Today Colin & Justin are prepping for the apocalypse... 10 Barrel's Apocalypse IPA that is!
But before the end of the world arrives we first get Justin's review of the Softopper.
The Softopper eliminates the need for immovable and expensive camper shells while still giving you some piece of mind when you pull off at the fishing hole with a half loaded Yeti cooler in the back (this oddly specific example will make sense after you click play on this episode).
Then 10 Barrel Brewing month continues as their flagship brew, the Apocalypse, makes the perfect Softopper pairing.
Because that's what you get here on Gear & Beer... the pairings that matter most!
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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're 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 (00:28):
And I am still Justin Housman. I also spent over 20 years working for brands and makers in the outdoor industry.
Chris DeMakes (00:33):
Did you
Colin (00:34):
God so much. We don't know about each other. Yeah,
Justin (00:36):
Yeah, yeah. I'm 65 years old, so I did that before. I did what I do now.
Colin (00:42):
What is it you do
Justin (00:43):
Now? Well, I'm a journalist and a professional gear reviewer. I am the senior editor at Adventure Journal and maybe most importantly a certified beer expert slash
Colin (00:52):
Nerd. Yeah, we're changing this week. Last week still you have so many qualifications. Yeah,
Justin (00:57):
Probably
Colin (00:57):
Other ones. Where did you work in the outdoor industry?
Justin (01:00):
Some barston sand. Good burn. Yeah, they made really very good outdoor stem booth.
Colin (01:09):
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 dislikes. And then we take that piece of gear and we pair it with the perfect post activity beverage because Justin's a cone, which is a certified beer expert. It's a real thing. Guys, you can look it up. Alright, the bottom line is here. You'll get the pairings that matter most. Gear and beer. And Justin, what gear and what beer are we reviewing today?
Justin (01:37):
We are kicking it off with my favorite piece of vehicular modification I think I've ever done, which is my soft topper, miracle collapsible camper shell on my pickup. So apologies if you don't have a pickup. I guess this probably won't apply to you that much, but it's still so cool. I think you'll enjoy hearing about it.
Colin (01:54):
Maybe if you want to pick up and you were worried about.
Justin (01:57):
Yeah, good point. I don't have to buy a camper show caps because that's dumb. So yeah, that's very good point. And thanks to our friends at 10 Barrel Brewing, the we are on week two of fork consecutive weeks of 10 barrel beers. They reached out and they wanted to donate some suds to our cause. So I went to work as our head sis own and our pairings expert. And I picked four awesome products to go with what we presume are going to be four awesome beers. We know the first one was awesome. We loved last week's the cloudy
Colin (02:25):
Mentality. This one was so good. What's funny editing? Last week we both said that we didn't think our wives would like the cloud mentality. And then you texted me over the weekend, my wife
Justin (02:35):
Likes to speak. It's crazy. She won't even touch an IPA normally and it was 7% and she's pretty sensitive to high alcohol stuff, but man, she drank half of the six pack. I'm
Colin (02:45):
A little worried. A 10 barrel. I just want to let you know I am a little worried we started high. I mean that was really, it's going to be tough to
Justin (02:50):
Match that. Yeah, true, true. Well apparently this one is their flagship beer. The apocalypse dude.
Colin (02:56):
Yeah, it's the apocalypse. I dunno if we said that. Is it the apocalypse?
Justin (02:58):
The apocalypse apocalypse. You'd think it would be apocalypse or apocalypse or some kind of play on hops, but it's not. It's just apocalypse. Just a regular
Colin (03:06):
Apocalypse. Kudos a 10 barrel for not taking the easy road there. That would've been so easy to do. Well, before we get into Justin's breakdown of the soft topper, we have a couple of housekeeping items. First, we want you to sign up for Rock Fights newsletter because you'll like it. That's why you should do it. It's the kind of email that you like to receive. Second to all of our new listeners, welcome to the Rock Fight and to Gear and Beer. Now, if you could please click that follow button on Apple Podcast or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to us on. Follows, ladies and gentlemen, make the world a better place. So please do your part. And lastly, do you want to tell us about your favorite gear or beer or make suggestions for future episodes of gear and Beer? We want to hear from you. Send your suggestions and feedback to my rock flight@gmail.com. Alright, man, well let's get into it with this week's gear.
Justin (03:50):
Well, so as per usual with these, I have covered this before on investor journal. We made a really cool video of me driving around in Joshua Tree with a top up and down and halfway and all kinds of stuff. And I run through how much I like that. Yeah, we're going to link to it. So go check that out. I think there's a written review too, but you pretty much see all you need to see in the video. But I've had, gosh, I counted the other day. 1, 2, 4. This is my fourth pickup truck I think I've had in my entire life. And it's always the same process where I buy it and I'm like, this is so fun. Wow, look at this open bed. This is great. And the moment you put something in it and then in the bed, and then when it go somewhere, you're like, ah, shit, here it is world.
(04:37):
Here's my surfboard. It sucks. And so then you go drop what used to be two grand on a fiberglass camper shell, but now it's like four or five grand on a fiberglass camper shell if you want a fancy one and you have the security and stuff, but then you've basically turned your truck into more or less like an SUV with a hardened top without extra seating. And it's really hard to reach in and grab stuff in the front of the truck bed when you have a shell on it. And it's not, it's permanent. I mean, you can take 'em off, but you're not going to, I mean, I don't think I've ever taken off a camper shell on the back of my truck before. I mean, it's a huge pain in the ass. So I got a Nissan Frontier about I think two years ago this month and really did not want to put a camper shell on it.
(05:23):
I kind of knew I wasn't going to and I would just deal with it. And for a long time I did. I'd just go to the beach with the surfboards in the back and I'd only bring one surfboard. I couldn't leave a surfboard in the back of the truck. But what really pushed me over the edge was I was camping. I don't know, probably the first summer I had it and I was on the way back from my favorite little zone at Eastern Sierra and I went up over Monitor Pass, which is Highway 89 in northern California. So shout out to anybody who knows that it's pretty sweet road. And I dropped down to do a little fly fishing right next to the highway and I mistakenly assumed that there was a fisherman's code. You were only parking here if you were fishing. That's it.
(06:05):
There was no other reason to park on this little strip. And there were two other vehicles in front of me and I'm like, all right, this should be fine. And it was a pretty open stretch of highway. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but you couldn't see the road. You had to clamor down to the creek. And so I was down there, I fished for maybe an hour and I had everything. And I was coming home, thank God I was coming back, but I had everything in my truck all exposed and including my Yeti cooler, which in retrospect was stupid. I wasn't down there that long before I heard. I heard a clunk and then boom, engine start and leave really fast, like a super fast engine start to drive it away situation. I'm like, ah, shit, hopefully that wasn't what I thought it was.
(06:45):
And I come back up and sure enough that yet he's gone. And it sucked. I was so mad. I had a few beers left, some food I didn't eat that I was going to eat later. I usually buy an insane amount of food even on my solo camping trips. But I was like, oh, I can't do that anymore. This sucks. It never feels good when you have the better your truck loaded up with stuff. You park at the grocery store or something on the way to wherever you're going and you're just praying that nobody nabs your shit while you're in the store. So I had seen pickups of soft tops around, and if you're not familiar, they are basically a super heavy duty canvas fabric stretched over an aluminum frame. And I'd seen 'em around and I thought, you know what? Let's give it a shot.
(07:29):
And so I was a little bit bummed to see that they're like 900 bucks, which is a lot of money, but it's still way cheaper than a fiberglass shell. And I kind of didn't know what to expect. The idea with them is that the frame, you can do a lot of different things with it. When it's on and it's stretched tau, it looks just like a normal camper shell. But you can tell that it's fabric and then you can either roll the sides up and kind of clip 'em as they're rolled up. And so it almost looks, I call it safari style. I don't know if they do or not, but so it kind looks like a safari Jeep Wood where you have a canvas roof, but open sides. And that's how it is right now. It's like that all summer for the most part.
(08:11):
And then you can also just push the whole frame forward and it completely collapses on itself and just kind of stows away behind at the front of the bed of your truck, which is absolutely genius. It's such a brilliant thing and it's easy. It takes seconds and you can do it a million times. It's not like it's a big production, like, oh shit, I got to unfold or refold the thing. It's really simple. And so when you want that experience of having the open bed or you need it, you want to put something tall or whatever in there, you just put the camper shell down when you want to protect everything that you have in there because raining or you're going to go into the store or something like that, you just extend it and close it up. There's downsides, it doesn't lock, but that's fine. But even if it did lock, someone really determined could get in there with a knife. And I've thought about ways to try to rig a lock for it, but I don't think you really can.
Colin (09:02):
But if you'd had that that day, because then your tailgate's locked, right? You're not getting that cooler. No,
Justin (09:05):
Nobody would've got, I mean, all you really have to do is unzip the window. They do make 'em, I believe without windows, but mine has a vinyl window in the back and you just have to unzip that and flip it forward and you get in there. But that's enough. I don't think, I mean obviously people would do that, but I don't think people would, that situation, someone wasn't going to unzip my zipper and then just see what was in there. And then it's kind of hard to be hard to get the Yeti out at that point. It would. It's
Colin (09:31):
Putting a club on your car back in the day. It's like a deterrent. There's ways to get past
Justin (09:34):
All of this, but you just walk by, whoop right out of the back into your truck, gone. Do
Colin (09:38):
You think those people feel guilty? I just can't imagine stealing. I understand the temptation in the moment, but I feel like if that was me three hours later I'm like, oh my God, I'm
Justin (09:46):
Such an asshole, asshole. I hate to, don't want to burn any bridges here. But the truck in front of me was jacked up and had a bunch of really aggressive automatic rifle stickers all over it. There were choices, and I don't know that it was them, and I don't have a problem with guns, but it looked like I was, I remember being like, eh, when I parked there and the only thing that makes me feel kind of good about the whole thing is a baby blue color. And I'm like, oh, there's no way. They're like, they probably hate the color at least. Oh, the cooler. The cooler baby. Yeah, it was like a baby blue one.
Colin (10:22):
What is the upside of a camper shell? So security. I'm the guy with my first, is that the only thing?
Justin (10:26):
That's the only thing. I mean security and I guess, and weatherproofing, I mean having an open bed, it's like, oh, if it's going to rain, you have all your camping and this is entirely for camping purposes I'm thinking. So if it's raining, that sucks. If it's snowing, that's fine. Unless if you get your stuff out in time. Otherwise it sucks. When it melts, it sucks. Right. Or even most of the time when I'm in the summer, I'm driving a long distance on dirt roads and stuff will get really dirty back there. So that's why, I mean, my trucks in the past always had 'em for surfboards because I could take four boards and just lock the camper shell and it's just like having a giant trunk. It just makes the truck really inaccessible when you have a permanent shell on it. I would never do that again.
(11:17):
You bought a truck for the bed, otherwise why do you have it? Right? And so if you're going to retrospectively now, I would just buy an SUV. If I was going to buy a truck with a hard and intending with a heart of the camper with an intention of putting a camper she on, you just fold the back seats flat and you basically have a truck bed and it's way easier to get into it and deal with it. And then when you want to have extra seating, you fold the seats back up. So to me it makes no sense to have a fiberglass shell on a truck. I mean, if you just want a truck and you don't care about that, that's fine. But I mean, get a four runner. Get something that has more utility than just permanently just being seating that you're never going to have an open truck bed again.
(12:01):
It is just so sweet to have an open truck bed. It's just awesome. You go on surfing, you stand in the back, you can put your suit on if you need to move something that's tall, just throwing bikes in the, I usually don't bother with a rack, I'll just put my bike in the back and put the always with a shell on it. You can do that, but it's, it's pain in the butt. It's just so much better. Plus the visibility is off the charts when you don't have a shell, it's really hard to see out of a truck with a shell. And that's pretty ingenious. Let's be real here. I mean a huge part of the fun of having a truck is leaning over the rail, right? Hell yeah. It's incredible. No matter what happens, if I'm in the front talking to a neighbor, both of us will end up without even realizing it, elbows over the truck rail just like talking to each other over the bed of my truck. No, no reason to be doing it, but you just can't help yourself.
Colin (12:50):
So this is my first truck. It's a little Ford Maverick. My kids have never been raised around trucks around anything. As soon as we brought it home, it's like, I want to get in the back. They got in the back, they immediately sat on the rail and then same thing. Yeah, if we're just sitting outside or whatever, both of us, whoever I'm talking to and ably start leaning on the side of the truck, such a joy. It's a weird instinctual thing that you don't even have to have it in your background. You'll just start
Justin (13:11):
Doing it. It's like having a bar. You just want to belly up to it
(13:14):
And there's nothing better than just sitting on the tailgate having a beer on the tailgate or whatever. Same thing. My girls love playing the bed of the truck in the summertime when I don't have it up. They absolutely love it. Now I do usually drive around with it in the safari mode. It looks badass. It looks so unique. Yeah, it looks cool. But also I have some stuff back there right now. I don't want to get burned by the sun. So you can have that there too. And that's probably how I'll sleep when we go camping. Actually, I'll probably have, I might have the top on, but not the sides. Well, so you may be wondering, will it fit mine? And probably they make 50 different models and they say they will fit like 99% of production trucks out there. They do make them for the Maverick, even though this is what the second year they've made Mavericks, my buddy down the street has an 89 or a 90 forerunner, like first gen cherry for runner, and he got one that fits his, which is pretty cool. So they do make them for SUVs that have removable tops like an old school forerunner does. What else do I have to say about this thing? Crawl.
Colin (14:18):
Do you have any questions? I did.
Justin (14:19):
What do you want to know? Watson
Colin (14:20):
Did some digging around earlier. So the price range is in that all of them are in 900 to 1100 bucks. Most of them are like 9 89, most of them. And there's a few that go a little higher.
Justin (14:28):
Yeah, 1100 is probably if you get the fancy extra windows.
Colin (14:31):
Right, they're available. You going to buy 'em direct at you? They were also on Amazon. Oh, interesting. I'm not sure if they're at other retailers. Yep. Yeah. How old are they? Do you know how long they've been around?
Justin (14:39):
They say that they don't have a date. They say that the idea started in the year 2000, but I dunno if that's when they first started selling 'em or not. But there's another brand and it's a little bit confusing called desktop sometimes you'll see that lying around. I saw that. And I've seen trucks that have best top campers. I think they made the same kind of thing and desktop just bought Smart or Soft Topper. And so now Top doesn't make their own anymore. They just sell Soft Topper. So I believe Soft Topper is owned by Best Top now, I believe. I believe. Yeah.
Colin (15:08):
Well, I think we're going to set an all time record on our stuff, ter, and talk about the category, because the only thing I found when I was Googling around was Btop, what you say, what it was called. Best, best Stop. Excuse me. Yeah, so who you think might be related somehow to Soft Topper. So it's kind of one
Justin (15:24):
Of one in a way. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about this. I have to give it a 10 out of 10 partially because it's literally my favorite. I mean, the only other thing that I would say is that I cherish as much or maybe off-Road tires. You kind of can't go wheeling without them or dedicated off-road shocks, which are pretty helpful. But other than that, for an actual modification, this is by far the most ingenious one I've ever had on any vehicle ever. It's transformative in terms of what it allows you to do. And effectively you kind of do, it sounds dumb. You kind of feel like you have two cars. You get tired of how a car looks, right? That's true. So if you have the fiberglass shell, you're going to get kind of bored of it and tired of it. So you know what throw forward, and it's that same truck you bought the first day. You saw it without the shell on it, and then eventually you get tired of it, not having the shell, shell goes back up. It's
Colin (16:13):
Great. So if you could have this or your bedrocks for the rest of your life, which one are you choosing?
Justin (16:20):
Bedrocks.
Colin (16:21):
What about your Scarpa boots?
Justin (16:22):
Bedrocks, I mean, come on. You're
Colin (16:25):
Still the champion bedrock. Well,
Justin (16:27):
I mean, if I could live a life without a car, hell yeah. I mean, I don't really have to have a truck. That's a good but and a life where is warm enough to work and wear bedrocks every day, basically I should just sell all my shit and move to Hawaii or somewhere or Mexico. Probably make more sense. We're going to
Colin (16:41):
Have to do a best of at the end of the year best of gear and beer and then send a championship belt to whichever product wins for the year, the year of the year
Justin (16:48):
Kind of thing. There's some things that just make you smile. Best rocks. Best rocks. That would've been a good name. Maybe not. Bedrock is pretty good, but bedrocks are one of those things and so is a soft topper.
Colin (17:00):
Alright, well let's now turn our attention to after the activity at the break that put in the trail head. We're going to crack open the cooler and imbibe a beverage so we can celebrate our wins and losses in the back country. But you lost that Yeti. That was a real loss. Let's have a beer. So we've just gotten a camp. We've unloaded all of our gear from the back of the truck that was safely stowed there during our journey. We're relaxing in the evening by a fire out of the cooler. We pull a 10 barrel apocalypse cold. Justin, why is this the pairing that matters most to the soft topper?
Justin (17:32):
Well, did we mention that we're on a 10 barrel brewing, a four pea
Colin (17:37):
Because they sent it to us.
Justin (17:39):
It is here and we only have four of them and they have to literally match
Colin (17:44):
And it's 10 barrel a month.
Justin (17:45):
The only thing I could come up with is if you don't own a truck and then you buy one, you will feel at least like 5% more prepared for the apocalypse. That really is
Colin (17:54):
True. Oh, I
Justin (17:56):
Concur. If it's like some sort of and confirm hideous storm or something, I'm always like, well, at least we have a four wheel drive truck. That's it. I mean, I can't say that's really it. No, you can't. Don't really have a truck. Truck. I get gas mile truck. Truck. You have a car that looks like a truck. That's
Colin (18:11):
True actually. There's really, there's no shame in that. None at
Justin (18:13):
All. It's freaking awesome. I'd kind of rather have a maverick than my frontier. So yeah, this is it. So this is their apocalypse. IPA, hold on. I jotted down some notes. We didn't really get that much into the history of the brand before, but they've been around since 2006, kind of. It looks like they were two twin brothers freaked out about their corporate jobs and who wouldn't blame 'em or who would blame them for that. And then they moved from Portland to Bend and they ran a bar and then they liked beer so much they started to start a little brewery. They first called it Wildfire, which is a pretty cool name. That's a pretty good name. Yeah, I like that. There's some restaurants somewhere that send 'em like a cease and desist and so they're like, well, all right, we have 10 barrels in our brewery. So thats how they got 10 barrels. Which 10 barrel is a pretty good name. It doesn't really mean anything, but it's a good name. And I guess they're twin brothers. I dunno if they're identical or what
Colin (19:01):
Should we expect from the apocalypse? It's another IPA, another I. It is not a hazy though, right? This is not a hazy.
Justin (19:06):
It's not a hazy, I believe. Do they call this one on West coast? It has Chinook cascade and Amarillo hops, which amongst others. But those are kind of like the big three for West Coast IPAs. So pretty piney pretty probably going to taste like in a good way, like a mouthful of pine needles.
Colin (19:25):
What's the IBU use on?
Justin (19:27):
So IUs are, I mean that's a lot. I mean, so it is probably going to be pretty bitter kind of mouth puckering league. But
Colin (19:38):
Yeah, this is our third consecutive pale L. Right, because we had the Sierra, which was in the thirties.
Justin (19:43):
Yeah. But felt pretty bitter to me,
Colin (19:45):
Which actually felt more bitter than last week's. The cloudy mentality or whatever, which I think it was a higher IBU, but it was felt
Justin (19:51):
Less bitter than Sierra. I can't remember. It was forties or fifties. Hazy though. Will do that I think was in the fifties. The hazy and the nature of the hops they use are a little bit juicier. So the juicy hops will kind of cut through
Colin (19:59):
The, but this one, no matter what seventies it's got to be, it's going to be pretty bitter the most. It's going to be
Justin (20:03):
Pretty bitter.
Colin (20:03):
All right. Should we do
Justin (20:04):
This? Let's do this. Okay.
Colin (20:05):
3, 2, 1. Mel, that smells like an IPA. Smells like
Justin (20:11):
An IPA good color. It's pure gold. It looks nice. Pure. Pure gold. Maybe a little straw. Cheers,
Colin (20:17):
Buddy.
Justin (20:18):
Here we go. I'm going in.
Colin (20:19):
Me too.
Justin (20:20):
Just going to lean up against the truck. The truck bed.
Colin (20:23):
God, I wish we were outside right now. Okay.
Justin (20:30):
That's pretty good. It's pretty good.
Colin (20:32):
It's better. Out
Justin (20:32):
Of a glass, out of a can.
Colin (20:35):
Kind of
Justin (20:36):
Classic. There's the 70 I or IBUs on the back has a pretty bitter backend, but it's not
Colin (20:43):
Dry, but not
Justin (20:43):
A bad after taste. It's not a dry bitterness. It's a good bitterness.
Colin (20:47):
That's a great way of
Justin (20:48):
Putting it. Yeah. This is a pretty juicy beer. It's actually more fruity than Piney, but
Colin (20:52):
Way more potty. Way more Piney than last week.
Justin (20:56):
There's some interesting,
Colin (20:56):
It looks so good. The color, again, at the color, and I can see it on your eggs. You have more sunlight
Justin (21:00):
Looks. It's beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. It's really pretty. That's
Colin (21:03):
The kind of beer when if you walk into a bar, you're like, I'll have that whatever
Justin (21:06):
Percent. Yeah, 100%. And more beers should be pour into ball jars because it just looks right.
Colin (21:12):
Yeah, that definitely
Justin (21:12):
Helps. There's some funky going on with the yeast on this one. I think maybe, maybe not. So yeast. Yeast can definitely add a flavor element to a beer depending on what kind of yeast it is. I don't know. Feels like there's something else going on here. I'm surprised it's only 6.8%. It tastes bigger than that to me. I mean, 6.8 is pretty good punch, but it tastes like it's got more alcohol. It's not really refreshing. You're probably just going to have one,
Colin (21:36):
Which is kind of funny. I mean, it's only 6.8 versus seven. Last week we talked a lot about how drinkable
Justin (21:41):
Beer was. It's super drinkable and this, it feels more complex, isn't it?
Colin (21:45):
Yeah. I feel like the last week is like, that's the one you have before you get seated at the restaurant. And this is the one you have with dinner.
Justin (21:50):
Yeah, this would be a really good food. Beer with really spicy food. Spicy food. And IPA goes pretty good together. People don't think that, but it does. Or something really fatty and just disgusting would be good with this. Like a barbecue chili dog. Barbecue. Yeah.
Colin (22:06):
Got pizza with six meats on it.
Justin (22:08):
IPAs go so good with pizza. But yeah, something heavy and fatty and rich. This would be really good with it. I wouldn't do it's,
Colin (22:16):
It's pretty clean though.
Justin (22:20):
What was making me think of some interesting yeast? There's almost a banana in here. A little bit and just a little bit like a faint. I'm getting a little bit of a relief. It could just be that I associate banana with tropical fruit and IPA tend to have that, but
Colin (22:34):
Okay, I
Justin (22:34):
See what you're saying. I feel like I was getting a tiny, tiny little whiff of banana, which can either be an off flavor, but I don't think it is here. Or certain yeast have that flavor. Pretty cool. Pretty good job. Good job. 10 barrel.
Colin (22:45):
10 barrel. You are crushing it now. We do move into some higher alcohol content beers in the next two
Justin (22:49):
Weeks. I'm a little scared of that. I'm afraid of
Colin (22:50):
That. I'm as well. The pairings are going to be interesting for those. So we got last week, the cloud. The cloud mentality. Yeah. Cloudy
Justin (22:59):
Mentality.
Colin (23:00):
Cloudy mentality. We both went nine. Yeah. So what are we thinking for? Was there anything, actually, before we get to that, is there anything more? This is our first IPA. Just straight IPA. Last week was the hazy. Yeah, I think that's true. No, you had founders all day. IPA.
Justin (23:15):
Yeah, but that's more of, I disagree with it. You can't have an IPA. That's only four points, whatever percent. That's more of a palle. Okay. But yeah.
Colin (23:22):
So compare and contrast then this versus that. Founders. What
Justin (23:25):
Are some of the differences? Well, it's way bigger. It's a much bigger beer. I mean, the founders is lighter in color, mouth feel, alcohol flavor, everything. I mean the founders to me, they call it IPA because it's like, oh, you can drink this IPA all day. But they're just kind of trading on the fact that you want to drink 10 IPAs. So
Colin (23:39):
It's basically like an American pale ale
Justin (23:41):
Kind of. Yeah, I would say that. But even then, still lighter than most American. I mean, I love that beer so much, but this is much more of, this is like a tasting beer. If you go to a brewery and they give you tastings, this is kind of what you want. If you were thinking, I would like to have an IPA right now, this is exactly what you're imagining.
Colin (24:03):
That's what I mean. This is the classic
Justin (24:05):
What I expect from. But the nice thing is about it's they didn't try to do too much. Sometimes those sorts of beers will have just a knife edge of bitterness that you're just like, ah, this is unpleasant.
Colin (24:15):
It's too much. Or just
Justin (24:17):
Too much malt going on, which just makes it feel taste really heavy and feel heavy.
Colin (24:22):
You start questioning, is this actually kind of skunky now?
Justin (24:25):
It's really clean. It's got all the flavors that you want, but it just kind of drops off in a real nice way. So yeah. Again, I really want to eat you with this.
Colin (24:35):
When you said at the beginning you said something with the yeast, why did you think something was going on with the yeast?
Justin (24:39):
Well, so usually IPA yeasts are pretty inert. They don't add a lot of flavor. There's a fruitiness to this that it must be coming from one of the hops, or they did add a little bit of a different kind of a yeast strain. But if you drink a Belgian beer, for example, which will tend to have a lot of a fruitiness to it, a lot of that flavors coming from the yeast. Not anything else. Typically pale ales, IPAs and stuff. All the flavor you're getting is from the hops and whatever the profile is of the barley. If it's roasted or really light barley, you're getting flavor there. But the hops are doing the majority of the flavor for the most part. For the most part. But this one definitely, there's just a very, very, very slight fruity funk to it that I just wonder if they've done something interesting with the yeast. That's all. I don't know, but it's possible.
Colin (25:29):
All right, well, it's rating time. What are we going to give this thing?
Justin (25:32):
I don't know if I like it as quite as much as the hazy I,
Colin (25:36):
I really like it, but I don't like it as much as that. That was immediate. It's an all timer.
Justin (25:41):
I feel like this is probably an am.
Colin (25:44):
Do you want to know what? Do you want to know what you gave the founders? Does it matter?
Justin (25:47):
No, I don't want to know. Okay. Because I like to do these one at a time. It's is very mood based as well, which frankly, frankly, that's the deal with beer. Right? Same thing as wine. If you're in a great mood, you're going to be 10, 10, 10, whatever. But eight, seven, I mean, it's close. I mean, it's a phenomenal beer. It's a fantastic beer.
Colin (26:06):
I'm going to look at what
Justin (26:07):
I just liked the other one. A
Colin (26:08):
Little 10 barrels on their game, huh?
Justin (26:10):
Yeah. What's nice about this is it's nice to be, you taste this beer and oh, I'm in the hands of an expert. This is somebody who knows. It's not like someone who got really into home brewing and walked into $10 million and started a brewery. This is like, they know exactly what they're doing
Colin (26:27):
In some of those craft brew places and they're like, you go through three, even if you're just sampling it, you're like, I don't like any of these. Oh
Justin (26:32):
My God, that happened all the time when I was running the beer bar. They're so proud. These reps that come in, you got to trade this one. And I'd be like, it tastes like paint. I remember telling somebody that once. This literally tastes like paint.
Colin (26:43):
All right, so you get an 8.7. Yeah, I think I'm just going to eight. I'm fighting with because I liked last week so much. And do I go eight, seven feels almost too close. I don't want, this is more of an eight. You're going to eight four. I'll go
Justin (26:59):
8.4. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah, yeah,
Colin (27:01):
Yeah. Want a little bit of distance? But I agree with you. I think, yeah, this is the quintessential IPA. It's like you want to know what IPA tastes like? Here you go. This is what it's,
Justin (27:10):
But also I feel like this is the kind of IPA that might turn on someone who doesn't like IPAs. It's not a commitment. You can just drink this beer. It's not like you have to sit down and like, okay, I'm going to drink through this beer. It's really well balanced. It's really, really kind of perfect.
Colin (27:28):
What do you think we would've given this if we hadn't had the hazy first?
Justin (27:32):
I would've given it a nine. I am judging it against the hazy, which I said I don't do. But you know what? The
Colin (27:37):
Poor hazy, because then we would've been like on nine seven,
Justin (27:40):
Honestly. Yeah. I mean it'd be hard to beat either of these, to be honest with you.
Colin (27:44):
Yeah. Well, I mean, we're going to find out the next two weeks, and I'm
Justin (27:46):
Definitely the kind of beer person that thinks IPAs are the best. Which is so funny. I used to hate IPAs. But to me, if you can make a great IPA, you've done it. I mean, theoretically it's harder to make a pilsner because it's really hard to mask a mistake. But I dunno. To me, this is the better example of someone who really is an expert at their craft making a really good beer.
Colin (28:10):
Alright, well to summarize this episode of Gear and Beer in our gear category, we have the soft topper. That's the brand and the product. I feel like it should be the soft topper top floor 100 or something? No. Okay. Soft topper, which Justin rated a 10. And before you turn in for the night in the back of your truck with that soft topper poised to keep the morning dew off your face, I won't be when we go camping in two weeks. The official cone of the rock fight suggests that you should enjoy yourself with a frosty cold 10 barrel apocalypse, which Justin rated an 8.7 and I gave an 8.4 on the gear and beer beer scale. Alright, that's another episode. We did it again. We did it.
Justin (28:48):
It gets our better judgment.
Colin (28:50):
I know.
Justin (28:50):
People keep wanting them.
Colin (28:53):
Yeah, this show's great. All right. What did you think of this edition of Gear and Beer? Do you have a suggestion for the future, for a future edition of Gear and Beer? Or do you simply just like gear and beer, send an email to my rock flight@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. The rock flight's a production of rock. Fight LC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin Truth. Thanks for listening here to take us out. It's Krista Makes with the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock
Chris DeMakes (29:18):
Fight, rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight, rock. Fight the rock. Fight where we speak on truth. Stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities, pig bites about topics that we find interesting. Black culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas in for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth through the.