When it comes to multi-tools Justin & Colin have so many questions.
⚡️ Who made the original multi-tool?
⚡️ If you want to be outdoorsy do you need to own a multi-tool?
⚡️ What is the best job for a multi-tool?
Today we dig into the entire multi-tool category. And because all multi-tools have a lot going on, we needed a beer that also has a lot going.
So the boys crack open a couple of absolutely delightful Smuttynose Pineapple Orange Coconut Sours.
Because that's what you get here on Gear & Beer... The Pairings That Matter Most!
Topics with timecodes:
Today's Gear & Beer (02:17)
Cracking open a couple of Smuttynose Pineapple Orange Coconut Sours (04:10)
The long history of multi-tools (08:48)
Checkin in on our beer, why this is the pairing that matters most (23:08)
Do multi-tools have a purpose? (27:22)
Rating the Gear (33:48) and the Beer (37:30)
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Episode Transcript
Colin/Justin (00:00)
Welcome to Gear and Beer, the podcast for Gearheads beer buffs, and all adventurers with discerning taste. I'm Colin True, and I spent over 20 years working for brands and makers in the outdoor industry. And I'm Justin Hausman, a beer head gear buff. Adventurer. You're trying to make that a thing. I love flipping those around. Journalist. You may recognize me from my role as a senior editor at Adventure Journal, where I've written about gear for a real long time and I am also a certified beer expert, so you have to trust me on beer. You have to. It's illegal to not trust me. If anybody out there wants to sponsor the pod, it's just so we can shorten down. We can add that in and shorten down Justin's intro for himself. I don't. Don't write that, Colin. Everyone needs to know. I don't write that. My intro.
(00:48):
You're the professional writer. I give free Reign that works to edit. No, you're the one that writes the outlines. It's kind of weird, isn't it? That work out. How does that work out? I know. Wait, wait. Today we're going to be reviewing a piece of gear, the best way we know how. We don't talk about stack height geometry or with underfoot. Not this time. Okay. We talk about the way you talk. We talk about gear, the way you talk to your friends about gear. It's about the experience, our likes and our dislikes. Well, the way we talk about gear to our friends is usually bragging about what we have and they don't. Isn't it? That's true job. Have you tried that thing yet? Oh man, you got to get it. It's going to change your life. You don't have that yet. Weird. You don't have carbon bars on your mountain bike, dude.
(01:28):
What's the weight of your bike? Yeah. Kidding me. That's how we talk. That's how we really talk about gear shaming. That's true. Gear shaming. That could be a different podcast. Yeah. The Gear Shaming podcast. Why you should have things that you don't have and hey, if you're like us and you enjoy that perfect post activity beverage, this is indeed the podcast for you because Justin, he's a cerone and that's a certified beer expert. You can look it up. Certified. It's a real thing. It's all you connected with another Cerone, did I? The shoots the nice lady from the shoot beer. Oh, shoots cerone too. I think I saw that on LinkedIn. Heck that. She's also a cerone. Yeah, I didn't notice that. Good for her. Yeah. Cone's unite. Yeah, we need to, and that's why we start each episode with the perfect pairing for the gear we are about to review.
(02:07):
The bottom line is here. You'll get the pairings that matter most. Gear and beer. Justin, what gear, what beer are we reviewing today? We're going with my favorite topic, multi tools as a category. I can't say that without thinking of multipass. You know what? That's calling fifth element. Thank you. Yeah, very good. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Can you say multi tools without thinking Multipass? I just never really connected that until just this moment. Is that the only thing she says in that movie? Is that her only line? No. Doesn't she say something at the end? I don't know. I almost watched that again the other night. Fifth Element's a fantastic movie out folks. Good flick. If you've never seen it. Original Sci-fi. We don't get a lot of original sci-fi it. It's all pretty damn good. Well, before we talk about overly complicated knives and beers, a couple of housekeeping items.
(02:54):
First, have you followed the show? Because clicking follow and leaving a rating and a written review that is if you're listening to us on Apple podcast, is the easiest and cheapest way to support the show. We just wrapped up our sticker promotion and we want to say thank you to everyone who responded and left a review, and we may have a few stickers left over. So if you want to send us another Apple Podcast review, send that to my rock fight@gmail.com. We'll get you a sticker, but please rate us five stars wherever you're listening. And Justin, what are some other ways that our listeners can reach out to us? We would love an email. Send your email to us at My Rock fight@gmail.com. You can also navigate over to Instagram, part of the meta family of Disturbingly Evil, things that probably shouldn't exist. We're over there@rockfight.co.
(03:36):
And then you can sign up for our newsletter, which comes out every Sunday. Right call on every Sunday, every Sunday Zone 6:00 AM Pacific Zone tag at Deutch 6:00 AM Pacific. I didn't realize that. I'm usually asleep. Head over to rock fight.co and click on join the mailing list. And please, please, please do not forget to check our other podcast, the OG podcast, the Rock Fight First podcast ever recorded. A lot of people don't know that that's true for the best outdoor industry and adventure sports commentary, and you can find the rock fight wherever you're listening to this podcast. Well, hey man, I don't know about you, but I'm ready to crack open a beer and talk about some gear. So Justin, as our official cone, why don't you tell us what we're drinking while we're droning on about multifaceted knives and such? What are we drinking today, buddy?
(04:24):
Alright, so because multi tools, I really almost said multipass. There's a lot going on right there could be a whole lot going on depending on the brand that you have and how big it is. So we picked a beer today that has also kind of a lot going on. It's a pineapple orange coconut sour, and that's the name. They didn't even sugarcoat. They didn't put a cool name on it. It's not called like, yep. Nope, it's not called. I don't know. Anything kind of fun. That's what you're getting. Pineapple orange, coconut sour. It's you noticed it's limited. It's a limited release sour. It's from a Smud Nose Brewing company, which is in New Hampshire, correct call. Yes it is. Yes, it is. What part of New Hampshire? Seacoast area. Seacoast area. I think they're in Hampton. Based in Hampton. Hampton, yeah. Oh, I nailed that. Look at that.
(05:06):
Hampton, did you say? Nah, that's a beach town. You would like Hampton. Hampton Beach is the biggest, most popular beach you like. When I was down in, I did a little driving into the Northern New Hampshire zone when I was in Maine. Anyway, Smoy knows I've heard of, they've been around for a while now. Sy knows. Kind talked somebody, noses. Come over here for a second. I need to have a word with you. Smiley nose. Fix your website, smile nose your website. Doesn work. Your website's broke. Well, at least when I was trying, it wasn't loading all the way and I tried a bunch this morning. I got, oh, there it goes. Yeah. Are you able to pineapple, orange, coconut, sour. Yeah. I see again, it says drift away to a sandy beach with this pain killer inspired sour. No umbrella garnish needed. I'm sorry, painkiller.
(05:48):
Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. See? No, mine won't do anything. Mine won't load the, what are you using there? Chrome? Yeah, I'm on safari. Doesn't like safari, I guess. Well, it says it's our version of your favorite tropical treat with a tart twist. The sweet pineapple and coconut notes are balanced by the orange citrus base and the creamy lactose finish. I don't think lactose should be used in marketing copy. No, also not with citrus. That's kind of a weird, well, it's coconut I guess. Is the lactose something? I don't know. I don't know. Lactose is milk, right? Lactose. Yeah. It's also not sort of, it's a part of milk. It's a protein that you'll get in milk. It's also not unusual to have lactose in beer. So sour are weird. Obviously sours can be, you can make a beer sour in a lot of different ways, usually by using Bri yeast, which we'd love to call just Brett in the sort of beer world.
(06:38):
But there's other things you can do to make a beer sour. And these, this is Chico yeast. It says Chico yeast. It says that. That's what it says on the website. Cool. I've never heard of that. That's awesome. So yeah, that's what makes a beer sour, by the way. It's typically either, well, it's either the yeast or you can, sometimes they do screw around with bacteria and stuff like that, but that's obviously hard to deal with. And usually bacterial sour is something has gone wrong, but not always. It's complicated folks. You will like the tagline, it ends. It says so delicious. You'll be ready to kick up your feet and crack into a sip of sour paradise. That sounds kind of dirty, but then it writes. No shirt, no shoes, no problems. That's kind of your, basically, that's how you feel. I'm not wearing shoes right now.
(07:26):
I am wearing a shirt, but I don't have to be wearing one. You've done the podcast shirt list before it's happened. I probably have. Yep. Well, what do you think? Should we crack it open? Yeah, let's do it. This is the first time either of us have tried this, so fingers crossed. I think it's going to smell like a pina colada, right? Don't you think? I would think so. Pineapple and I brought a little glass. Are we pouring in a glass or are we just going to Yeah, you got to see what it looks like in a glass. Oh shit. I started open already opened. Okay, here we go. Okay. It smells a little bit like a pina colada, but it mostly just smells like beer. Yeah, almost like, yeah, it just smells like beer. That's a good sign. Looks like a beer. We're off to a good start. Yeah, just kind of yellowy golden. Pretty golden. Like a light golden. Okay. You get a whole lot more coconut when it's in a glass. All right. Cheers, buddy.
(08:20):
Oh, there's the coconut. Yeah, and there's the sour. It's a light sour and there's the pineapple. Wow, I really like that. Yeah, that's good. This is definitely a hot day by the pool. A BV is 6%, I think it said 5.7. 5.7. Yeah. It's a good beer. Definitely a hot weather beer. Or maybe it's the depth of winter. Do you want to pretend like you're in the islands? But yeah, I could drink a whole bunch of that. I'm going to put that away for now. That's really good. Good. Yeah. Well good. Let's sip this while we talk about multitool. So moving into the gear, so we're talking about the category multitool. The kind of history of that with us is one of the first times Justin came on a long, long time ago, before he was a regular co-host, was to talk about your feelings on Multitool or like, oh, let's dig into it.
(09:06):
Because a weird category. I always felt like with multi tools, it's a thing that you want. Even right now, as I was researching this and looking at things for this episode, everyone I looked at, I'm like, oh, that'd be cool to own that. There's just an inherent draw to the product and the gear. But then I've probably owned, I'm not a professional gear tester like you are, and every other multi tool I've owned, which is not that many, I probably don't know where they are. And it probably never really felt like I had a need for it, especially when want to go outside. So kind of an interesting category, but where did you want to start with the category? Well, first things first, when we're talking about multi tools, we're mostly talking about, we're not, we talking about bike multi tools, a whole different Swiss Army knife, or are we talking about Swiss Army?
(09:50):
Enough councils tool. Oh, okay. Yeah. But a bike multitool is a little bit different because you actually have a specific need for each of those things at some point while you're dealing with a bike and is always a good idea to have with you. That's true. I use my bike multitool a lot, I think. But when I'm thinking of multi, I'm thinking of Leatherman, I'm thinking of Gerbers, I'm thinking of the very standard PLI found based pocket knife deal, not like a bike, which, but we can talk about that. It's like little hex wrenches or whatever that is. Yeah, the kind of thing where some people just carry them around with them as an everyday carry because you guess you'll just never know when you're going to need 'em. One thing that a lot of people, probably a couple of things that I don't think very many people know, one leatherman is named after the founder.
(10:34):
You knew that already, Colin. But I mean, no, you told me that. You know, I'm sure you were the one who told me that. Tim Leatherman. How wild is that? It sounds like such a good name for a multitool. It sounds like something from, I think you should leave Sketch. It's like, yeah, this is Tim Leatherman. You're like, shut up. That's not, that's not his really? Yeah, he didn't look like his last name would be leatherman. He also probably doesn't look like the kind of person you would, he doesn't look like Nick Erman from the Parks and Rec or whatever. He looks like an engineer. And you could call him multi to Ron Swanson and be like, that makes sense. But I thought that was awesome. But Leatherman's the best known, and I don't know how long they've been around. I mean obviously not that long because Tim Leatherman's still around, so I dunno, a few decades at least, but they're the best known.
(11:14):
1983 is when Tim Leatherman sold his first pocket survival tool. See, what do you think that you'd think if you had to guess, you'd probably say, oh, Leatherman's been around for a hundred years. It just feels like that kind of a brand. I would've thought that. Which is, they don't really lean into the heritage thing, but that's kind of what I would think just going into it. Yeah, you'd think that it was something invented by a Jeremiah Johnson type person. Absolutely. Well, that's the thing is Multitool have been around four thousands of years, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising, but it kind of is literal, literally thousands of years, literally thousands of years. I wrote about multi tools for AJ a year or so ago and blown away. I mean, let's a little jump around a little bit. So Leatherman came out in 83, but I guess the granddaddy of Multitool is probably the Swiss Army knife, probably the first one you ever got.
(12:13):
And so those came out in the same way that I think bike multi tools don't really count because they have a very specific purpose. They're designed to do specific thing, not just be kind of a fun assortment of tools that you might or might not need. The So Army Knife was also designed for a very specific reason that came out in roughly the 1890s because the Swiss army had a new rifle and the whole point of the rifle was that it was really easy to fix. If you had a screwdriver, you could do almost anything you needed to if you had a screwdriver with you. And so basically the Swiss Army approached an engineer to say, Hey, can you make a pocket knife that had a screwdriver so that our soldiers can fix their rifles in the field? And so he was like, sure. And it would also be dealt if it had a way to open a can to eat food and maybe a reamers, which is a punch, so they could maybe fix their clothes.
(13:08):
They can all in a way. So maybe they could sew some leather together. That was it. And all those things are things that soldiers needed and it made a lot of sense. And you had to have that scrooge to fix your gun. And so that's where it got the start. This guy, Carl Elsner, was the engineer and he ended up founding the brand Victorian Ox, which is still around and still mixed with army knives, the little red plastic handled ones that you've probably owned. Other was a kid wanting one of those so bad, mostly because of the tweezers and the toothpick more than anything else. It's so cool. You could pull that out. I dunno, who cares? But again, back to the point, the attractiveness of the category and the products. It's just something about Neat that you just want one. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where, that's sort of, again, I would say that's probably the granddaddy of the mall, but they're older.
(13:56):
The first, yeah, because that's only, you said 1890s, right? The first known reference to something like this is actually oddly enough, is in Moby Dick, Herman Melville talks about in Moby Dick, Herbert Herbert, Herman Melville mentions some of the carpenter, like a carpenter on the ship having something called a Sheffield contrivance. So I looked into that and basically in the 1850s and before, there were all these multi tools for different things. Carpenter had some that had rulers and wire gauges. Rich dudes would have some that they're all grooming tools. So how are they attached to each other? What do you mean? Same way? Say like a hinge. A hinge at the base. Yeah, it's a pretty common, it's not a difficult feat of engineering to make a multi-tool. Interesting. And so aristocrats would roll around with ones that had mustache combs and earwax spoons and fingernail trimmers and all that sort of stuff. Terrible combination of workers. I know. Ear wax spoon. Yeah, that's what they mean.
(15:00):
Little grooming tools that you could roll around. If we start a band though, can we call it the Sheffield Contrivance? Because that'd be a great band be It's got to exist already. But they were also sort of this a badge of wealth. So you could get ones that had literally 75 blades, just different blades. That's all. They were big. These are obviously large. How big was this thing? Yeah, these are obviously big, but just like 75 different sides of blades. In fact, if there was one of my favorite onion headlines, I think there was an actual little article, I can't remember. It could have just been one of those funny headlines. It was a reference to a Gillette ad and it was like, fuck it, we're doing five blades or something like that. And so that was title of the article. It was like, fuck it.
(15:42):
We're doing 75 blades. And it was just kind of going into how that's find these apparently either in Family Heirlooms or whatever, these things just bristling with blades, but they were just to show off your wealth that you could afford one. Well, not to derail, as I'm sure it sounds like you're going to keep going even further back in time, but isn't that one of the things where, and kind of say, oh, I'll have a leatherman or a multitool and I'll throw it in a box because it's ultimately I just need a knife. I have one knife. We'll do 90% of why I have this multi. Exactly. Which is, it's the weird thing about this. Yeah, I, and that's get to why I kind of don't really care about really, you just need a knife. But even back then, people were like, let's around as many things in here as we can.
(16:28):
But yeah, the thousands of years ago thing is that basically we know that at least 1800 years ago, there were some floating around Southern Europe and you'll find them, and they're usually food, kind of food-based. The first one that we ever found is made of silver and iron. It has a little blade, a pick, a spike, a fork and a spatula. And it had a little hinge, the base that they all folded around. And then there was a spoon as well. But it's like even then you have to wonder, did they use all of those? They probably used the fork and the knife and that was it. The knife, they've been around for 2000 years. So I mean it's pretty interesting that it was as soon as they figured out. So we've been infatuated with taking multiple pieces of metal that do very specific things and somehow attaching them together. Yes. For 2000 years rather than just carrying a knife and a fork.
(17:26):
But yeah, they been around. They've been around forever, which is interesting. I mean, it's cool. That's super interesting. Yeah, it's super cool. So yeah, there we go. Alright, so you go all the way back to middle Roman times to get to the fact that these things have been existed forever. And so then let's bring it back to modern day. Clearly the leatherman dominates the market. This is what they're known for. If you say leatherman is now the Kleenex, rollerblade, bandaid, whatever. The brand has supplanted the category of Multitool. Yes. Right. You got to be holding a Gerber and be like, oh, nice leatherman. Right? That's just kind of where we are with that. Yep. And then I mentioned Gerber. Is there anyone else? Is there anyone else that is consequential in this space? Well, the people that make the headlamp that you can talk to Coast, they seem to think that They told us that they predate leather and they might, I don't know.
(18:15):
We couldn't find the evidence of that. They told us at an outdoor retailer, so we're an outdoor retailer. We stopped in the coast booth because a few weeks ago on the rock fight, Justin and I mentioned the headlamp that you can use voice commands to activate and make it do certain things and we got to see it in person. And while we're there, it's this brand called Coast. They're based also in Oregon, which is where leatherman is based, and there's a whole wall of knives and multi-tool and everything else. And we're like, oh, you do other things. And yes, the nice lady in the booth explained to us, said actually they predate leatherman in terms of multi tools. Now if you go to Coast website, they don't play this up at all that I could find anyway. There's nothing on their website that says the original or the first multitool. If you figured they'd kind of talk about that at some point they don't. But to your point, I guess I still believe them. Otherwise, why would she say that?
(19:03):
I mean, it also doesn't really matter. I mean that's true. If you read the leatherman literature, Tim seems, it seems clear he just kind invented the thing, but obviously he didn't. No, he didn't because they've been around for 2000 years. So I'm sure a lot of people have this idea at various points and probably thought that they were the first to just some dominate the market and others. I mean, Gerber, yes. Leatherman, yes. There are definitely other brands that make them besides obviously Coast does too. I don't know if CRKT does, they're a big knife brand I really like a lot. For all I know they make some, if you go to Walmart or Big Five, this is trillion cheap brands out there. I would assume Leatherman's the biggest selling in the world, but for all I know it's be whatever. It could also be the one that's five bucks at every single bass Pro Shops cash register.
(19:48):
Maybe those are the biggest selling ones. I don't know. Well, if you go, I am on Leatherman's website and for number one he sing just this kind of explains a lot. They just look super cool. Don't, it's the triangle shape if it's just all the different blades when they're popped out. So there's something that the possibility Beck and Colin, they really do. And I'm not a handy person. And even if I were, you're a handy person and you don't tend to use these. We'll get into that in a minute. The one thing that I will want to give, throw leather in a bone specifically, we talk a lot about naming conventions on both our podcasts and how usually a lot of brands are not doing a good job with that. Leatherman is fucking killing it. Alright, you got the Arc, you got the Wave signal, surge Raptor, rescue Skeletal.
(20:34):
Not a single number in there. Oh, super Tool 300 and they have one. It's not on their website. I dunno if it's been dropped, but I saw this earlier. They have a model called Mr. Crunch. I don't know if there's a better product name in the outdoor space than Mr. Crunch. Wait, they have a bottle called Mr. Crunch? No, it's a leatherman. It's a tool and it's called Mr. Crunch. Mr. Crunch must have some sort of Mr. Crunch. Is that like a nut? Can you like crush nuts? I don't care. It's amazing Crack. We should have the word Mr or Miss or whatever and more names and all sorts of products. They also have one called Mutt. Looks like they have That's a good one too. Yeah, there's definitely I think some that I've owned that are no longer sold, which is interesting. I've owned a ton of leatherman. Have we? Yeah, we need to get that figured that one out. Is it leatherman? It's also tell us about your personal experience. Oh, is it plural? Leatherman. Leatherman. Leatherman. Probably not Leatherman. No Leatherman's because it's a name. It's a name.
(21:32):
Yeah. So the one I have that I use, I have a couple, but the one that I actually use the most is the wave. My wife got that for me 10 years ago because she thought it, I'm a surfer. I'd probably like the wave and it's pretty basic. It's just like the kind of stainless steel. I don't remember if the blades opened from weird places or not. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Imagine a multi-tool. That's the wave. Well, I remember when the wave launched, actually when I was working at Eastern Mountain Sports in the nineties. And the whole thing about it was a lot of outdoor shops have the knife nerds, right? They play with a spider co all day long or whatever. It had a kind of thumb opening sort of blade in it in the wave. I don't know if it still does or that being the sort of defining feature of a leatherman with that kind of blade that kind of came out. So okay. It could be. Yeah. I mean I can't really think of anything about it that's unique other than I've never lost it, which is cool.
(22:31):
But the other one I've had that I use a little bit is the leatherman free, which is a little bit different in that it's designed to be used with one hand. So you can actually open its magnet. It's either the way that it's all attached with each other or something like that is magnetic, not necessarily mechanical. And so you can actually open the blade with one hand. You can close it with one hand. That's the idea because usually almost inevitably to open a blade on a and you need use two hands. So that was kind of the idea behind the free and it's fine. It's cool. But again, I've used the pliers and the knife, Colin. That's it. Well, we'll get into that in a second before we get into the, let's call it the politics of multi tools. Before we get into discourse, how's your beer?
(23:19):
Oh man, it's 85 degrees outside right now. I'm feeling really bad for the construction workers I'm looking at in jeans and sweaters. They're not sipping on a pineapple orange, coconut sour. You know what? I poured it in a glass. God, I wish I was in Hawaii. Colin let's this. It's getting a little warm. It actually does. Well, warm flavor opens up. Flavors open up. Yeah, that's the thing about beer, dude. Everybody wants it to be super cold. You want a super cold glass, but beer tastes better when it's not freezing cold. People love to make fun of going to England and the beers are warm. They're not warm, they're just not as cold as we have them because actually you want to be able to taste it. All the esters and the other terms I'm forgetting now, they're released when it's cold. Don't, you can't taste it as well.
(24:04):
So it's nice to let a beer warm a little bit, not warm. Is that universal? Is that all different types of beers? I think not necessarily. Not necessarily. Sour seems like it lends itself more to that. Yeah. Okay. So a little kind of a thing with sour beers is you can drink sour beers at room temp if you drink. Do you know, I don't want to get too bougie here. Do you drink natural wines? Are you familiar with natural wines? I'm not a big wine guy or orange wines. Do you have any idea what the hell I'm talking about? No. I've never even heard of orange wine. So orange wine is a wine that has a funk to it has a bit of a sourness to it for a lot of the same reasons. I'm not a wine expert, so I don't quite remember exactly why that's the case.
(24:44):
And the natural wines often have the same kind of thing going on. A little bit of, there might be some yeast that wasn't supposed to be in there and it kind of funks it up a little bit. But they will often have either a super funky flavor or a sour flavor. And so beers can, a really sour beer usually doesn't have that much carbonation and you can straight up drink those at room temp, but it's fine. It's like drinking a funky wine. Is there any correlation between a cider and a sour? No. Cider is just made with fruit. That's what I kind of feel like with some of the more, I don't know. Sour, sour flavored cider. I don't mind as much you. That's interesting. I've never thought about that. I mean, you're probably getting some of the acids that are in, because fruit has acid and so you're probably getting a little bit of that in there, I would suppose.
(25:28):
But also, fruits have different kinds of yeast. And it might be, that might lend itself well more toward the sort of sour end of the spectrum. But I don't know. Is this why we paired it? Because it's like you're sour on multitool or is this a No, because there's pineapple orange coconut. I know. And sours four. It's four. Four things in one. It's four things in one. Pox pox, but not like a Pox O Cs. This beer could be just a pineapple. It could just be like a pineapple lager. It could just be an orange lager or something. It could, I really like it. Or ale could just be a coconut. But no, it's all of those. It's a multiple flavors in one beer. It's a multi-tool of a beer. It's funny for how just bey it smelled when we opened it and how just almost fruity it tastes drinking it.
(26:14):
So that's interesting. Well, before we keep going, we need to mention our new teammates at Darby Communications, don't we Colin? I think so. I think we should. If you run an outdoor endurance or active lifestyle brand, there really is no better PR and digital marketing belay partner or beer drinking buddy than Darby. They can help your business reach new heights. They can help you reach new heights. If you need a boost up to a higher shelf, they can literally make you taller, I think. Yeah. Yeah. They pioneered that surgery where people are lengthening their femurs and stuff. A lot of people don't know that that's a Darby thing. Do you have to do equal femur and shin bone? Don't know. Don't know. It's a good question. We should. I feel like you would have to, right? Otherwise are you going to, now you're super long femur.
(26:53):
Yeah, I guess you probably do. It's supposed to be the most painful thing you can do. Yeah, sounds great. Just be okay being short. Maybe that's well easy for us to say. That's true. Especially you so they can help your business reach new heights and they just might keep you from falling on your ass. Look, if they can help us and they really have, they can help anybody. But guys seriously reach out to Darby. They're great. They help us a lot. We love them. Maybe they can help us explain why people feel like they need to have leathermans when they go camping. Well, so let's talk about that. Right? So I want to get into your opinions on it because I love the honesty of it, but think about the role they play in the outdoors. How does that all, I don't know. Does it play a real role in the outdoors?
(27:36):
I mean in the sense that people seem to feel like they need to have one. I mean, there was a really long time where if I was going to go camping, I have to make sure I had a multi-tool. I used to take 'em backpacking. A lot of people still do, which is odd. I can't think of a single time I've ever needed pliers while in the backcountry, except maybe if I'm fishing and I don't have my fishing gear, sometimes I'll bring a leatherman if I know I'm going to use, okay. So there are times where it does make sense. A lot of my backcountry exploits are based around fly fishing, and if I don't have forceps to help remove the hook, I'll use pliers. And I'll usually have leatherman with me just for that possible part. Or I don't feel like bringing all my fishing shit.
(28:18):
So I'll just bring a leatherman because I want to lose my forceps. And so sometimes I'll use it for that sort of stuff. But I mean, for the most part, every single time I brought a il, it was a total waste of time. I'd use it to cut salami or cheese and I'm just using the blade. You just use the knife? Yeah. This is heavy ass knife. When I have other fixed blade knives that are way lighter and way easier to use, or even just folding knives and that's all, it's is just a knife. And after five years of carting around a multiple of the time, it just was like, what am I doing here? And I honestly don't think I've ever used, I probably have used the can opener to open a beer maybe or to open a bottled beer bottle opener. I guess I should say I've probably used that, but I don't need to.
(29:03):
Well, and that's kind of what I mean when I ask about the role in the outdoors because it is sort of found its way to be just one of those items. Honestly, if you were going to get a new kit, you're a new outdoor enthusiast and you're building your kit, I wouldn't be surprised to like, well, I have to get a leatherman or I have to get a multi right. That's how it was for me. That's how it was for me. It's not enough just to get a knife or something like that. Totally. And there's such, there are oddly specific things, but I don't know. This frankly goes back to the history of it of this is just something I think people want. I don't know. You know what I keep in the southern console of my truck is a pair of actual pliers and an actual fixed bladed knife or fixed blade knife, which is probably more versatile because you can do more with that knife.
(29:46):
I'm sure. That's the other thing. It's like, okay, yeah, I have a multitool and it has 20 shitty versions of tools and a lot of those knives don't lock either, by the way. So you're right. And it's also virtually impossible to pull the little, I don't care what, I don't care what engineering marvel they've figured out this time. Yeah, try to get the little Phillips out without pulling a fingernail off. But again, also just have a screwdriver or also think about the fact that you're not going to use a screwdriver in the woods. I mean, you're just not mean. There's no reason I could see it if you were on one of those shows where you have to build something and all you can bring is maybe you get a fanny pack worth of gear or something, some sort of weird survival show. Sure. But I mean, I can't think of a single time when I'm camping or I couldn't just bring a toolbox.
(30:38):
If I'm backpacking, I don't need it anyway. It just makes no sense to me. Yeah, I'm sure there's someone out there yelling through their headphones or their speakers at us right now because yeah, they're yelling. You're right. Oh my God, you're right. But even there's applications beyond outdoor. Obviously this is an outdoor podcast, so please skip that in mind while you're yelling at us. The other thing though is when my daughter got her a license, we kind of built a little kit for her car with jumper cables and whatever, just to have emergency stuff to have in her car, throwing a multitool in there. Sure, I get that. A lot of versatility in one small spot. But if I'm building my kit, I mean, think about through hikers, right? How many times do you hear about even seasoned through hikers, they get to that first main stop on the AT or whatever and they just shed gear and just take things out.
(31:27):
Don't need this. Don't that. That's how every backpacker is. You either do a through-hike like that, or you backpack for a few years. You have the same experience. Sure. Right. Exactly. But I'm just, or you want to have just nice, a solid lock blade knife. It something that's easy to use and very versatile. Or do you want to have this kind of chunky thing that's kind of barely useful? I mean, I get it. They're cool. They're super cool. They look badass. They're very cool. It's like a transformer you can use. Right? I never thought of the transformer. I That's really smart. The only reason I thought about that is I just walked past the movie theater in my town and there's a poster for Transformer. The one, and I haven't seen this yet, and it looks like it's the transformers from the transformers of the movie.
(32:10):
The animated one. The real one. It's like that era, like Hot Rod, or I'm sorry, emus Prime Gal, viron and I forget the girl's Transformers. Actually, I saw the trailer for it last night before out. Is it drawn animated or CGI animated or both? It's probably CGI animated, but guess who's, do you know who's playing Optimus Prime? Oh, Chris Emsworth. Really? Yeah, it, well, not Optimus. Is Optimus in it. Oh my God. Is it, or so this is an origin. Optimus and Megatron are actually kind like boys. Optimus always getting mega trot in trouble. It's not RMUs Prime. No. And so they literally, they can't transform. They're lower level cyberon or something like that. And then they get the ability to transform. They better not transform into a fucking truck and a gun, do they? I don't know. I don't think so because that's not, they're on cybertron how work?
(32:58):
Yeah, they only learned. Do you remember? So we suckered all of you, and this is actually a deep canon war for Transformers podcast. Let's go. This is very important. Do you remember how they learned how to transform into what they transform into? Was that in Transformers, the movie? No, it's in the very first episode of Transformers. Don't they just scan something similar size? Exactly. They crash land on earth. And I think it's the autobot ship sends up a little drone thing and it's like, oh, I'm sorry they crashed land on earth a fucking long time ago. But then there's an eruption or a volcano or something happens and they pop up and scan stuff. It's like, oh, a truck, A plane, or whatever. And that's how they learned how to, so he wouldn't have been transforming into a giant truck on Cybertron. I just want to point that out.
(33:48):
Well, how would we rate multi tools? Well, the stuff ter one, in terms of need to exist. I mean, honestly, I don't think they need to exist. Well, that's a really good point. The best case scenario is it's convenient, right? Yeah. No, you're like, oh, you got to have a, okay, maybe you know what? Maybe a five is better because it's like if you need it, you really need it, but you almost certainly don't. So it probably averages out to a five. Actually. I think five might be the ceiling, right? Because it, is it ever going to be more important than that? I don't know. That's what I mean. I think Well, if that averages out, you'd think there's some eight or nine use cases, scenarios. I think it's either 10 where you have to have it, thank God I had it, or it's zero.
(34:30):
I never did anything other than use the knife. So I think it slots in a solid five, maybe four. I don't know. Alright. I mean individual ones, fuck yeah, dude, there's tens out there for sure in terms of on its own merit compared to other multi tools. Sure. Right. But in terms of we're talking is a category episode, right? I think the five might be the best way to get that was generous. If I went into my garage right now, I'm not going to purge myself of the three or four multitool I have because I dunno, they're cool. But I guarantee you I'm not going to use anything other than the pliers. The pliers are badass. I mean, they make good pliers. I'd almost rather because they fit in your hand real nice in sometimes in some ways. I'd almost rather use a leatherman pliers than a dedicated set of pliers occasionally.
(35:13):
Yeah, I can see that. They're nice. And the ones that have wire cutters baked into the base of the pliers, that's cool too. But it also has that wire cutters, so I just, it's like there's not an argument to be made unless you really are thinking that you're just going to walk into a construction site and the only tool you can use is a multitool. All right, I guess. Well, you just take your mic outside and go ask the guys next door like, Hey, would you guys use this and hold one up? See what they say. Actually, that's not a bad idea, to be honest.
(35:40):
But anyway. Yeah, I mean, whatever. Have one. They're cool. Have one. I get it. But you don't need one. Well, kind of like a sour beer to be honest. It's fine. You don't need No, I think a sour beer is way more valuable than a multitool. Maybe I would drink this again in a heartbeat. That would be, oh, love the beer is great. I'm going to enjoy the rest of this tonight. It's a good beer. What if we went out, we would say we're at Hampton Beach and it's like one of those 95 in humid days on the east coast and we're sitting outside just at the beach. God, it's good. It's weird. It's really good. As it warms up, you get other things. Now it's really pineapple. Let's have one more. When it was colder, it was super coconutty. I love how good this is.
(36:19):
As it warms up, it's such a rare thing. I like to say that I understand your point about them being warmer, but there are beers. We always reference Budweiser. Budweiser's against warmer. That cold? Yeah. You like, no, sorry, I waited too long. Guess I'm not finishing this beer. Loggers don't do as well in that because also loggers are brewed cold. That's probably has something to do with it. Cold brewed cold brooded. Well, let's rate the beers, right? So now we've tough. So are tough. So are tough. We've tighten some screws, right? We've whittled a snick, a stick into some modern art. We've adjusted the derailer on our mountain bike. I feel like you come up with words that aren't words a lot. SNCC is a good one. Is that a word? That might be a word. Let me look that up. So some people use sncc.
(36:58):
Okay. That's kind of what I thought. It's another you can, NIC and SNCC are kind of the same word, Nick. Yeah. Like I nick myself with a razor. You can say snick. Oh yeah. Well, I don't think that's, I prefer Nick. I prefer Nick. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Anyway, we've used our multi-tool. Now we're going to go open up those pineapple shoulda have opened our beers with multi tools. Well, that would've been smart. That would've been so smart. It would've been overkill. Fuck. Or Dave on that one? Dave, come on. You dropped the ball on that one buddy. Some of a bitch, Dave. So we're now we're opening our somebody nose, pineapple, orange, coconut sour, which I kind of respect the length of it, but even if it is a mouthful, what are we rating this guy? Okay. Gosh, gosh, you're not a sour guy.
(37:41):
How does this rate in the pantheon of sours that you've tried? Is this pretty high up? No, it's not. I mean, it's good, but sours are weird. I don't love sour beers, but if you come across a really good one that's really well done. That can be a revelatory experience. This is a very solid sour overall. Let get another little SNCC of this one here. Oh, I'll have a snick with you. I really like that a lot because I'm not a giant sour beer fan. I have to put it at a seven, which is good. It's a good beard. Oh seven on the nose. Yeah, it's a good beard. I'm 8.1. Yeah, you like sours. This is one of my favorite beers that we've tried. I've liked a lot of the beers that we've had. That's cool to know. Actually. I don't dislike sos by any stretch of imagination, but it's cool that you're into sos.
(38:30):
I think that's neat. A lot of people hate them. Alright, so we're going to rate multi-tool A five. Just going to go with you on this one. I think that's probably the right way to go. You gave the beer the Sud nose, pineapple orange, coconut sour a seven. I gave it an 8.1 on the gear and beer, beer scale. Any final thoughts on multitool or this lovely sour that we're sipping? I just don't want people to think that I'm anti leatherman or something like that. I love the brand Good stuff. It's a weird one. It really is not. And it's necessarily, I don't think it's controversial to say anything you've said. Clearly there's something to it. Given the history of the category. What other category are we going to talk about? Where we're talking about something that happened 2000 years ago? Probably not much shoes, right?
(39:14):
I mean, I could see someone sent you a photo of their dad's collection of Coleman Lanterns, right? Oh, my buddy Chad. Yeah. He's got all those Coleman lanterns. I guarantee there's people that collect multi tools and I can see myself doing that knife collectors and everything out there. Of course, this is any sort of hardware and I can see myself doing that. They're cool. I mean, they are a cool thing. As soon as we're done, I'll probably go play with the two I have. I see that it's more as like that's just your version of collecting baseball cards to comic books. Exactly. That's what I mean. They're They're neat. I get why people like 'em neat. In a way, the lantern's an interesting comp because it is kind of a thing with all the, like you said, we can just have your phone these days.
(39:53):
You don't need the lantern. You're choosing. I'm choosing to use it because it feels good to me. So maybe, right. And you could say that a multi-tool is sort of overrated, but there might be other people who are out there again screaming at their radio right now going, shut the fuck up guys. You don't know what you're talking about. I use this thing all the time and here's how I do it. That could be, I will say that the light from an actual physical flame is a bit different and that's why I like it. That's true. Seriously, it's different. Which is cool. It's different. And also there isn't a person on earth who, if you hand them an actual Phillips head screwdriver or the tiny little bit or the tiny one that's actually part of the leatherman or one of these ones that have a bit where you take it off and insert it into the end of the leatherman. No one's going to give me that one. Everyone's going to reach for the actual screwdriver. And again, pointless backpacking. And if you have a car, just put some fucking tools in it. I guarantee you, your life will be better as a camper if you have actual tools in your car. A hammer to hammers, tent stakes down, a real screwdriver, a real set of pliers, a real file. If you're ever going to use that for any reason. A real saw, no one's like, oh sweet. A three inch saw ever.
(41:04):
I mean if you got captured by Jigsaw and he didn't know you had it on you and you could saw yourself out of a trap, fuck yeah, but he's thorough because they knock you out before he ties you up and everything. He's going to pat you down. He was like a cavity search. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And especially if he's looking for saws with a name like that. Alright man, I think it's a cha for that. Is that it? Did we do it? That's it. We did it. We recorded episode 4,415 of Gear and Beer. God again, the original podcast. So what did you think of this edition of Gear and Beer? Do you have a suggestion for a future edition of Gear and Beer? We're taking suggestion guys. Yeah. Do you simply dislike Gear and Beer? Send an email to My Rock fight@gmail.com and let us know what you think. Gear and Beer is a production of Rock Fight LLC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin True. Our producer today was David Karta with Art Direction provided by Sarah. Sarah Genser. Sorry Sarah, I didn't mean to stumble on your name. Thanks for listening everybody and here to take us out. It's Krista Makes with the gear and beer theme song and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
We have experienced lots of tales to tell. Just like you're with your pal out on the trail. We review after Adventure Gear pair with the perfect beer. Now let the games begin. So glad that you are here at the break, the Trailhead. We're going to crack up by the beverage where we can celebrate those losses. We hope so close.