Beer of the Year Award

In this Best Beers of 2025 episode, Jason and Bri break out the imaginary red carpet and count down the most memorable beers they drank all year — Golden Globes style, but with fuzzy socks and Buffalo wind chills.

From sipping a Yuzu Mango Golden Ale aboard a Norwegian cruise ship during a Bills playoff game, to discovering dessert-in-a-glass triple IPAs, cocktail-inspired sours, tropical island lagers, and a peanut butter stout that never misses, the duo revisits the beers that truly stood out in 2025. Along the way, they share travel stories from the Cayman Islands, brewery hopping across New York State, Collaboration Fest highlights, and one bittersweet honorable mention from a beloved brewery that closed its doors.

Featured breweries include Terrapin / 66 by Norwegian, Eli Fish Brewing, Cayman Islands Brewery, Frequentum Brewing, Scale House Brewery, Monster Beach Brewing, and Arkane Aleworks — each with a story, a setting, and a beer that earned its place on the list.

It’s a mix of laughs, memories, and genuinely great beer talk — proving that sometimes the best beers aren’t just about flavor, but where you were, who you were with, and the stories that came with the pour. 🍺🎙️

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Transcript

Jason:

The Buffalo Brews podcast. We are on talking about the best beers that we drank in 2025 in this best beer of the year episode. I feel like it should be like a Golden Globes or what are you wearing?

Bri:

I'm wearing a t-shirt and black shorts.

Jason:

There you go. There we go.

Bri:

I've come to the party in black.

Jason:

My hat is from Columbia, my t-shirt is from Under Armour, and my socks are some fuzzy socks from some store because it is cold as hell in Buffalo right now.

Bri:

It's Dick Sporting Goods cabin socks. If anybody hears that wind gust, it's the crazy blowing snow winds of Western New York.

Jason:

It's like 20 degrees with a wind chill of like five out there. I don't even think it's 20. And would you say it was going to be for next weekend?

Oh yeah.

Bri:

Five, eight with a low of negative eight? Negative. Yeah.

Negative actual numbers. It's crazy. So currently it's 19 and feels like negative six.

Welcome to Buffalo guys. How many days until we leave? 13, 14 days?

13 days. 13 days. All right.

So speaking of which, I don't know what you have written, but I see our number one to bring up. Speaking of cruising soon. Our number one is 66 by Norwegian Tropical Golden.

Jason:

Can we fill in the backstory about where we encountered this beer to usher in this episode?

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

Well, or should we probably talk about what we're drinking first?

Bri:

Probably.

Jason:

Or do you want to bring it up when we, maybe the next beer we'll bring up that beer and then we'll talk about what we're drinking.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

Let's do it that way. Let's talk about 66 by Norwegian.

Bri:

All right.

Jason:

So 66 by Norwegian is brewed by Terrapin Brewer Beer Company of Athens, Georgia. And what we experienced was their blonde and golden stout and their tropical golden. And that was on the Norwegian Epic last January.

So we had a lot of fun on the cruise. And this was a beer that I believe was during the Buffalo Baltimore playoff game. And I went up to get another one of the golden ales and I asked them for the Norwegian by 66.

And they said, which one? Which one?

Bri:

And we were like, what? There's more?

Jason:

Yeah. And we found out they had a tropical golden.

Bri:

Which was very exciting because that one was by far better than the other one.

Jason:

Yeah. So Yuzu Mango Golden Ale and then Terrapin Brewer Company is founded in 2002 with a great love for music, commitment to the environment and encourages everyone to live life to the fullest. Their mission is true to this day as it was in 2002 to create unique experiences through passionate brewing and the finest quality craft beers.

Bri:

And I'm super excited because on the list of beer that you sent to me for our upcoming cruise.

Jason:

Yes.

Bri:

They're going to be doing 66 by Norwegian European Pale Ale.

Jason:

I want that in my mouth.

Bri:

Immediately. Oh my gosh. With the pause.

We are too old for this.

Jason:

I don't know.

Bri:

These kids make up these like words that I don't even understand. But with Josh, yeah, with Josh, Kieran and William, we're all home over the holidays. I heard more words than I even know what to do with.

I don't even know half the time what they were saying. Like they would do pause and they would actually pause and then they would laugh. And I'm like, what's happening right now?

Jason:

Pause is like the new, that's what she said.

Bri:

I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

And then suss. That came out a lot.

Jason:

I'm not allowed to say suss. And what was the other one? It's on my prohibited words list.

Bri:

There was like three of them that all three of them were using constantly. And if they're listening, they're probably yelling at us right now at the other words that they were using. But it was hilarious.

I'm like, oh my gosh. Who knows? This is when you realize you are super old.

I mean, our children are in their 20s, but still.

Jason:

What did you like about the tropical from 66 by Norwegian? What stood out? Because it's again a yuzu mango gold nail.

Bri:

I just remember it to be super fresh, super fresh, super light, very drinkable, very enjoyable. Like it was one of those beers where you, especially being like on the ship where, you know, say you're at a, especially an at sea day or like how we were just watching the football game or whatever. You could just have two or three of these beers.

You're not going to be on the floor drunk because I think it was like low ABV.

Jason:

Yeah. 11 or 5% ABV with 11 IBUs.

Bri:

Yeah. So it was super easy drinking, not heavy on the alcohol. And I just, I loved it.

So it was a great, like just kind of hanging out, chatting, watching a game, drinking a beer, but like super flavorful, super fresh. Kind of had to like, I know we were on vacation, but it could kind of give you that feel of vacation, you know? So yeah.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. It was a good one to discover during that.

It was late. It was later in that cruise, but it was great to the point where now we wanted to have more and more of that one. It was my beer of choice for the rest of the time we were on the ship.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

We'll go to the bottom of the list only because we have the beer that we're drinking today that kind of coincides with it as far as the breweries are concerned. But we'll talk about what we're drinking first, which is from Eli Fish. It's a collaboration with our friends, Magic Bear Beer Cellar.

If you listen to the Barely Getting Started series, I'll hold this up for the camera. This is part of the El Guapo series. It's called Spritzy Bear.

It's the Aperol Spritz inspired sour. So if you're a Aperol Spritz kind of person, I don't know if I'm going to put that on the platform correctly. I'll have to center it.

I don't even know. In case it falls off. But if you're talking about Aperol, which, oh, by the way, because now we're in the Mount Fortress podcast studio, a fitness center, laundromat, and now liquor store.

Bri:

Liquor store. Liquor store.

Jason:

So literally five feet across from me here is now our entire liquor collection, which includes but is not limited to two bottles of Aperol that are on the shelf as well. So this beer, very tasty, and it was a nice collaboration that they did together. And it was followed up by another one, which was the other El Guapo that they did for the advent calendar.

We went down to Magic Bear and it was, was it? No, not Campari. Oh my gosh.

What was it?

Bri:

I don't know. I can't remember.

Jason:

I might have to pull that back up. But they did a, they brewed that at the same time as this that ended up in the advent calendar for Magic Bear Beer Cellar. But I know you were making a comment about the color of this one.

What did you like about this?

Bri:

Oh, it looks like rosé wine. It's beautiful.

Jason:

It does, right?

Bri:

Yeah. It's like a perfect pale kind of like pinkish hue to it. I love, love, love the color of it with just these little tiny bubbles floating to the top.

Jason:

Very wine-like.

Bri:

Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm like, it just reminds you of wine. And then when you drink it, it's just super, super light and enjoyable.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

I love the smell on that. Oh, the smell, the taste, it's just, it is so, so good.

Jason:

A sour base for a beer, Aperol liqueur.

Bri:

And I know this was one of Josh's favorites. When we were talking about what our favorites were for the year, this is what he brought up that he was just like, wow, mom.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely unique.

And then for, so that we bring up Eli Fish Brewing because one of the selections for this year's Beer of the Year is from Eli Fish, a collaboration again with Magic Bear Beer Cellar called Batch 500 Stair Cake to Heaven.

Bri:

Oh gosh. This beer, what a surprise. What a surprise.

Jason:

Brewed to mark the 500th batch of beer ever brewed by Eli Fish Brewing. It is a 10.5% ABV triple IPA that is saturated on pineapple, coconut cream, key lime, and vanilla bursting with juicy tropical nectarine hops. Easy for me to say.

And rich dessert like softness, drinks like a pina colada layered in an IPA flavored cake, one of a kind, decadent, and totally unhinged in the best possible way. So this, we came upon this, how was it? Post golf?

Post hike? Maybe it was post hike. And we ended up at Eli Fish as we tend to do as we come back from Rochester, especially if it's not Sunday.

Right.

Bri:

Sunday, you can't do it.

Jason:

Yeah. So talk to me about your, because you were the one who was like, went all wow burger on this beer and then- I had no idea it was going to be as good as it was.

Bri:

So it was so funny because we all had a beer and then Josh was like, oh, let's have like one more that we can share because you know, we have to drive or whatever. And I, and I said, all right. And then he's like, what's the one with the cake?

Because when you go to Eli Fish, he always has those like chalk drawings that go with all the names. And so that's what kind of stuck out was like a cake. So I read it and I was like, ooh, pretty hefty on the alcohol.

So that would be definitely one we can try and share. What a delight. And I wish I could have had a hundred of them.

First of all, that is one of those beers that you can drink and you will fall to the ground because you do not feel like it is heavy on the alcohol at all. It was delicious and it tasted like dessert in liquid form. It was incredible.

I loved it.

Jason:

It was very good.

Bri:

Oh my gosh.

Jason:

Very, very good.

Bri:

And I was hoping they had it canned and they did not because I would have totally taken that home so I could have some more. And but yeah, super, super good. I mean, that was another one where Josh was like, I think Josh has two choices on this on our list here.

Not that he was able to have like the Norwegian one, but he was all about this syrup cake to heaven. And then he was all about this. This was his vote too, to have on the list that we're drinking.

Jason:

El Guapo Spritzy Bear.

Bri:

Yeah. So I want to say, so circling back, I want to say that this was like a Bear Grony or Burr. It was a Negroni.

Jason:

It was a Negroni.

Bri:

With Magic Bear and I feel like it was something like that, like Bear Grony or something. It was probably Bear Grony because that's how Craig does things. Yeah.

Jason:

Okay.

Bri:

So that might've been the one it was.

Jason:

So this was in the Advent.

Bri:

A Negroni cocktail in a beer.

Jason:

In a beer. And it was really good. It was made specifically for the Advent box.

He had leftover in a sixtel. So I don't know, they kicked a keg right after us and then it got exposed on the board and then we got the first pour off the new keg. And then Craig was nice enough because he had a few cans that were setting aside that he didn't want to put up for sale yet.

But Craig, you know, it's, it's one of those things where if you, I say, if you, the worst they can say is no.

Bri:

You have to ask. So just ask.

Jason:

And if it's a no, it's for a good reason. Right. But Craig was nice enough to send some of them to us and I think we enjoyed those as part of some tastings we had over the holidays.

Yes. We ended up having two of them. Which met with some, with some great applause.

Bri:

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I can't find it anywhere, but I really think that's what it was.

Jason:

I think it's Negroni.

Bri:

Yeah. I really feel strong about like that was what it was, but it was delicious. But another like kind of cocktail inspired beer and honestly, I really dig this.

I really, I, I'm a beer drinker and a cocktail lover, right? Like beer is probably my go-to because cocktails, I don't always love all the ingredients that go in a cocktail or like, I'm not really sure some of the stuff mixes well for my palate. So I'm not always like a jump on the cocktail bandwagon, but I love, I will go for beer because for me, I know enough about beer that I can look at something and say, I'm probably going to like that one.

You know, so to take a cocktail that you really do know that you love, put it together with a beer. Perfection for me. Yeah.

It's like when we've had Pina Colada beers and stuff.

Jason:

Yeah.

Bri:

Yeah. Love it.

Jason:

All right. Well, that wraps up our second, our second nominee for 2025 beer of the year. We're going to move right on to number three here because this is, this is how we operate here.

Number three is going to be Island Hopper Cold IPA. It comes to us from the Cayman Islands Brewery, also known as K Brew of Georgetown in the Cayman Islands.

Bri:

Now is this the one that we ended up taking with us and we drank on Seven Mile Beach? That is the Mango Tango.

Jason:

Okay. No. So we, this is the one that we had at the bar prior to, it was even prior to the, Hey, we opened this by accident.

Would you like it? Oh, okay. So we, it was the one that we jumped at because it stuck out to us and it was an, it was a great cold IPA.

Bri:

Okay. So yes, I remember. So that was our first beer that we had there.

Jason:

Right.

Bri:

Yes.

Jason:

Island Hopper was the newest and hoppiest of the core range. It was inspired by breweries in the U S and across the globe created with the perfect IPA for the Cayman climate. Most IPAs are bitter with heavy body, delicious, but not the ideal drink for the heat.

The cold IPA is built like a lager. It's crisp. It's easy drinking, refreshing, but with a tropical hop punch.

Bri:

And it was, I remember now like very, being very light in color, very refreshing. And it was served like ice cold. And I think what made that beer taste even better was where we were sitting at the bar.

You looked out this window, this open window. So it was just open air window.

Jason:

We're at Sharky's, which is right there outside the port in Georgetown.

Bri:

Yeah. And it's just like on top of this kind of a little bit of a hill. So not like way up a hill, but like a little bit.

And you walk all the way up these stairs so that it sits even higher and you look out this open air window while you're having this wonderful, cold, refreshing beer and looking out to an ocean that you feel like is something you're looking at a fake on a computer, but it was real life. I'm really looking at it. The ocean is that turquoise.

So, but yeah, that beer was refreshing and delicious and, you know, kudos to them because I feel like we had three different beers and all of them were great because I loved the one we took to seven mile where they gave us the can. They were like, Oh, you didn't try this one. And we were like, Oh, we have to go to, we have to go to our excursion.

And he hands us a can to go.

Jason:

I didn't know the rules were. He's like, dude, you're on island time.

Bri:

You can drink it anywhere. So you're like, perfect.

Jason:

So challenge accepted.

Bri:

Yeah. So we took it to seven mile beach and opened it up and drank it there.

Jason:

See the Baths National Park in Virginia.

Bri:

Oh gosh. I mean, the funny beer stories, you could do an entire episode of all of our beer experiences, like of all the islands that we've stopped at. And it's, it's funny because there's almost a story to every single one of them.

Yeah. It's so funny.

Jason:

A lot of stories start with, so we have a podcast in Buffalo, New York and the States, right. Or, and go from there.

Bri:

Yeah. Or just like, how fast can we drink this? Or, you know, just anything and everything.

It's just, it's so very cool of all the different beers that we've had.

Jason:

But the, uh, Cayman islands brewery is the largest craft brewery of the Cayman islands launched in 2007. It was a state-of-the-art brewery that was incorporating a fully automated brew house, uh, together with kegging, canning, and bottling lines. And it's the objective from the start to deliver world-class product, unique to the Cayman islands on a range of beers.

They have won many awards in the international arena. There's the, there's the picture right there. I'm going to hold that right up to the camera.

Might even share that one back on social media as well.

Bri:

Right there.

Jason:

Buried that in the sand on seven mile beach on our five minute stopover.

Bri:

Thanks to the, the people who don't know how to get back on the bus.

Jason:

They don't know Island time apparently.

Bri:

Well, they were on Island time taking too long.

Jason:

Yeah. But, uh, uh, yeah. So the Cayman islands, we're actually going back to here in two weeks time ish.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

And, uh, it's one of our goals to actually walk into the actual Cay brew and have a, have a Chatsky. So we'll see if that's something that's going to happen, you know, here in the near future. We'll let you know.

Yeah. All right. Moving right on.

So, uh, that was the third. We'll move right onto the fourth, which is going to be, uh, my probably should overlay some music into this one. And I think you're in, would be proud of this one, but it would be Miami vice.

It's a sour, a fruited sour that comes to Miami vice and music. I'll lay it in over top of this, but, uh, Frequentum Brewing Company of Canandaigua, New York. A 5.2% ABV. So it's a heavily fruited sour inspired by the frozen cocktail with half strawberry, vanilla, and half coconut pineapple. So, uh, this was brewed in collaboration with the Buffalo Beer Geeks for the Collaboration Fest in 2025. And it was the collaboration champion.

All right. That works for me. That works for me.

I appreciate it.

Bri:

That's what I'm here for. Gets you a little jazzed up for some Miami vice.

Jason:

Yeah. So this goes back to our experience at the Collaboration 2025. We were helping out our friend, uh, Tom Whitmarsh from the Beer Trail.

I got a chance to get out and kind of wander around and check out some things in Miami vice, not only stood out, it jumped out at us. Oh yeah. It was really, really good.

Fantastic beer. Fantastic beer. I would hope that, you know, there's some certain beers and I know this is a collaboration beer, collaboration beer, but it's collaboration was the festival that I would hope that they would make again.

Yeah, I mean, you never know. Yeah. I mean, if anybody is going to make something like that, if it fits in their wheelhouse, it's these guys.

Yeah. So, uh, for Quentum, they began their operations in Canandaigua in 2020, the old Main Street Dairy, uh, their brewery founders, which was, um, uh, Megan and David, uh, now, uh, D'Alessandro, I think is the name as it's pronounced. And they're a garage bound small batch home brewer, which enjoyed crafting modern and traditional beer styles.

So it's another story of home brewers that brought it to the big leagues. And now all of a sudden they're, you know, they're, they're making wonderful sours, great IPAs. And I've never had a bad beer.

And the vibe at Frequentum is so cool. Yeah. We've actually passed by the one in Canandaigua.

We haven't stopped in that one yet, but that we have the one here in Buffalo. And that was open in February of 2023, uh, right down off of Louisiana street in this, you know, in the city, like right near, um, old first ward, kind of across the Creek from, um, Resurgence and Hartman's. So it's a, yeah, there's, it's a, it's a great place to stop in and they've always got something great on tap there.

Bri:

Again, never, ever, ever have I walked into that place and had a beer I was not in love with. Yeah. Just stellar.

Jason:

It was a deserving champion that year.

Bri:

Oh, for sure. Yep.

Jason:

I think the unseated, uh, Noble Shepherd who were the two-time reigning champions at that point. So yeah, but then we'll see what happens. Cause we're, uh, we're going to be on the Resurgence team this year.

So we're going to see whether or not we can, uh, you know, put something together here and compete for this title. Maybe we'll be in the top three, one point, right? Maybe.

We'll see. We'll see.

Bri:

If not, it's still fun.

Jason:

We'll see. Number four. Well, let's see here.

Is that number four? We'll get number five.

Bri:

I jumped around.

Jason:

So number five on our list is going to be, uh, from Scalehouse Brewery in Hector, New York. So we've talked about this multiple times on the podcast, which is the peanut butter stout. It's an American stout, huge peanut butter on the nose, balanced, nutty chocolate finish.

Scalehouse Brewery is a, for lack of a better word, charming, um, craft brewery that's nestled right in the heart of the Hector area there with a great view of Seneca Lake. It's on the east side of the lake. Uh, the brewery is more than just a place for exceptional beer.

It's a destination for community craftsmanship. And, uh, meatballs and the meatballs. That's right.

Bri:

Don't forget to add the best part.

Jason:

So when everything was, when everything was happening politically with people possibly losing their snap benefits, um, when that was becoming a realistic thing, Scalehouse went out of their way to say, look, we're going to close for normal business for one day. And we're going to make all this food. No questions asked.

You come, you pick up food that way. You're not, you know, you're not in the need for food in case those snap benefits didn't come through, which they didn't at first, it took like a half a month for the, for the benefits to finally come through, but they sold out of everything and, uh, they, and it's just a testament for what they do for the community there.

Bri:

And if you're a big pizza lover, they make amazing pizzas. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a big pizza person, but I mean, I know you've had the pizza multiple times, super good.

But for me, it's the meatballs all day long, coupled with that peanut butter style.

Jason:

Super friendly people. Those, yeah, those meatballs are.

Bri:

I've had very few other beers there just because I can't, I can't not have this beer.

Jason:

You know, for some place we might have a second one, but it's always, it's always starts with the peanut butter, right? The peanut butter style.

Bri:

It's just, and it's every single time you have it, it's, it's perfect. Right.

Jason:

They, uh, so yeah, that's going to be, uh, that's one of our beers of the year as well. Um, I think that puts us down to one more, right? Yeah.

It gives us one more.

Bri:

Right.

Jason:

And then, uh, so I'm going to bring up the honorable mention before we bring up our, the, the final one, because we did have an honorable mention on that list that couldn't be listed because the brewery closed. So what we're talking about is Monster Beach Brewing and Tiki Bar, formerly of Fredonia, New York, the Jekyll's Serum No. 2 Thai PA.

So it's an American IPA with Thai influence.

Bri:

And it was so good.

Jason:

When you talk about Thai beer, you're talking about mint. You're talking about basil. You're talking about orange peel, lemongrass.

It was amazing. All of these things were together for this, you know, conditioned on CTC and Cascade hops. And it was a, uh, uh, Marego, I think that's the right word.

Marego Bay IPA. So it's a style and it was just fantastic.

Bri:

It was amazing though. Marejo? That might be another.

I don't know. All's I know is it came together and it was so funny because I was so curious and she said, oh, I'll just get you a taste of it if you want. And I was like, sure.

And I tasted it and I said, this is awesome. Like I love, love, love that beer. And I'm really sad they closed because it was a cute place too that had so much potential.

Super fun concept. All their fun tiki glasses. Yeah.

The food we ate there when we were there was so delicious. The staff was awesome. Cute little place.

The beer was great.

Jason:

50s monster movie themed. Yeah. Very.

Bri:

And I think like we each had a beer and then we shared a cocktail because there was like a super fun cocktail that they had on their menu, which was what led us to ask about the tiki glass because you could have a search of tiki glass, but you had to put like a deposit down.

Jason:

It was a hefty deposit just because these glasses were pretty petty.

Bri:

And they said, well, because you could like take them and they don't, you know, when they're super busy and people just walk out with them, it's a lot of money. So, I mean, I wish I would have lived closer because I wondered if they sold off like all of those tiki glasses, I would have totally been there to buy them.

Jason:

They were supposed to have a sale and that was the one thing. We were going to drive down special, but they never had that sale.

Bri:

I mean, that would have been awesome.

Jason:

Yeah.

Bri:

I don't know. I don't know if somebody packed them away thinking like maybe someday they'll be able to open something, but they were real cool.

Jason:

I would have gone down there and, you know, depending on the price, I could have walked out of there with two or three of them easy. Yeah. They were really neat.

That would have been fun.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

But, um, yeah, so they were the, uh, they were considered Fredonia's number one abomination vacation destination. That's what they called themselves. They were really cool.

Bri:

Yeah. They were really cool. They were super fun.

And they had monster movies, like old monster movies playing on different TVs.

Jason:

I remember we, we had this, we had this, um, we had this wild idea and it's still in my notebook upstairs where we were talking about doing a mystery science theater, 3000 style, like movie viewing beer tasting there. And just sitting down with them and just like, like asking them about sitting down and just like, just, I don't know, just crushing a fifties movie while crushing, you know, a few drinks. I thought it would be such a fun thing to do.

Almost drive-in movie style.

Bri:

So I don't know, well, perhaps, perhaps something for another day, for another place, but maybe we run into someplace in one of our travels that's kind of the same, but it was, it was definitely going to be kudos to a really fun beer that I've never ever seen in my life. And I don't know that I'll ever see it again.

Jason:

I've never seen a Thai, a Thai style IPA.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

Not since then.

Bri:

So if any of you guys are like listening and you've seen one recently, then just let us know, because now I'm going to need to go to that brewery to try it.

Jason:

An IPA with mint, basil, lemongrass, orange peel. Yeah. So that those are the main things that make a Thai IPA.

Bri:

So, so good. And so refreshing. And so just, I don't know, it just, it was multiple levels of like different tastes.

It was, I just remember that beer being like one taste going in one taste while you're swallowing. And then like a third taste on the tongue, you know, like that lingering taste, oh, just perfect. So sad face that that one's gone, but at least we got to experience it.

And it was a wonderful, pleasurable beer.

Jason:

Yeah. Well, you know, they'll, they'll come up in a, in an episode that we're going to be recording here really soon about kind of state of the industry stuff. There's been a lot of movement going on in the beer industry that we'll, we'll talk about in our next episode, but I want to bring up the last nominee here.

So we can get to the voting.

Bri:

All right.

Jason:

Uh, which is going to be, uh, from Arcane Aleworks of Largo, Florida, not Key Largo, Florida, Largo, Florida. Oh, I can't wait to get back to Largo sometime. That's a long drive from...

Bri:

I had to give Jay a lesson on the difference between Largo and Key Largo. I mean, to be fair, you don't really know tons of Florida, but, um, when you said the day we were drinking it, um, for the second time, because somehow we have gotten our hands on this elusive beer three times, three times, three times. And, um, I remember you looked and I said, where are they out of?

And you're like Largo. And I go Largo, we're literally going to be there. And you're like, no, we're not.

We're going to be so far away. I pull it up. I go, it's a 20 minute drive.

Jason:

You're talking about Key Largo. Yeah.

Bri:

So it's a 20 minutes outside of Tampa.

Jason:

So we're going to be going. Which will be in that area in two weeks. So when we get back from the cruise, we're going to be making a little trip to, uh, to, to Largo and I think in, I think when we were in talking in the, ooh, Deck the Halls episode, we were like, yeah, Arcane, this is our idea for play.

Prepare yourself for, for we're coming for an invasion.

Bri:

We're coming for you.

Jason:

Yeah. Uh, so they're a smallish brewery that's focused on pushing boundaries and sometimes pushing buttons.

Bri:

So it's so funny. Oh, you're still talking.

Jason:

Oh, that's okay. They're located in Pinellas County, which is, this is what I wrote down. Arcane Ale Works is a brewery that was founded by Joel and it's Scheibel Hut, actual spelling, it says here in the, in the listing and Dan Graston, who represents the culmination of years of passion and planning and started as two poor kids with a dream and grew into two poor kids with a dream and a Facebook page.

Bri:

I love it. So the funny thing about this beer is it's called Bell Barbecue and I don't see anything barbecue about it. So it's so hilarious because the can art on it is like a cake castle.

So there's nothing that has to do with barbecue. It doesn't taste anything like barbecue. I would love to know why and how they named it this.

Bell Barbecue. Well, while we're talking about this, yeah. But it tastes delicious and fruity and I just, I was so, so, so lucky.

Like I said, to be able to have it now, once, not twice, but three.