this group and usually our humor is more self-deprecating than directed outward (minus when we rag on Alex). We recorded this episode in March, and since then have met many more Iowa brewers and really look forward to working with them. We even give a few of them shout-outs on an upcoming episode. The community has been awesome to us, and we’re excited to be a part of it. So again, thanks for pointing out that it seemed like we were more passive aggressive than we should have been. We hope you plan on coming in and continuing to give your feedback on the podcast and the beer, good or bad. We can take it!