Are you ready for the pairings that matter most?
It's time for Gear and it's time for Beer here on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) and today we are going old school!
Chances are that if you do any camping whatsoever you have a lantern. But do you have an OG fuel burning Coleman Lantern? Justin does and today he is going to break down why you should too.
And what is the perfect pairing for the classic lantern? How about a classic craft beer like a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Because nothing is better than sitting outside on a pleasant evening enjoying the warm light of a timeless lantern while sipping an ice cold Sierra Nevada.
Is summer here yet?
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Episode Transcript
Chris Demakes (00:07):
Here we go.
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head, and today we are back with another piece of gear and another beer. Yeah, that's right. It's your weekly dose of gear and beer. I'm Colin. True. I spent over 20 years working for brands and makers in the outdoor industry
Justin (00:27):
And I am still Justin Hausman, a journalist, professional gear reviewer, senior editor at Ed Venture Journal.
Colin (00:36):
Today we'll be reviewing a piece of gear the way you would expect gear to be reviewed on the rock fight. We don't talk about stack height geometry or with underfoot. We talk about the experience, our likes and our dislikes.
Justin (00:47):
Colin, we've talked about stack height on shoes and geometry and bikes.
Colin (00:55):
Did we
Justin (00:56):
Also talked about how your feet are pretty wide and stuff like that?
Colin (00:59):
Well, that's more of a ski thing than with thunder foot.
Justin (01:02):
I know. Okay, let, let's move on. I
Colin (01:05):
Know it is. Listen, we didn't give numbers. Did we give numbers?
Justin (01:10):
Probably not. Alright, there you go. I'm just point down, just
Colin (01:13):
Keeping it honest around here.
Justin (01:15):
Sometimes we talk about stack eye geometry with underfoot.
Colin (01:17):
I have to change the open. Hey, and lastly, because Justin is the official Cicero, not just of the rock fight, but of the entire outdoor community, we will then follow up the gear review with the perfect post activity beer pairing. Don't know what a cone is, don't worry about it. Nobody does. But trust us. It's a real thing.
Justin (01:33):
At least it was a few years ago. I assume it's,
Colin (01:36):
Is it no longer a real thing? No,
Justin (01:37):
No. I'm sure it's,
Colin (01:39):
Is there a governing body of
Justin (01:41):
Cone? There is. Yeah. In Chicago,
Colin (01:44):
Does someone get paid to manage? Are you accountable to somebody? Is somebody going to hear this podcast and get angry at you as are you saying something? God, I
Justin (01:50):
Hope. I really hope so. The
Colin (01:52):
Bottom line here is you'll get the pairings that matter most gear and beer. Alright, Justin, what are we reviewing today?
Justin (01:59):
Today, Colin and everybody else out there? We're going to go with a little old school review today of a product that you definitely know. Everybody out there knows it probably. I'm gosh, you think if you had to guess what percentage of relatively hardcore outdoor users or recreationists have you used this product? Colin, what do you think? Oh,
Colin (02:27):
I thought you were going to go more general public with that question. I mean, pretty high.
Justin (02:33):
It's got to be, wait a minute. Your specific product or the category? Not specific one, but this category. Category
Colin (02:37):
Has got to be like over 80% I would say.
Justin (02:40):
Yeah, I would. Here, let's see if I'm going to make a sound to see. Maybe this will, I just dumped crumbs all over my keyboard. Okay. Can you hear that Colin?
Colin (02:50):
No, but I have a feeling when I listen to it back.
Justin (02:52):
Yeah, you're going to hear it so loud. We're going with the old school gas lantern from Coleman. This model is the premium dual fuel. I'll get into that in a second. The reason that we're talking about this seemingly ubiquitous, honestly, I was thinking about this. I think there's probably a camping emoji and it's probably a tent, but I guarantee when they were thinking about it, they probably considered the lantern, right? Like the Coleman lantern as a camping emoji. It's just such an ubiquitous piece of gear. But I mean people don't, unless you're 75 years old, you don't often see people using these that much anymore. Everybody's gone to battery powered lanterns and I get it. I mean, so I haven't owned one of these, I've never owned one of these until now, but I was assigned to write a piece on the history of the Coleman Lantern for Adventure Journal, which will be coming up in our next issue.
(03:44)And I just got fascinated by them and I remembered how much I enjoyed using them in the past. Definitely. I was trying to remember, I've had periods where I was trying to think if maybe it was when I was an archeologist and maybe we were working in the evenings. I have specific memories of using one often enough to have to replace the mantles and stuff like that. But again, I've never owned one, so I don't really know. Maybe it's like a past life. They've been around long enough to where I maybe could have had one in a past life and that's sort of creeping in, I dunno. Anyway, so yeah, once I started writing the article I was like, I got to get one. And the other thing that was cool is in researching, there are all these clubs all over the country that are just Coleman collectors because the company's been around for over a hundred years.
(04:27)And so the biggest one has these things called light up. They'll just meet at various places in the country. People just bring their carloads of old Coleman lanterns and they'll just light 'em up and just stand around I guess in the light and just talk about it. But it is like a huge collector's thing and you can see why. I mean, they look cool. They're all battered and most of 'em are either green or red. Coleman, Coleman Green. Mine is not, mine's gray, but Coleman Green's a thing for a long time. There's some red ones too, but it's a cool story. I encourage everybody to pick up Adventure Journal 33, which that's their summer issue, so it'll come out in a couple months. But that's where I dig into the history. And I just posted a review about this particular one to the website the other day and the AJ website, which you can read and I encourage you to do so. But in typical hausman fashion, I didn't go nuts on what it weighs and stuff like that. So if you want, there's not much to say. It's a lantern, right? Stack lights up. I didn't talk about the geometry, the head tube angle, but anyway,
Colin (05:26):
Weird. The category is fascinating. I was doing just some digging around for the show notes here before we recorded and we will get to it. When we talk about the category at large, there's still a fair amount of lanterns, but you think about what's the bridge here? I mean, not to spoil, maybe you talk about this in the article that you wrote, but you go from the torch, old school
Justin (05:46):
Torch, like an actual fire on a stick,
Colin (05:48):
Like a stick with shit wrapped around it. So then you have, you think about, okay, there's the lantern and now I'm getting old prospector days in my head down
Justin (05:57):
And
Colin (05:57):
Gravy. Now the category still exists. It's a lot of obviously electric stuff out there, but the lighting sort of, but also this sort of, I don't know, there's a ubiquitousness I feel like to the lantern and it's kind of to your point, your question about how many outdoor people will know about a lantern or have scene or use a lantern and at some point does that faucet just get cut off? You know what I mean? I guess there's so many lighting solutions now when you go camping between your headlamps or your phone,
Justin (06:20):
Why would you ever reach for a literally gas powered lantern? Why would you do that?
Colin (06:25):
You can get solar powered lamps and shit. You don't say it's
Justin (06:27):
Crazy. Of course. I mean I have all that stuff, but that's what we're going to talk about and I talk about that in the review. I don't really talk about that much in the written piece. The written piece is more about the history of it, but the review is basically why in the world would you use one of these? Because my gear shed has failed with every possible kind of battery powered light you could have. And they're fine, they're great. I've never had an issue with them. I've never even thought about, honestly, if I hadn't been assigned this article, I never would've even thought to buy one of these.
Colin (06:52):
So knowing you like I do, I can't imagine this must've been an automatic Yes. It comes to the assignment. You're like, hell yeah, I'm going to get an old school lantern. You must've been
Justin (07:01):
Stoked, right? Obviously because clearly I have an affinity I didn't even realize I had until recently of this kind of old school camping gear. I mean, I don't know what it is. I guess again, it's not nostalgia. I didn't grow up camping, I didn't grow up with these, but there's something about it that's like I'm staring at it right now. It's kind of funky looking, but it's kind of sexy too. It's just way more, okay, right now in front of me, I have a light battery powered lantern. That's super cute. It looks like the size of a slightly thicker hockey puck maybe turns different colors. If you shake it, it'll goes into candle mode. The battery life is fantastic. You can hang it from the bed of your truck. It's awesome. I love these things. What
Colin (07:39):
Would you take head to head? You're going lantern next. Yeah,
Justin (07:42):
The lantern. The lantern all day long and it is, part of it is the light it produces. Okay, so let's get into this one. So Coleman makes a few different kinds of fuel powered lanterns. I'm not expert on the rest of them, so I can't tell. They make some that burn kerosene specifically. And I don't know why this one burns both gasoline and what's called Coleman fuel, which is essentially, that's white gas. If you've ever heard the term white gas. That's basically the generic term for Coleman fuel, which is a slightly cleaner version of gasoline, I believe. It doesn't really smell like much. It doesn't smell anything like gasoline.
Colin (08:19):
Most backpacking stoves are white gas, those kinds of things. Well,
Justin (08:21):
Old school ones or I
Colin (08:23):
The a whisper light or something like that,
Justin (08:25):
Right? If you're able to refill it, it's white. If you're able to refill your backpacking stove, it's white gas. If you're able to refill your cook stove, it's white gas, not screw on a propane bottle and not screw on an isobutane canister in for a backpack or stove. So anyway, this one, I haven't used it with gasoline. I've read only bad things about doing that. I mean one, it would be smelly too. It doesn't burn it quite as clean. I don't think. Three, you have to burn all of it before you put the Coleman fuel in it. So that'd be kind of a pain. But I could see in a pinch, I dunno. If you're an overlander and you have 15 gas cans on your Jeep, and I
Colin (09:02):
Feel like the movie part of my brain wants there to be gas, like smelly gas in there, it should be dust all over it. Like your Indiana Jones and a cave or something like that.
Justin (09:10):
I mean, okay, so if you get one of these, you will walk around holding it by the hand making the whatever that you have to. I was doing it last night, my family. Are
Colin (09:19):
You in a ghost story? Are you an adventure story? What are you in
Justin (09:23):
All it? You might be finding the Ark of the Covenant. It's possible that you might, if someone ever does find it, it'll be lit.
Colin (09:30):
Competition Coleman start running in the twenties. No one has done it yet. Like buy a lantern. You'd find the arc of
Justin (09:36):
The covenant. I bet you if the arc of the covenant was real, which of course it's not, and you went in there with artificial light, you wouldn't even see it. It would Coleman lantern with Coleman lantern. It would light it
Colin (09:46):
Right up. You've chosen poorly if you have artificial light.
Justin (09:50):
So the way these bad boys work is kind of interesting. It's a pressurized system. So if you've used one, you will remember pumping them. And the reason that you do that is to turn the fuel into a gas. And so it has a nice round base, it has a glass, what they call a globe, even though it's a cylinder. And then it has two little, let's be honest, it look like it looks like a ball sack. These two. I
Colin (10:15):
Was wondering how you were
Justin (10:16):
Going to, I mean they really do. Yeah, it really does. I mean separated quite a bit. They would look extremely odd. Maybe
Colin (10:22):
A cocoon, maybe. Maybe.
Justin (10:23):
Oh, that's probably a much more mature way to say
Colin (10:25):
It. Yeah, but I was right there with you though, Don. Don't be embarrassed by where your instincts led. You can't.
Justin (10:30):
These two little rayon mesh sacks, the neat thing about them is, so that's what technically burn. Well, they don't actually burn. That's what burns. And I'm making air quotes to produce the light. So what happens is you pump, you pump the little plunger, you pump that, it pressurizes the gas or pressurizes the fuel, turns it into a gas mixture that goes into the cylinder and then you light it through a little hole in the bottom of a match or a lighter if you're feeling brave. And the mantles immediately catch and burn for a second and then the flame goes away and they just glow with this beautiful white light. Now what's interesting is until I wrote this article, I always assumed the mantles themselves are burning, but they don't. The mantles are dipped in. Coleman won't actually say it's a rare earth element. And some people,
Colin (11:12):
This is my only question from your blog post on AJ was like, okay, well what are the rare
Justin (11:17):
Earth? I think I suspect it's changed as with environmental things over the years. Apparently at one point it's been something called prom. Is it
Colin (11:25):
Proprietary? Is that what it is?
Justin (11:25):
I don't think it's proprietary. I mean it's a rare earth element. It can't be proprietary. It's point there in the world. But the
Colin (11:32):
Word rare kind of freaks me out. How much? Well,
Justin (11:34):
That's an actual term. They're not describing it. I mean that's like a rare earth element
Colin (11:38):
Is, oh, okay. So that's an actual really, I
Justin (11:40):
Don't thinks like a scientific term. It's been a few different things. I don't know what it is now. But anyways, what's interesting is the rayon is impregnated in that and that's what the rayon mantle doesn't actually burn. So it's the goop that is dipped into that burns. That is rare. That is rare. And then you adjust the light with a cool knob on the front and that's how it works. That's it. So that's it. So what's awesome about it though is that, and what's interesting is last night my family was camping sort of in these very rustic cabins on the coast and I had this lantern, and then I had a couple of these BioLite lanterns, which their albin glow is the model. I love these BioLite things. They're awesome. We did a full video thing about it with aj. They're really sweet lanterns, but it's really cool to have them back to back or next to each other. You realize right away the artificial, I mean I'm using the term artificial light, and by that I mean battery powered somehow. That makes sense
Colin (12:41):
To me. Yeah, I got you. That's a good
Justin (12:43):
Point, right? Versus like light coming from fire more or less immediately it looks harsh to your eyes. I would never have thought about that normally, but when you have the Coleman next to it, there's a huge difference in terms of the softness and the comfort that the light produces a typical battery powered lantern. It just kind of brightens things. The Coleman lantern is a really warm, inviting light. It's pretty cool. It makes a nice hiss sound. You can hear can the, which you'll instantly remember if you haven't had one for a long time and you fire it up.
Colin (13:16):
So did Coleman invent ass MR was that they were the original.
Justin (13:19):
Honestly, I've thought about that. It would be so nice to just fall asleep to this, but that would be probably a bad idea. It is fire, right? It
Colin (13:27):
Can
Justin (13:27):
Burn you
Colin (13:28):
Plate it with a match.
Justin (13:30):
I dunno what happens if you knock it over. I presume there's all kinds of safety things that it doesn't spill through.
Colin (13:35):
That should be a part of your testing methods. Like throw it at the side of your house and see what happens.
Justin (13:38):
Honestly, honestly, I did think about doing that, but I don't want to break the globe the glass thing or set your house on fire. Well again, I'm 99% sure there's a lot of words on it, which I haven't read and probably never will unless I'm really bored or bring it into an outhouse with me that probably talk about what happens if you knock it over and why you shouldn't. But I'm not going to read that. I mean that is what started the great Chicago fire, I think. But that was probably a different kind of lantern. That's true. Anyway, so that's pretty much it. So they've made this particular, so Coleman's been around since 1914 or something. I'm not going to spoil the backstory. I want you to go by AJ 33 when it comes out. And it's impossible to do your own research on this. I had all kinds of primary source materials that you'll never find out online that don't even try. You have to read this. Whoa. Click throw to
Colin (14:22):
Don't you fucking copy me.
Justin (14:23):
Don't even try it. You have to read the, there's no other way to find this. You want to
Colin (14:26):
List the journalists you're speaking to directly right now?
Justin (14:28):
Do you want to No, that's primary sources, bro. No, journalists. I was back in the archives.
Colin (14:32):
No, the people you're threatening who are
Justin (14:33):
The journalists? You're nobody. No, no, no, no. That's not I'm talking about, I mean, you got to go buy it to, you'll not going to learn this anywhere else. Love it. What I'm trying to say love. Anyway, so Coleman's been around for, since, like I said, since 1914. The basic principle behind this lantern has been in existence 1928. So essentially a hundred years,
Colin (14:55):
94 years, sorry, 96 years ago.
Justin (14:58):
And if you look at pictures of 'em from the forties, they don't look any different. I'm sure is heavier. I'm sure there's only a couple pieces of plastic on here. I'm sure those were metal back then.
Colin (15:07):
The font was probably way better back then.
Justin (15:10):
Listen to that term. That's the base,
Colin (15:13):
The old school font back in the twenties.
Justin (15:15):
Oh wait, you mean font like the way it's written? Oh
Colin (15:17):
Yeah. What did you think I meant?
Justin (15:18):
Well, so the base of it is called A found. That's what I thought you were talking about.
Colin (15:22):
I mean that is what I meant. Yes. I spent the writing on it. It's like a fucking moron over here.
Justin (15:29):
So the other thing that's cool, actually not really honestly, logo. Actually Coleman
Colin (15:33):
Logo probably is a relatively unchanged, right? It's
Justin (15:35):
Been pretty much the same. So the cool thing about this, so Coleman has changed hands a bunch. It was in the family until I think 86. And then it's gone through a couple different acquisitions by big giant multinational corporations and they make a lot of other stuff. They make tents, they obviously make stoves. Stoves is another big, but they make tents, they make RVs, or at least they have their brand on an rv. Amazing. They do all kinds of other stuff, A lot of different lighting. I mean they make all kinds of battery powered lighting and stuff like that too. I don't know if this is the only one, although it might be. These are handmade. It's not entirely but made in Wichita. They're made in Wichita, Kansas at a factory. That's kind of where Coleman was when they started out. I don't think the same factory but in the same zone.
(16:18)And I put a cool video of the process of making these things on the AJ website. So anyway, Ozzy, you could tell, I've been talking about this thing for a long time. I just think it's great. You're fired up. I don't know, it didn't even really occur to me how much we've been harping on kind of hipster old school retro type products on the podcast until, honestly, I started talking about this one. So I don't know, maybe I'm just attracted to that kind of thing. But I put the story on LinkedIn and the guy that you had on the show a while back, Wesley Walls, is that his name or West Allen? West Allen.
Colin (16:52):
Oh, west Allen, yeah.
Justin (16:53):
Commented on it with a big long paragraph about how, and he's totally right about how something about how for any kind of campsite that you're not going to backpack to, there's not going to be a more inviting light than what you'll get from one of these. That's awesome. That is spot on accurate. Good job. And that's the point, right? That's why you buy these. It is 110 bucks. You can get a more expensive one that puts out a bit more lumens. I forget I had the number written down, I can't find it. 800, a thousand,
Colin (17:18):
Dude. I mean come on. Are we talking? Let's get back to our,
Justin (17:21):
Well, just for comparison's sake, I mean compared to something you might be familiar with. I mean they get really bright, but again, it's not harsh. It's not like a piercing light and they get real nice and real low, which is nice, which is cool. And there's just something really pleasant about having to pump it, having to put fuel in it, having to deal with actual flame
Colin (17:41):
Worth. I mean, do we even want to talk about using gas and the potential? I dunno, we talk a lot about moving to the more sustainable future, all that kind of stuff. This is one of those I feel like just needs to be grandfathered in. I don't know. Do we need to talk about that?
Justin (17:58):
Wait, sorry.
Colin (17:58):
That it's gas powered and things like that.
Justin (18:00):
I mean, I don't know. I wrestle with that for a minute. I haven't had it. I mean I've, I've been using it every night since I've had it. I have a backyard and the weather's been nice, so I like to sit out there and read and I've kind of wanting to see how long it'll take for the fuel to go out. It burns. It's not like it's super thirsty. I mean it takes a couple days of using it constantly before you start to notice that you're burning low on fuel. So that's just something that I guess I'm as concerned about the climate and carbon emission as anybody else. But the thing is, for the most part, I'm only using this places where I had to drive to anyway. So what am I going to another thimble fuel of fuel is going to make a difference. So I don't know if that's a huge issue for you. Don't get one, but, well,
Colin (18:50):
That's a good way to get into the category. So I just went digging around. I'm sure you did as well, right? So there's 63 products right now in REI under the category lantern. And it's like, holy shit, that's a lot. But only three of them are fuel based.
Justin (19:01):
Are they all made by Coleman?
Colin (19:02):
Yeah, no, they're all Coleman.
Justin (19:04):
There is at least one other brand and I can't remember what it's called right now that makes this, and like I said, you can get oil lanterns. I think other brands that just make kerosene lanterns too. So they don't have, well they do have monopoly, but I mean you can get other brands.
Colin (19:18):
So we're talking about 53 electric lanterns. Most of them. I'm sure they all serve a purpose and everything, but I mean that's so many and most of 'em do look terrible when you compare 'em to the classic nature of the Coleman Lantern.
Justin (19:30):
Well, so again, love these blight ones. I have three of them. One of 'em doesn't work anymore. I don't know why it doesn't charge. And whatcha doing with that? And it's like, did I drop it? I don't know what happened. Honestly, it's probably something as simple as a little wire got pulled off of something and it won't charge. But I can, could you get your Coleman
Colin (19:47):
Repaired?
Justin (19:48):
Yes. So you can get your Coleman repaired. You could probably work on it yourself, but you can send it back to Coleman and they'll fix stuff. They'll
Colin (19:56):
B it up. And
Justin (19:57):
Like I said, I mean you can easily find examples of this that are 70 years old that work fine. And one of the things that's nice about it, it's not something I ever really intend on testing out, but I think a lot of us who have a ton of camping gear consider ourselves whether we realize it or not, I guess if we're considering ourselves, we're definitely realizing it, but almost like a prepper in some ways. Certainly when you think about calamities and stuff, at least I anyway go at least I have an REI in my garage. You have stuff, we'd be okay for a while, I can filter water, I have stuff to cook with, all these sorts of things. And if you didn't have electricity for a while and you had a bunch of coal white fuel or even just gas, you're fine. Likewise, one of the earliest I could find reference to these being used in camping was for like 1917 in that Outdoor Life magazine, which has been around forever and they kind of bill it as a great thing to bring with you while car camping because you have gas, so you could just siphon gas from your tanker.
(21:00)Maybe people drove around with extra gas back in those days. So yeah, you'd always, theoretically you could always have light if you have some access to some sort of petroleum-based fuel. I think that's cool. It's never going to break if it does a fix it. You could buy the glass cylinders at your local hardware store if you need to. You could buy Coleman fuel at any hardware store in the world. I love this thing.
Colin (21:23):
I think the thing too, when you're talking about car camping, you are getting into a little bit more extravagant version of you're not going minimal. You're going to have some stuff that make your experience more comfortable. And to your exact point, I mean I get it. If you're really sensitive to, oh, there's gas in that and I don't want to use carbon fuel, carbon based fuels, whatever, this is a good one to make an exception on because okay, well now you have a battery problem if you are using other lanterns that are running off a battery or even if they're rechargeable, there's still a problem that comes with all these things when you get to the end of life. And one of the first things you said here is this thing. There's this group of people who get together and celebrate their lanterns that are like a hundred years old or close to a hundred years old.
Justin (22:03):
How cool is that? No one's going to be doing that with a headlamp with
Colin (22:06):
Your lamp or whatever you have on your desk. This is a really good, what do you rate it? What's the rating of the cole? Is this a 10 out of 10?
Justin (22:14):
Yeah, honestly it couldn't do what it does any better, right? I mean I don't see an improvement that you could make with this thing.
Colin (22:26):
Yeah, that there's a little bit of, I like the nature of it. I like the fact that you got to pump the thing to get the, turn it in the gas and it's just, I dunno that you do have to put gas back in it when it's burning down. I don't know. There's just something about, it's really homey and wonderful.
Justin (22:40):
Not that I am by no means this much of an energy weenie where I'm thinking about this sort of thing. But one of the things I do like about something like this is, okay, so say you have your normal battery powered lantern and you're charging it off of your other power block that you have, you charge from your house, whatever. There's nothing at stake when the battery runs out other than it gets dark. You're not really aware of anything. It's just on or not. You don't really appreciate it. There's something about having, physically having to refuel the lantern where you're kind of aware, okay, this is on, or I'm using energy, I'm going to have to deal with this. I'm going to have to pay to buy more fuel. I'm going to have to refill it. It's not just this thing that's just on and I don't care about it or think about where the energy's coming from. It's
Colin (23:28):
Like being in a hut in the wintertime you got to the wood stove. It's like if you got a concept, oh, we got to make sure we're feeding the fire. That kind of stuff.
Justin (23:33):
You got to kind of mind it. And while that sounds inefficient and probably something a whole lot of people are not remotely interested in, and believe me, I get you. I kind of like that right now at this point in my outdoor life. So obviously I'm not going to take this freaking thing backpacking, although Robert Peery or was it Peery?
Colin (23:54):
I
Justin (23:54):
Dunno. I don't think it was Peery somebody because Peery went to try to go to the North Pole. Maybe he went to the South Pole too. People took these to the South Pole. People take these on expeditions or they did. So you can do that if you want. But anyway, if you haven't used something like this in a long time, totally worth going out and picking one up. You can get 'em used. You can get 'em cheap on Craigslist as long as a collector hasn't swooped in and nabbed it. But
Colin (24:22):
Yeah, they are available. I mean it's on Amazon. If you want to give Bezos your money, you got, it's at REI. It's at coleman.com. I'm sure it's at other retailers. It's a great product.
Justin (24:33):
It's probably at your local hardware store if you have a video
Colin (24:36):
And then just definitely
Justin (24:38):
If you live in Kansas, I'm sure you can
Colin (24:39):
Get it. So we are sort of redefining the speedometer this week. So to be a little bit more of a category commentary, right? Because a 10 out of 10 product for you. And we don't want to discredit that because that's awesome. And frankly, you're talking about this. I read your blog and all I want to do or your newsletter update and all I want to do is go buy one of these things now just to go outside to your point, it was sitting in my backyard. I don't even really need to take a camping. I just kind of want to have one. It's just a cool item to have. But the category though, like 63 items on just r ei.com, that means there's probably more out there. Do we need that many lanterns? And I'm sure within that 63 or 53 that aren't fueled, that aren't gas powered, there's probably some small ones and some big ones and there's reasons for them. I get it. Rechargeable ones, whatever. But what do you think?
Justin (25:25):
I guess I'm going to say, I mean you could obviously do without then that's the thing you could do without a lamp.
Colin (25:31):
Why do I need a lamp? I have a
Justin (25:33):
Flashlight
Colin (25:34):
On my phone. It's pretty good, by the way. If you take your phone in a dark room and just set it upside down,
Justin (25:38):
It line up the room, it works great. So yeah, I Do you need it? Do you need it? No, no, but I hate to say it. You don't need to go camping. I mean weird. You're not, unless you are literally homeless or whatever. You're doing this for fun for the most part. I mean, some people will have to sleep outside for work, but you're doing this for fun. So therefore none of this technically needs to exist. I'm going to give a seven and a half
Colin (26:10):
For the category.
Justin (26:11):
Yeah.
Colin (26:12):
At what point does it fall below a five for you then? Like a hundred lanterns?
Justin (26:16):
Well, because it's the gas one. It's the one. If this was gone, there'd be really no other one.
Colin (26:23):
No, we're talking about the category, the lantern category. 63 different, not just the gas one. Oh, I thought you gave it a 10. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about the product
Justin (26:30):
From the No, the product is a 10, but the category, I mean like a gas lamp as a category. I think it's like a seven.
Colin (26:37):
It's 10 for that too, right? There's only three and they're all made by Coleman.
Justin (26:40):
Yeah, but I would say we don't really need, okay, we've confused ourselves with the new stuff. Ter
Colin (26:45):
No, my thing is, okay, let's talk it through, including the gas lanterns. There's 63 on REI. Yeah, so the category of lanterns is 63 products, large minimum. There's probably ones that they don't carry. Yeah. So do we need 63 lanterns?
Justin (27:00):
No, of course not.
Colin (27:01):
So wouldn't that be more like a four as if you're rating the category,
Justin (27:04):
But it's the, yeah. Okay. So I guess that's where I was confused. So you're saying as far as the lantern category period or this thing within the lantern category?
Colin (27:12):
The lantern category, right? Because it need a, it's still a thing you camp with and it throws light and there's 63 of them on REI that you can choose from. That's a lot. That sounds like a lot of lanterns to me.
Justin (27:22):
Yeah, but there's only one of these,
Colin (27:23):
Right? But that one you gave a 10. Should we be making fewer lanterns in general? Not just the gas ones.
Justin (27:30):
I don't. Gosh man. Now I don't even know what to do with this new stuff. Ome. It's like you have to have a lantern. So it's like, what is that? Right?
Colin (27:38):
But if you go on and it's just like it's a thing after thing after thing. I mean, I don't know, it's like 15, the right number for total lanterns, three of them are fuel.
Justin (27:45):
Well sure. Is
Colin (27:47):
That too much? Do you think we should be judging this stuff? You don't think it's tough for us to weigh in on this?
Justin (27:51):
Well, yeah, I don't think we both are talking about this in the same way. To me, lantern is a category period. Yeah. Okay. A lot of it doesn't mean it's unimportant. I mean, there's a lot of them because they're really important. You have to have light. You can't dismiss the category and say, well there's too many of 'em, therefore they're all unimportant. And so this is also one of one effectively or one of three. Sure. According to the REA website. So I would have to, I think gas lantern gets its own category is what I'm saying. Okay, here we go. I don't think gas lanter can fit under the regular lantern category.
Colin (28:23):
Okay.
Justin (28:24):
Alright. So that's where I'm ranking it. I'm saying I'm might keep
Colin (28:26):
All this in. This is fantastic.
Justin (28:28):
Well, I think you should. I'm ranking it within the category of lantern period. Where does a gas lantern rank in the category of lantern? And to me that's like a seven and a half. You don't really need to have it. But I would be really bummed if it was gone. But I would also be just fine if I had to use only battery powered light is what I'm saying.
Colin (28:49):
But okay, so now just take the 53 non, or whatever, 56 non gass lantern styles that are on r ei.com. Doesn't that seem excessive that there's over 50 different electric lanterns?
Justin (29:01):
Sure. But I mean, is there a category that isn't excessive in the outdoor space? Well,
Colin (29:04):
That's exactly it. That's kind of what we want to bring some attention to in a gear podcast, I guess is a little bit of an acknowledgement of, we could probably do with a few fewer of these.
Justin (29:13):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's true.
Colin (29:15):
Did we get there? Did we figure it
Justin (29:17):
Out? I think so, yeah.
Colin (29:18):
Alright, now let's turn our attention to after the activity at the break, the put in the trail head. We're going to crack open the cooler and iib a beverage so we can celebrate our wins and losses in the back country. Let's have a beer. So we're all, we're we're back in our jorts and hipster bike caps because we have this old school lantern. We're not using no electric lanterns here. The hipster train continues here on gear and beer. What are we drinking today to go with our old school lantern?
Justin (29:42):
All right, so we've already done Budweiser, which would've been a really good choice with something like this just by the nature of the old school vibe. But I thought about this long and hard and what I came up with is Sierra Nevada. Now the reason being, they've been around since 79. They're one of the first beers you think about when you think about craft beer in this country. So they are kind of a granddaddy in
Colin (30:06):
A way. Is Dogfish Head Sierra and Sam Adams are those, is that the trifecta those, the Mount Rushmore?
Justin (30:12):
No, definitely not. No. No. Well, I don't know. It's hard. I mean, I wouldn't put Dogfish head up there just, but they're still pretty niche. But that's also tough because you're coming from the East coast and not coming from the west coast. So to me, I would say Sierra Lagunitas and Stone would be the three that immediately jumped to mind for me for big, been around for a really long time. Yeah,
Colin (30:37):
You want to throw salmon
Justin (30:37):
In there? Established. Okay. So I kind of would, I like Sam Adam's beer a lot, but I think very few people would consider them to be, well, they're not technically craft,
Colin (30:48):
They're huge now, right? They're really big.
Justin (30:51):
And I think most people would probably think of them as more of just a giant mainstream beer brand. But they make phenomenal beer. They obviously start out as a craft beer. But
Colin (30:59):
Sierra's kind of the same now, right? Isn't that kind of the same?
Justin (31:01):
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. But I mean, the thing is with Yeah, totally. I mean, I guess why Sierra still kind of fits into the sort of craft beer category, at least to me is they still have that vibe about them. Sierra Nevada feels like a beer that you could discover in Chico, which is where they're from. Chico, California sort near Lassen National Monument or National Park. It feels like a beer that you would find in a mountain town that's still regional. There's the packaging, their vibe, everything about it is like that. So we're doing the Pale Ale, which if you've ever had, this is funny, Sierra Nevada is one of those things where they make a lot of different beers. Pale ale is what kind of put 'em on the map. But most people would just say, I'll have a Sierra Nevada, they mean this.
(31:43)They don't mean something else though. I highly recommend you check out their other beers. They're all very good, but this is their pale ale. This is a beer that you might think you don't like. I mean, to be honest, for a long time I didn't like this beer. I thought I wasn't super into hoppy beers. But it's a robust flavored pale ale. It's probably closer to an IPA than a pale ale. Even the color is a bit darker than most traditional pale ales. I could get into the different Y and I guess maybe I will a little bit. So
Colin (32:11):
Yeah, I have not had this in a long time and I don't recall really liking it much at all when I did have it. And I don't know if that was kind similar to you. I wasn't in the happy beers at the time or what, but I guess walk me through what should I be expecting as I drink, as I drink this?
Justin (32:27):
So basically, not to get too into the weeds here, but IPAs are what? This to me is more of an IPA than a paleo. So an IPA usually it has a pretty robust malt character, so it's going to be a little bit golden to darker golden in color, pretty rich mouthfeel, usually higher in alcohol. This is 5.6%. So most true IPAs are going to be a bit higher, 7% song on common and just loaded with hops. And the reason that they're called India pail ales, I'm sure most people know that is, but maybe not, is because when, hundreds of years ago when the British would make beers to transport around the world, basically they'd take ails with them on these boats. And the ones that were theoretically supposed to last all the way to India we're just loaded with hops. And hops are a natural preservative.
(33:20)And so these big long overseas trips, they would just dump all these hops into their ale so that they would last longer. And then eventually people just got a taste for super hoppy beers. Right? So anyway, this one is technically a pale ale, so it's a little bit lighter in color, but not really. And that's what you can expect. A big robust hop profile. Juicy kind of is how we often describe a really hoppy beer, but still light enough. It's only 36 IBUs, which is not terribly bitter. So it's hoppy, but not being too bitter. So hops add important distinction. Hops can add bitterness, that's what they're for. But some hops have a naturally really tannic sort of just really deep bitterness to them. This doesn't quite have that. So you get the rush of floral hops and then it kind of backs off. Okay, there we go. Now I have a can and you have a bottle. Okay. Is it
Colin (34:14):
Twist off? Is it a twist off? Okay.
Justin (34:16):
No, I don't think so. All.
Colin (34:17):
Are you ready?
Justin (34:18):
I'm ready.
Colin (34:18):
3, 2, 1.
Justin (34:23):
I should say it's nice and hot where I'm too. So this iss going to be especially,
Colin (34:25):
It's really warm out today.
Justin (34:26):
Also another good camping beer. Classic camping beer.
Colin (34:28):
Smells great. Yeah. Cheers.
Justin (34:30):
Cheers. Blink. Oh there it is. There's a Sierra Nevada for
Colin (34:37):
You. I definitely, that's better than I recall it. This is also why I'm excited we're doing this. I'm literally at a place where as little as I drink on a daily basis, I may never have had a Sierra Nevada again if we weren't doing this because I just like, oh no, I'm good. I don't need that.
Justin (34:51):
I don't think to buy it. I mean every once in a while I'll see it on draft somewhere. I'll be like, oh we'll have a Sierra Nevada, but it's not common.
Colin (34:59):
Alright, so tell me why we're pairing the Sierra Nevada Pale album with the Coleman Lantern.
Justin (35:03):
Couple reasons. One, I mean, it's a camping, this is an outdoor show. It's called freaking Sierra Nevada. Right. It doesn't get a whole lot more outdoor than that. There's pictures of mountains right on it. Anyway, but yeah, that's why So old school, lantern old school craft beer. It seems like a good, you would definitely be wanting to drink, sit around, drink a Sierra Nevada while you have your Coleman light. I mean, that'd be good.
Colin (35:33):
You're on the East coast and you get the word that there's been gold discovered in California. You grab your Coleman lantern and you hightail it across the country and now you've been digging for gold all day or panning for gold and you want to crack open a beer. What do you open up? You're Chico, California. There's the Sierra Mountains. You can see
Justin (35:51):
Maybe it might not. I paint
Colin (35:52):
This picture. Does this work?
Justin (35:53):
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Chico's a cool town if you've never been there. I've been there a long time. Chico State University is there. Definitely a college town. Bidwell Park is a really big open space nearby. Good fishing around there. It's a cool little town.
Colin (36:07):
Oh, so what are we going to rate it? We got to rate the beer.
Justin (36:11):
What's the highest one we've done so far? I know I kind of went off with the athletic because the
Colin (36:14):
Athletic got an eight,
Justin (36:16):
Just a straight eight.
Colin (36:17):
Straight eight. Otherwise it's been seven. You gave seven five for a Cali squeeze. I gave that a seven. One. You gave seven one. The Budweiser eight. Eight is the highest. But the US also said, I just got done editing it last week that it was, you kind of gave it bonus points for the accomplishment.
Justin (36:37):
So I'm going to go with a 7.25725. I
Colin (36:45):
Love the specificity
Justin (36:46):
Here and drinking, tasting it now kind of with sort of my judging hat on it is pretty amazing how they all taste the same. They do a really good job of keeping the flavors basically the same. We talked about
Colin (36:59):
That with Budweiser. How hard it is to make these things taste the same every time you brew it.
Justin (37:03):
Yeah, so they do a good job. They're classic for a reason. Just like the Coleman Lantern.
Colin (37:09):
So we didn't start rating the beers until the third episode. And then, so this is our fourth one we've rated. What do you think you're leaning with? How you're rating? I kind of always want to rate 'em against each other. Would I put this one above the other ones? I've rated what I drink. So if I, the Cali squeeze blood orange, I definitely
Justin (37:28):
Drink that. That's, that's a temptation. But I try to rank them each on their own merits. Where this, if 10 is a perfect beer, I don't even know what that would be, where is this? But yeah, that's how I approach all of them. Except for athletic, it doesn't have alcohol. It's a whole different thing
Colin (37:43):
Because if we're going to go that, then I probably should have given athletic a higher score.
Justin (37:47):
I mean that's kind of what it feels like to me. Tasting this right now feels about like a 7, 2, 5 out of 10.
Colin (37:53):
Okay. Alright. I got a rating here. Alright, well, so I gave the Cali Squeeze 7.1. Okay, so if I'm rating it against other pale Als. Yeah, I'm, I'm go. I'm going to go 6.8.
Justin (38:06):
Okay. Yeah, that seems right actually. That actually probably better.
Colin (38:10):
Okay. So to summarize this episode of gear and Beer, we have the Coleman Premium dual fuel lantern, which Justin rated a 10. And as you bask in the glow of your lantern with the slight his of burning fuel, doing a full A SMR routine on your brain, the official cone of the rock fight suggests that you should enjoy yourself with a frosty cold Sierra Nevada pale ale. Which Justin rated a 7.25 and I rated a 6.2. Did I say 6.2? I said 6.8.
Justin (38:37):
6.8.
Colin (38:38):
I said 6.8. Sorry, Sierra, on the gear and beer. Beer scale. I think we did it. Oh, and when did we decide on the speedometer? Did we give it a rating?
Justin (38:48):
Yeah.
Colin (38:48):
What was the rating on the St. Ter? I
Justin (38:50):
Think I held fast at like 7.5. Didn't 7.5?
Colin (38:53):
Alright.
Justin (38:54):
Yeah.
Colin (38:54):
So we like the category.
Justin (38:56):
We like the category.
Colin (38:57):
Alright, well that's it for the show, man. Anything else? Are we good? Another gear and beer in the books.
Justin (39:02):
Another gear beer in the books. Hold, I don't want to say go buy some gear. That's not kind of what we're about. Go hug your favorite gear. You know what, go sit. Go sit with your favorite piece of gear and open a beer. I
Colin (39:13):
Would tell you to go buy this lantern. I'm going to
Justin (39:15):
Buy one. Well yeah, you really should, but there's you. What if you can't go camping? There's nothing wrong with just getting out some of your favorite camping stuff and just sitting in it. Just kind of playing with it. Just being with it. Just maybe cracking a beer. It's kind of like going camping.
Colin (39:26):
I mean the lantern though could be like the high watermark because this is something you truly can hand down to your kids.
Justin (39:31):
I will.
Colin (39:32):
You're not going to give your hokus to your kids.
Justin (39:35):
I mean, if my girls had size 12 feet, I'd be pretty true. Pretty shocked they could actually. But yeah, even though last night I was yelling at them not to knock it over. But yes, one day it will be theirs.
Colin (39:45):
Alright, well that's the show for today. What did you think of this addition to Gear and Beer? Do you have a suggestion for a future edition of Gear and Beer or do you simply dislike gear and beer? Send an email to My rock fight@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. The rock fight is a production of rock Fight LLC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin Truth. Thanks for listening and here to take us out. Wan ambition turns the competition. He'll never be the better man. It's Krista Makes with the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Should we have one more sip? Take the crew out.
Justin (40:14):
Yeah, I put it in the fridge and have it a little bit later. That's nice. Yeah. Oh, yours has more words on it than mine. Mine doesn't have any words. Rock fight.
Chris Demakes (40:24):
Rock fight, fight. Go into the rat bike where we speak our truth. Say sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and pick backs are fantastic that we find interesting. Black culture, music, the latest movie reviews for the, this is where we truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock back. Welcome to the.
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