Episode: 1627
Title: HPR1627: 5150 Shades of Beer: 0001 He'Brew Hops Selection from Smaltz Brewing Company
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1627/hpr1627.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 06:01:04

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It's June 828 on October 2014.
This is an HBR episode 1,627 entitled Shade of Mirror, Mirror, Mirror 1 Keyru Hop selection
from Smaltz Brewing Company.
It is hosted by 5150 and is about 16 minutes long.
Feedback can be sent to 5050 at linuxpacement.com or by leaving a comment on this episode.
The summer is near, brinking shame.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com.
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Howdy folks, this is 5150 for half hacker public radio.
And recently I took the opportunity while I went into the big city to pick up a lift
chair for my father to replace the one that got destroyed.
While I was there I went by a liquor store and had greater selection of craft brews than
what I have locally.
We don't have a bad selection locally but you go a bigger city, you get a better selection
of everything.
So I brought home several six packs in case, well, 12 packs of sampler selections.
And one six pack sampler selections, there's one from Shiner, if you drink beer and you
live here in the United States, you've probably seen the Shiner Bach which is very good,
down in Texas.
And so I have six packs from them and each one is a different beer.
But what I want to do is this is an idea that I had a couple years ago when we quit
recording pod brews, which I was on, and I did something very similar when I was in
which it all was pick up a selection of craft brews that were available at home.
And unfortunately, I kept finding from week to week a new craft brew at home, so a lot
of those never really got reviewed on the show and then we quit doing the show.
I thought, well, I can't very well talk about how the brew beer like Tracy Holtz or
Sporksaber did on the old show, but I can certainly taste the beers and give my opinion.
So that's why I thought to do with all those beers that I had left over after pod brews
quit.
And so then I started drinking the beers, bringing them up from the basement and drinking
them.
But I always had in the back of my mind now we're, you know, for each beer type, we're
going to leave one and we're going to review that beer for HPR before it goes.
And as it turns out, you didn't ever hear any podcasts because it never happened and
the beers all got drunk or was a drunk.
In any case, I got drunk drinking the beers, I got drunk.
But okay, so this is this idea back again.
And as I've been sampling these beers, either the first one I drank or the last one, you
know, for I run out of that type of beer, I've been taking notes.
So unfortunately tonight, you're not going to hear me review any new beer that I've just
opened and never had before.
I would like to do that eventually, but right now I'm working from notes.
And yes, Ken, I already hear Ken in my head, you know, don't do them all in one night
now.
I'm not going to, Ken, I'm going to probably break these up if possible by the brewer because
even though some of these I brought a whole six pack of one type of beer, a lot of them,
you know, I've got two or three six packs from the same company.
So, and of course, like I said, I have several of these sampler, 12 packs or six packs, which
is all from the same company, but different styles of beers.
So that's what I'm going to do tonight.
I had a 12 back from the Schmaltz Brewing Company.
And this is their titling, not mine, they're all hops under their category of Hebrew, he
apostrophe brew, the chosen beer.
Okay, yeah, well, the founder of the company is apparently named Jeremy Cohen, so I've
got to assume he's in on the joke.
But if you were offended for this kind of profiling as I am, then please direct your comments
to link at the Linux link.net.
Let's get on with the review.
Okay, so it's a Schmaltz Brewing Company.
All these are labeled as Hebrew, but it's four different beers in the collection.
And they're all apparently, at least for this company's beers on the hoppy side.
I didn't find any of them offensively hoppy, as you folks may know, if you've listened
to pod brewers, I said, the beer I like most is the one I haven't tried yet, but having
said that, generally, I prefer a beer that's more multi in flavor than hoppy.
Now, you eat little hops for accent, but I'm not a fan of these beers, and this is a
term I think I coined that are my hops can beat up your hops beer.
And none of these in the Schmaltz Brewing Company collection are like that, despite them
being marketed as a hops collection.
Okay, so the first one in the first beer I want to tell you about is Genesis, and this
is a dry beer.
This beer is so dry that you could be forgiven for ordering glass of water to go along with
it.
The aroma and the taste is bread-y, not biscuit-y, like a lot of beers are described, but
more like a fresh sourdough loaf.
In fact, the taste of this beer almost wants you to spread butter over the beer, so if
that's sourdough, great sourdough taste.
There's just enough hops in there to be interesting rather than annoying, and it's a little
sweet on the back end.
It's so subtle that you're likely going to miss it on the first sip.
I have to admit the mouth feels a little watery.
I don't usually talk about that, but compared to a lot of these beers, just a little watery,
5.5% alcohol content, and I'm just going to say again, this is one thing I really love
about this Smolts Brewing Company.
On the label of all their beers, they include the Maltz and the hops that go into the beer.
So if you're a home brewer and you have some experience, you at least have a shot at
replicating the taste of the beer at home, I think a really good shot, and if perhaps
you're more advanced beer fishing auto, if more experience than me, you could, more experience
than I, it seems the drink and drunk thing.
You know, you could look at the label and probably have a pretty good idea what that beer
is going to taste like without ever tasting it.
So in the Genesis, the Maltz includes specially two-row, Munich, Cormunic 40, Wheat, and
Dark Crystal, and the hops are Warrior, Centennial, Cascade, and Simco.
Okay, Dexlin's selection is David Slingshot, and the four, not to say it was bad, this
is probably my least favorite of the four, it pours golden like an American logger, it
has a pretty large head that, besides rapidly, Rhyroma, subtle Rhyroma, I should say, but
the label says it's a blend of multi-grain malt, and compared to Genesis, this, I think,
has an emphasis on hops without being excessively hoppy, it's sort of like a citrus taste from
the hops, the Maltz are specialist two-row, specialist, well, maybe I should, surely I
meant specially, specially two-row, Carmel Pills, Rhyale, Crystal Rhy, Vienna, Wheat,
and Flaked Oats, so that's why it's more multi-grain, you've got some Rhy, you've got some Wheat
and you've got some Oats in there, hops are Cascade, Saz, S-A-A-Z, Summit, Citra, and
Crystal, okay, third one in the pack is Bittersweet Lennies R-I-P-A, Double Rhy, and I do like
me some Rhybeer, and apparently the Lennies, it's an O2 Lake comedian, Lennie Bruce, and
all of these, they have somewhat humorous acodotes on the label of the Fautals, however,
they don't seem to have a whole lot to do with the flavor of the beer itself, so I'm not
going to take time to relate all of them here.
The R-I-P-A pours very dark with a small head, and a room of sweet rye bread, you know,
you get some bitter rye bread, this is like rye bread, it's got enough honey or something
added to make it sweet, and it's got a, you know, doesn't mention honey on the bottle,
but, you know, I think it's fairly sweet, it's got like a sweet honey taste without
being cloyed, it's not like I've had those honey beers, they're almost cloyed, and then
right away, you know, the hops hit the back of your tongue, so it's kind of washed away,
but that sweet taste is kind of washed away by the fresh taste of the hops.
Strong rye flavor, much more than the slingshot, the David slingshot, the slingshot was mixed
with three grains, including rye, this, this, double rye, that means they're hitting
the heart of the rye, the mulch are two row, rye amult, torrified rye, crystal rye 75, crystal
malt 80, wheat, kiln amber, core munic 60, hops are warrior, cascade, simco, saz, crystal,
genook, amarillo, and centennial, okay, the last of the four in the hops, yeah, and that's
me sliding beers, not these same beers, bare bottles out of the way of the amoniner, so
I can see what I've written, all right, hop mana, IPA, originally there's hop hanna, which
would work too, porous medium amber with a good head, like of all, all these four beers,
that's what it makes the most head, then right to take much of a distinct aroma, this is kind
of a hoppy, hoppy beer, it's not, I said, I've had those beers that, man, it's just hops
on top of hops, on top of hops, and you know, my hops can meet up your hops, this, this,
this really is all hop, this sort of all hops all the time, but it's not, not as strong
as some of those, it's for the hops and thuses, who doesn't want other flavors getting in
the way, but it's still not so hoppy, the hops actually get in the way of the hops, hoppy
enough to satisfy most hop pads without making your tongue feel like it's under assault from
the hoppy command, okay, mulch, specialty two row, wheat, munic, Vienna, core munic 60, hops,
warrior, cascade, citra, amarylo, crystal, centennial dry hop, oh, I'm sorry, the hops that centenials
one of the hops, and then dry hop, centennial, cascade, and citra. Now, I think the, so
that I'm not huge on hoppy beers, but I think these are four out of four winners, if you see the
smolts brewing company in your liquor stores, refrigerator cabinet, just grab it with both hands,
I think from the selections, I don't think you'll be able to go wrong. And like I said,
even if I hated the beer, I would love the company because they've printed the mulch and the hops
on the label, okay, that's as far as I'm going to get tonight, and we'll take everybody for listening,
and I'll come back at you fairly soon with another beer review, this has been 5150 for Hacker Public
Radio.
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