Welcome, everyone. We are @DCBeer across social media. It's The
DC Beer Show. Stein, what's in your stein this evening?
Well, hiya, Jake. I am drinking Plank
beer, Dunkle Weitzenbach ale. This is a beer that's
actually going to be at Snallygaster coming
up. Brandy, what are you having on
the DC Beer Show? Well, what am I not
having? I had the day off because I'm in
between things. And so I started with an
838 Irish stout from Dynasty,
and then I shared a lovely IPA called
Proper from Wheatland Spring. Thank you. This is one of the
best IPAs. Like, it's like a farmhouse IP. It's not super
hoppy. It's so herbal. It's very, like,
fresh. Ugh, lovely. And now I'm literally
cracking open a service
Hellas Lager beer from Wheatland Spring. If you guys couldn't tell, I was at
recently at the Wheatland Spring Oktoberfest, which was a blast as
it always is. Mister mister Berg, editor in
chief, what she got over in your mug, Stein. That's blast.
3 beer podcasts. I like it, Brandy. I have here a
beer that may be at Snally, also might
not. It is Bright Side, which is Ocelot's
replacement for Sunnyside Dweller.
They, decided they were going to not bring that one back, which is a
shame, but Bright Sides here, a lovely American
style lager, noble hops, little bit of
corn, nicely done. If they bring it to Snally, you could drink
a lot of it. So, hey, Virginia's for lagers. Cheers. Good
choices, everybody. You can, get a
shirt that says Virginia is for lagers. Hey. Where can I get a
shirt? Where? Where? Mike Stein. Do you know?
I think it's dcbeer.com, and you just click on our merch
tab. And our members actually get a discount on
merch. So you should sign up. Not only do you get a discount
on cool DC beer swag, like hats and shirts and
tanks and stuff, but you can also get discounts at our
local breweries, our partners, like DC Brow,
Streetcar 82, and Port City, just
to name a few. So, yes, cheers to our Patreon members. Thank you
for listening and supporting. Even if you're not a Patreon member, we wanna
say thank you DC Beer Show listeners because you could have
been on any podcast, millions of podcasts out there in the
world. We just wanna thank you for letting you be
ourselves today and every day. So thanks for tuning
in. We're so excited to share with you. You listen to the DC beer show
because you're gonna get some valuable information. So let me drop a hot
one on you right now. Because you tune in and give us your
precious time, the one nonrenewable resource, I have to say, we
are super pumped to be brewing a beer with the Biri godmother.
It's really happening. Can you believe it, Brandy?
It's really happening. Stein. I'm so excited.
And as much as I am just over
the moon about Snally, it there's, like, icing on the cake
with some cookie crumbles, sprinkles on top and stuff because
Latrice is coming, the Beery godmother. I I was visiting with the
Beery godmother when she visited this past March for the women's panel at
Other Half, and she is the most wonderful,
most lovely, incredibly beer smart human. And we
actually went to Wheatland Springs together, so I know that we're doing some fun stuff
when she visits. We are brewing lager,
of course. Latrice and I had exchanged some
DMs on Instagram, and I was like, oh, this is
so great. She had just brewed a beer with, I think, lesser known. It was
a Hellas beer in North Carolina. And
she, was like, oh, we should totally brew some beer. And I was like, awesome.
And then we made it official via email. I was like, here's a half dozen
breweries. We love these breweries at DC Beer. I love them as the leader of
Lost Lagers. Let's do a tripartite collab. And she's like, oh, that'd
be so great. And then she's like, of course, we gotta bring Brandy in. I
said, of course, we gotta bring the women's beer culture club in. So it's
a quadruple collaboration, and we're gonna be
brewing tmave, otherwise known as Czech dark lager
with Josh Chapman. One half of
our guests for this show. We've got Josh and Jenna Chapman coming
up, but we cannot wait. We're doing like all the cool kids do
during Snallygaster, post Snallygaster, and brewing some
beer, in this case with the Beery Godmother. Oh, I
cannot wait. Make sure you make sure you stay tuned
for all the details because as we have more specific
details, we'll let you know. But, yeah, I'm so
excited. It's gonna be such a Right, great time. If we're gonna talk about
collabs, let's talk about Other Half because I know Other Half is such a huge
part of Snallygaster because not only have they
hosted Oyster Wars either there or at Salt Line, which is gonna be this
year, but they always do collaboration beers around this
time, a for Snally, but their anniversary. And I know
for a fact that Other Half is collaborating
with 9 local DMV breweries, 3 from each,
the d, the m, and the v. And I know who they
are. It hasn't been announced yet, so I'm supposed to stay
zippy zipped. But I might put out a little fun poll
on the Instagrams and Twitters getting your
input. Who do you think it's gonna be? Are you gonna
do a wild card poll, Brandy? Like, is Other Half
collaborating with Hype Brewery a or Weinstefanter,
Ying Ling, or, AB InBev, Upweller, Koros
Heineken? You know, I won't know until I make
it. It's gonna be a game time decision for sure. But,
but Oyster always will be fun, and it'll be good for all the hungover people
because it's gonna be all you would eat all you can eat, like, delicious seafood
and oysters from 8 different oyster vendors and local
breweries, and it's gonna be so great. So we'll be we'll be there. No. It's
also a cool collaboration. DC beer
and our friends, Metro Bar on the Met Right trail
over by Rhode Island Avenue. Come see us at Metro Bar
this upcoming Saturday. I believe,
Brandy, you and I will be there. Jordan will be there. Mike, we hope
to see you there. Gonna be a blast. We've got, like, a nice
wide array of stuff. A red IPA
from Union. I did talk them into Port Cities, Rauchbier,
one of the 2 local canned commercially available
ones. Go check out the Denizen's one as Upweller. But we
got breweries, brewery reps, swag,
us. It'll be a good time. Deets over at metrobar. Deets
over at dcbeer.com. And the Women's Brew Culture Club is
meeting up that day. My friends, the Women's Brew Culture Club, open to
all women and nonbinary folks in the DMV looking for more beer
education and a fun inclusive drinking community, they get a
special discount. Thanks to Metro Bar for offering our group a special
little deal. Really appreciate it. Cheers. Cheers, Metro Bar. You
love to hear it. Jake, if your fest doesn't have a
Right beer, a smoked lager, in this case from port
city, is it really an authentic
fest? Many are asking. Many are asking this, Mike. I'm
glad that you brought this up. So what have we not
talked about? Oh, Snallygaster. So I
know that a lot of you may remember last year was the 1st year
that there was a podcast stage at Snally. Thanks to
Greg and our wonderful friends over at the NRG,
Tim and Bruno, and, of course, the awesome Upweller team that they have to
set up Snally. But they brought us back again
this year. This year, it's gonna be the DC Beer Show podcast
stage, and we're going to have the award winning
beer geek drooling, goosebumps
all over your body panelist visiting from all
over the country and locally. And you're gonna get
to see them, hear them, meet them afterwards, and
they might even bring up a special beer or 2 kind of like, 3
Fontanain did last year. So if you, are
interested in some special pours and you're you and I meet some of your cool
beer idols, you should linger around the DC beer,
podcast stage. Speaking of Snally,
our guests at Upweller, they'll be at
Snally. Josh, welcome back to the DC Beer Show.
Jen, welcome. Thank you for having us. What's going on, Jake?
I'm getting ready for Snally over here as I assume you
all are over there. Indeed. So excited to be pouring again this
year. It's I mean, aside from October ForestFest, which obviously I'm
biased about, that that we continue to do, Snallygaster is just
one of my absolute favorite festivals in the world. I think especially now that
it's on, you know, Penn Ave, it's just such a great location,
rain or shine, as you guys know. It is phenomenal, so can't
wait for that. My understanding though is before Snally, you all have a little,
roadshow. You'll be popping up at a couple of different spots.
We will indeed. First thing we've got is our launch
on Sunday, October 6th out of Right Proper Shaw. Very excited for
the Upweller launch. So thankful to Thor and Leah and the
relationship that we have with Wim to be able to bring these beers
that represent, the time and place of Eastern Shore to the folks, in
the city and around Nova. We're just really excited.
We're giddy. So today is Friday,
October 4th. So in 2 short days, we
have the release at Right Proper Brewing Company.
Tell us a little bit about that release and what folks can
expect on Sunday. We are so passionate
about tying people to kind of time and
place. Right? It's it's something that we're, we're so
geared towards in the beers that we brew from the ground up. Right? Everything that
we do, every ingredient we use is built to help kind
of anchor folks to particularly, I feel like nature
and the environment that you have out here on the shore. Absolutely. And
what we also try to do is use and be really
sustainable in our beers. So, like, using oyster
liquor for our salt's beer that would otherwise be dumped
out and, using just different different
foraged ingredients in our beers that people, don't really
know a lot about, like the yellow wood sorrel and our collaboration that we're drinking
right now. Yeah. We're sipping on, our collab with Lost Gen,
which is influence of the earth right now. American IPA
with Ford Sorrel, which was a really great kind of microcosm
of what Upweller was all about. The day that we went with the Lost
Gen crew to, forge that Sorrel, I remember looking
at them, and everybody was concerned about how long it was gonna take. Are we
gonna have to go on a long hike? Should we bring Camelbacks? Like, do I
need protein bars? Do I need to call somebody and let them know where I'm
going so they can find me tomorrow if I don't come home?
And it was literally across the street from the from
the doors to the brewery but we found the sorrel for that beer.
And it's a it's a great little example of what we're trying to do,
with Upweller is just help people see that, right
beneath your feet, kind of wherever you are, there's something that
can tie you to that place that you can enjoy in so many
different ways, beer being a fantastic, you know, iteration of
those. But, so we'll have 4 beers on for the launch on
Sunday. We have a great, I mean, Right Proper
low key has had one of the best cheese programs in DC for many,
many years at this point. Certainly, not talked about as
much as it needs to be. Kescar, manager there,
aside from just being a fantastic union in general, incredible cheese
monger. I got to do the, the the tasting
Proper for the launch the other day, and I may have asked to go back
through a couple times to quote, unquote double check,
some of the pairings, but it's fantastic. We'll have so Wayne's got
oysters on hand being shucked for everybody, which are the same
oysters that, we use in the oyster goes up.
So it should be a fantastic time. Jen, I know, is gonna bring a whole
bunch of the euphoria and fauna of the Eastern Shore Yeah. Yeah. To kinda fill
up the space and help people know what it's like to be to be out
here. So Absolutely. So let's let's back up a little bit. We're
talking about Upweller, beer company. And and people
know, Jen and and Josh Chapman, they know you
around town. But I wanna talk a little bit about some of your work
outside of town. Right? I am a city mouse. And as
such, I know some country mice. But being born in New
York City, I'm a city mouse. You folks kind of
you straddle the line. You're both city mice and country mice.
Tell us a little bit about straddling those lines and some of your work
further, a field, maybe some of the work you've done with The
Nature Conservancy in Virginia. Yeah. We,
we love working with The Nature Conservancy. It all started really with
Josh's idea to brew with pine needles. And, originally,
here when we were living on Chingoteague Island, but here across the shore,
there's a lot of loblolly pines. So we are experimenting with the,
loblolly species. But, Valerie, you read an
article, and it was about longleaf. And
that's how it kind of all got started, where we started to
realize that there was this forgotten forest that
was originally here and around all other parts of
Virginia. And we wanted to kind of investigate
that a bit further, so we got in touch with Bobby Quants at the Piney
Grove Preserve. And, and that was just
a really exciting venture for us because that was
kind of our first intro into The Nature Conservancy,
like, working with them on a beer. And from there, I mean,
you take it from here, we we went close to home after
that. Well, I think so I like that you're keying on
city mouse, country mouse sort of thing. I I I think the heart of what
we have always been about, I mean, you you and I in general, Jen
Right. Is trying to get to the heart of the matter a little bit
and using the work of our hands to do that. Right? I love that
beer is the work of my hands at this point because it's a great I
mean, it's a it's a fun, you know, vehicle to utilize.
It's built towards community and celebration, but I think
it I think in bringing people together, it just allows us
to get to something a little Proper. Something that I know
myself and a lot of other brewers talk about is, like, at the end of
the day, if they say they made great beer, okay, like, that's a
that's a nice thing to have as your epitaph, but, man, I hope it does
something more than that. So The Nature Conservancy, October Forest
Fest, that whole thing for us was born out of that kind of heart.
Right. I had such we had such an experience with The Nature Conservancy as
a family, this kindred this kinship, right,
out in UTVs with the folks that manage that
landscape and just seeing how these guys that the world kind of
doesn't see doing this incredible work had such a
symbiotic relation a heart with us to what we were doing through our
beers that it bridged that gap between,
what you do, what I do, what somebody else does. We're all really here
trying to, I don't know, make
everybody else's life a little better, to to to be a little more tied
to where we are, and to live in community as best as
possible. So we felt like we had to grow that project
from our one beer, share it with other like minded brewers
and with the other awesome landscapes that TNC has in Virginia.
We got to watch those tiny communities and partnerships
grow, you know, beyond anything we could have planned for. It became a great
festival. We started inviting more guest breweries. Those guest breweries were excited to start
brewing beers where they forged and found ingredients and partnered
with, you know, gatherers and farmers and producers around
their areas. There was just such a great, I don't know, collaborative
Right, and I think at the end of all of it, that's that's the the
goal in this whole project is to continue to do things where we
use what we're passionate about to help people
realize they matter because they exist. Mhmm. And that
when you can when you can do that, that they can also see that
they can be part of something bigger. I mean, that's that for me is when
beer and anything we do, but particularly for me, beer is is
really batting a thousand. Yeah. And I think it's
obvious when someone meets you, Jen or Josh, your
passion for local ingredients, but also telling the
stories. I know. I think the first time I heard the term
merroir, like terroir, but in reference to,
the waters was from one of you or maybe both of you.
But in in in knowing some brewers locally, some close
to DC, some in Northern Virginia, some further afield down
in Norfolk or or, you know, closer to
Chincoteague, it seems that you have convinced
brewers to want to use really unique
ingredients, local ingredients, and that sort of locavore
concept has been pushed, not in an aggressive way at all, but
just kinda through your association with them.
But it's also nice to see, you you know, you just had this,
not tap takeover, but calm influential, work
with The Nature Conservancy at Evening Star. They had
your beer in in in Alexandria and then Andy's Pizza
Noma. What was it like working with some folks closer into
town? Is that kind of, getting the band back together? Or is it, hey,
here's a new concept because you've never had Upweller beer before even
though maybe you know Generi for for a decade
now? Yeah. It's I mean, evening star
man. I mean, talk about a a formative
part of our lives. I mean, they're all family. Coming home to our family,
for sure. I mean, the I have a picture we have a picture
of me holding Emma. She was, what, a year and a half old,
maybe? She was probably around 2. Yeah. And I'm in my chef coat, you
know, at the blue back door to the Majestic Lounge. We
lived above Planet Wine for, like, a year
and a half. So that that place is literally coming home a little
bit. And it's just such a great, I don't know,
embodiment of, again, everything I love about the industry
because that place was home to so many people
in that community. I mean, folks that would finish their
day, whether it was them and their kids or just a guy finishing work at
the moving company, Sleepy Dave. Remember Sleepy Dave? I remember Sleepy Dave. Sleepy
Dave was the best, you know? And, like, but Sleepy
Dave was, you know, a mid fifties single guy,
and we were the family there at Evening Star, you know, at
the downbar. Us and our baby monarch. And at the bar, yes. Because
and Emma was sleeping upstairs, so we had it good.
That's true. The baby monitor at the bar was certainly, I don't
know, a Rorschach test for folks, that were that were sitting kinda near
us. But, yeah, no, it's been it's been amazing working with folks
that, I don't know, you get to you get to do this life with and
everything everything changes. Right? Like, everybody goes
through, sort of, different iterations of what they think they're gonna be and then what
they become and then what they wanna be all over again.
Josh, since you mentioned it, with
both NRG and Snally coming
up, who are you excited to see at Snally?
And, Jen, that goes for you as well. Oh, man.
That's tough. I mean, personally, I'm hoping John Laffer
actually shows up again this year like he did last year. Off Color for me,
was one of those formative breweries.
I mean, gosh, we lost Ron Jeffries, you know, this
week from Jolly Pumpkin, which was, you know, again, one of
those pseudo Rushmore brewers for a lot of folks in the
industry. And Lager is one of those for me.
He's just always been so genuine
with his beers, with what they've tried to produce, and how
they've communicated with their consumers.
I I mean, gosh. They didn't brew an IPA. What?
For their their first, like, almost 10 years of existence. So,
very much on a personal level, hoping, Lager gets to come out
and, you know, enjoy the festivities here with everybody. And
I'm so excited to taste friends who have just opened,
see what they're brewing lately, because I haven't been able to
get my butt down there across the bay. So I am really excited to
see what they're gonna be bringing to the festival. I'm also interested
in, you know, just being surprised by someone.
That's one of my favorite things about Sally is going to the festival
and tasting all these wonderful beers. And, yes, like, there's different people
that you look forward to. There's different hype beers. There's different styles that are on
trend. But for me, my favorite thing is to be surprised
by someone, by an ingredient, or by a style that's done really,
really well. You know we're gonna have corn lager on side pole on
a Jockey box. Like, that is that is 100% happening
again. How about it? How about it, though? How about it?
So speaking of how about it, what's it like brewing How About It
at Right Proper Shaw as opposed to at
Chikatig, the late great Black Narrows?
So, I mean, I one of the things I appreciate is that
Mike can actually speak into this a little bit as well because I guinea pigged
him the other day. It is it is so strange
having these beers that are, you know, family members at
this point, little, little children. I always talk about my beers as kids. Babies.
Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, you love them all equally. They all have
their strengths. They all have their quirks. Right? But, man, how
about it is one that for me is just it's my beer. It's a
brewer's beer. It's a cool, you know, American
lager with this fantastic bloody butchered corn that we flipped on its head.
And in a time, I mean, gosh, especially when we were brewing it, you know,
at the late Right Black Narrows, I mean, we're talking we were
piloting that beer like 8a half, 9 years ago at this point. That's
wild. It's wild. That's wild. I mean, corn was
still I think we had just gotten past corn
being like a disqualifier in the b yet.
You know? Like, so it was still this very,
oh, you don't mess with this ingredient because it's been, you know, I
don't know, usurpers and destroyers first them, have
taken this awesome ingredient and and wasted it, and we flipped
them instead and tried to highlight it. So to brew it again
was such a surreal experience because I just wanted it
I wanted to know that we could have that again, particularly to highlight
this corn that one of the one of the beauty,
beautiful parts of, I don't know, loss
is how you come out on the next side. Innovation.
Yeah. Right? Absolutely. So one of the things that one of the silver linings
of going from, you know, the brewery on Chincoteague Black Narrows to,
like, doing beers like this again, is
having to find new ways to do them. So we had previously been working
with the farm that had saved the seed forever ago,
in, at Pongo Creek. They shut down, they stopped growing it,
and we had to kind of take it ourselves and work collaboratively with a great
guy Aaron Cooper, in Eaton, Maryland on the shore.
So we took this corn that was already beautiful and then this, heirloom ingredient that
was gonna be lost forever, and now it's grown organically and regeneratively.
So we have almost, you know, 2.0 this thing.
So now brewing that at Right Proper Shaw, I remember
getting to taste it, you know, throughout the process and
every step of the way just panicking over if my memory was
really, you know, accurate or my, my
own desires for it to be spot on were betraying me, but it
is fantastic. It's 100% how about it. I mean, Mike, you had it the other
day. I mean, I feel like you had same sort of thing like, yep, this
is this is how about it. There are certainly some tweaks. DC's water is
much harder than the, reverse osmosis water that we
had on Chincoteague. But the benefit is we didn't need
reverse osmosis water in DC, ironically, because the water,
wasn't doused with flame retardant like our sinking water was. I will
go on record and say, it's the same how
about it that I remember over the last 9
years, but it's better in my humble opinion.
Oh. It's the same. Yeah. I mean, I just I feel
that way. And, yeah, maybe, you know, absence makes the heart grow
fonder. Could be. But 9 years ago, you
know, you y'all weren't corn farmers,
seed savers, corn brokers maybe is more accurate. I don't
know. Oh, I can feel it. So there's been a lot of change there that's
it. There's been a lot of change. So it's
different. I think it's better, but it's still the same how about it
as I remember it, down to the to the bones and the
foundation of the structure, I think. That's exciting. Yeah. I'm stoked. Got
one more question for you, Josh and Jen, and that is Right
Proper is about to grow with a brewery,
brew pub in Eckington. What does that mean for
Upweller? Oh, man. Well, at least you saved the softball for last.
Okay? Yeah. Appreciate that. You know, just you know, so so long
as, you know, we're gonna celebrate a launch of, the you know,
this new beer brand, let's let's talk about the future. Let's talk
about Upweller beyond the launch. Well, gosh. The
space in Nakhonton is gonna be fantastic. And,
again, it's one of those things where, I don't know, like all we build
is sandcastles, right? We make these awesome things and then
the tide comes in and it washes it out. And sometimes we
get to rebuild, right, something new off of what we
learned. And sometimes what gets washed
away is now the foundation for somebody else
coming next. Right? What I think is really beautiful is that for me
with Upweller and also getting to be a part of Bryte Proper is that I
get a little bit of in that. And especially just so much of
what we learned with Black Narrows,
we get to pour into the 3rd location for Ripe Propper
in Hechington. I mean, even just an equipment selection and get him go through
and talk talk through equipment suppliers, what we need, what makes the
most sense, what we're going for. Like, the system will be built to be
able to do decoctioning for lager, for lager beers, which I
am super excited about because it's one of those things where if you can build
it in ahead of time, it gives you that much more
flexibility to make just that much better of a
beer that you're so excited about. So it's a great
location. I think the ability just
to really pour into beers that stand the test of
time, I mean, it is a lager focused and kind of
an American hoppy beer focused brewery
brewpub. I just it fits so well with what Right cropper is all
about too. I mean, we know them as the OG,
you know, kind of DC wild, funky, sour,
mixed culture kind of brewery. But at the same time, like, I mean,
Raised by Wolves, that is about as, you
know, OG of a of a pale ale as you can get. I mean, it's
fantastic. So to have a brewery come online that we can
really, you know, punch out that kind of core core
value of a beer portfolio is really exciting. Josh and
Jenna, thank you so much. A pleasure as always. Proper
opportunities to see them in DC over the next couple weeks. Right
Proper this Sunday and then
Pennsylvania Avenue, Saturday after that. But the best time to go to
Eastern Shore is actually probably right about now. So
go to Chincoteague. Stop by. Visit. Yeah. It's a it's it's a
beautiful time of year. The bugs are basically gone. Yep. The tourists are too.
You'll have it to yourself. It's gorgeous. Thank you,
Jen. Thank you, Josh. Alright. More
Oktoberfest goodies happening this weekend as
well. I know Atlas is up. Aslan is up.
There's certainly gonna be some more. Dcbeer.com/events
for all of your various Oktoberfest and other
beer needs. And, also, that day, again, the same day that we're
at Metro Bar, Monkish Cans are gonna be at
Church Key as we start bringing in those Snally out of market
beers. When Snally ends on Monday
14th, Indigenous Peoples' Day, they'll have Fidens
Cans for sale. Again, we have the details over at
DC Beer. Alright. Who wants to take us out?
I'll just say I am so excited for
Snallygaster, specifically our little place
in the gargantuan monstrous Snallygaster
universe. The beast. Yeah. The first
podcast stage ever and then hopefully the
best podcast stage ever as we look to revamp
and improve. We're trying to funnel Greg and Tim and Bruno
and take all the feedback, channel it, make it better than ever, and
just work tirelessly to improve and
build upon that. I wanna say thank you to all the folks
who've been reaching out and asking questions. You know that DC
Snally Central. You you got you come to us for your
Snally info all all in one place. We're still
getting confirmations and events submitted
from all of our friends, but we will be the one stop shop for you
to figure out what's going on, what you're doing. So thanks to all of
the folks messaging us and asking what the details are.
Once we have them, we promise they're coming straight to you.
Alright, folks. Watch this space @dcbeer and
dcbeer.com. Be well, and we'll see you out there at all of these
events.