hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1684.txt

Episode: 1684
Title: HPR1684: 5150 Shades of Beer Jacob Leinenkugels Winter Explorer Pack
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1684/hpr1684.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 07:42:19

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This is HPR episode 1684 entitled 5150 Shades of Beer Jacob Linencougles Winter Explorer Pack
and is part of the series 5150 Shades of Beer.
It is hosted by 50 and 50 and is about 14 minutes long.
The summary is 50 tries the Linencougles Explorer Pack.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
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Howdy folks, this is 5150 for Hacker Public Radio.
And thank you for joining me once again for episode 4 of 5150 Shades of Beer.
Today I'll be reviewing from the Jacob Linencougles Brewery of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
They're Winner Explorer Pack and that's a 12 pack of four different types of beer.
So three bottles of each kind.
And the first one in my favorite is Winner's Bite.
And the best way I can describe it.
Do you know what it smells like when you open a tin of cocoa?
City sweet kind, not completely unsweetened.
And no matter how you do it, just a little of the powder puffs out.
Well that's the best description that I can give for this beer.
Is it just, it tastes just like that smell.
Even down to the dryness.
Neither clawingly sweet, or leaving you who mix the chocolate syrup into your beer,
just the subtle taste of dry cocoa.
This longer pours dark with very little head.
And it only seems to be available from Linencougles in the Explorer Pack.
So you can't just go out and buy six pack of it.
And because of that, it's a PV and ingredients were not featured on the website,
which is Lighty or Lenny.com.
Unusual for brewery to abbreviate their name, but it's L-E-I-N-I-E.com.
And that's where I've got specifics on most of the rest of the beers.
The second one, and not to say it's bad, it just happens to be my least favorite in the group,
is their Hells Yeah.
And that's the play on the word Hells is German word for light.
But in this case, unlike American beers, light only describes the color, which is the color of
wheat straw, very clear. It has a moderate head that disappears without leaving any lacing.
Very subtle malt taste, hint of hops, and just slightly more than a pinch of pepper.
And 5.5% alcohol by volume.
The malt are pale malt, and the hops are five American hops, including SIMCO and citrus.
They're playing a little close to the vest there.
They're not wanting to tell you what the other three hops are.
Okay, the next one is the cranberry ginger shandy.
And where a shandy is, it's a mix of a beer with either soft drink, carbon-lebanated ginger beer,
ginger ale, or apple juice or orange juice. Something like that.
It's essentially, most commonly in this country, you see it as a beer mixed with some sort of fruit juice.
And that's what's called an adjunct.
The juice does not take any part in the fermentation process.
So you have your beer, it's done, you decant it, and then you make it with the juice.
Probably in Europe, you do that yourself at home.
But here it's marketed in a bottle.
And it pours a clout of yellow amber.
A moderate head that disappears without any lacing.
And it truly is, because of course, if you add fruit to the fermentation process,
of course, most of it is going to turn to alcohol without leaving any residual flavor of that ingredient.
So or not much.
So it is very hard to create a fruity sort of beer if you want your beer that way
by mixing it into the fermentation process.
You will get a much stronger flavor by mixing it in as a juice or a syrup or whatever afterwards.
At least that in Google Manage resist the urge to make it red,
unlike shock tops, cranberry, belts, and ale, which I find it's very similar.
And I like the shock tops cranberry ale.
But it's a little more sweet and a little more serpy, a little more in your face.
And it doesn't say it, but I suspect it must be something akin to a shandy as well.
In other words, you wouldn't have that much fruit flavor unless it was added after the fermentation process.
But I will say at the linencougles shandy, sometimes you will get a micro brewery ale
and it will say cherry flavor.
You know, well, cherry flavor is not like soda pop.
But it might say winter cherry ale, something like that.
And well, you taste it and you say, well, it's a good thing it says on the bottle what that's supposed to be
because it's so, so incredibly subtle.
Well, I would be able to tell you there's fruit flavor in there.
I wouldn't be able to tell you what it was.
So definitely linencougles cranberry ginger shandy, definitely you can tell that it tastes of
cranberries, but it's just not quite so strong as a shock tops.
And you can also clearly taste the ginger.
I like to do a lot of Asian cook, well, I wouldn't say a lot.
But some of my favorite recipes are Asian ones that include ginger.
So I'm familiar with the taste as opposed of ginger as opposed to say refined sugars.
But definitely, it's got a definite taste of ginger in there.
So it's sort of an aftertaste, the cranberry is going to hit your tongue first.
And as you swallow, then you're going to get the ginger taste.
As you might expect compared to the other beers, it's only 4.2% alcohol per volume.
And the reason for that is, of course, it started out as a stronger beer,
and then you're adding fruit juice to it.
So of course, unless you start out from a very, very strong beer,
you're going to come out with something fairly light on the alcohol content.
The multiple in wheat, the hops are cluster.
And it says other natural cranberry and ginger flavors, as one might expect.
Lastly, in the pack, we have the snow drift for Noah Porter.
And that poor is a dark brown with just a little caramel color head.
And it just disappears just a little bit ahead to get it disappears immediately.
And not leaving any lacing, which lacing is like the little lattice pattern,
even after the foam's gone, where it leaves the lattice pattern around the outer edge of the glass,
that's what it's called lacing.
Usually, if you don't get any foam or if the foam dissipates very quickly,
like in this beer, it's an indication of a higher alcohol volume.
The higher the alcohol will, the less head that you get, and the faster it just evaporates.
The vanilla port has the highest alcohol per volume at 6.0.
You know, as bears go, that's not something you're going to drink a beer and fall down.
But that's something you might want to be aware of, if you expect to have three or four or five
of these in an evening, that's a little more alcohol content than probably a bud or a cooler or
something, not that much higher. Maltz, two and six row pale malt, carnal 60, carapels, special B,
dark chocolate, and roasted barley hops. You can also find the flavor of the roasted
malt in there along with the vanilla. The dark chocolate, you can kind of taste that,
I think, keeps it for being, makes it a little less sweet than some other vanilla portals.
The hops are cluster and will emit, and then, of course, for other ingredients, it says,
real vanilla. Okay, now, let's get into the bonus round, because I have one more
Lenincugal offering that was not in the winter explorer pack, so I had to explore for this one
on myself. Well, in here this, you might want to go looking for, because right now, it seems to be
on sale everywhere. I don't know if it still will be. When you hear this in three or four weeks,
but very well might be, or there might be another Lenincugal six pack, because this is really it.
I think it's six bucks here. That puts it down like a six pack of bud, but it's,
was Lenincugal's orange shandy. It's a wheat beer or a wise beer. Most likely exactly the same one
that's in the cranberry ginger shandy, because it's got the same ingredients. Maltz, pale and wheat,
and then hops are cluster, and other natural orange flavor. Remember, I said common things for
the shandy are either lemonade or straight orange juice, and this was not quite as sweet.
Well, I said it's, it's pretty sweet. It's tartness sweet. Of course, it's orange juice
expected to be, but then quite cover up the flavor of the beer, like the cranberry ginger shandy,
the juice pretty much predominates. But you can tell you're drinking a wheat beer, probably on a
hot day. If I was outside hot working, and I wanted something that was going to quench my first,
I'd probably grab the orange shandy first. And just like the cranberry shandy, it's 4.2 percent.
Alcohol per volume. I've always liked linen cougles. I think the brand bears the most
direct comparison is shock top, and that used to be an independent brand when I started with. And
of course, it was bought by Budweiser, and I don't know if that makes any difference in their
management decisions. Between the two, I would say linen cougles is probably higher quality beer.
But if you want a really fruity beer, then shock top does put in somewhat stronger
flavoring than they put in the linen cougles. So my best idea is for direct comparisons.
To get the if a fruity type beer is something that you fruit flavored beer is something that
you'd be interested in. Grab a six pack of both the linen cougles and the shock top and compare
them, because they're both those are among my favorites, so see which one you like best.
Okay, well this has been 5150 for Hacker Public Radio once again. Hopefully there will be
somebody here tomorrow with a more technical discussion. It's something to educate you a little more
than today's, but until the next time have a happy life.
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