Baltimore baseball lore and the taste of fresh beer in Eldersburg

Ain’t the beer cold in Carroll County? The Maryland Crab Cake Tour always finds unique combinations but Baltimore baseball lore and the science (and palate) behind delicious local beer always makes for a fresh conversation. Tasty taps and more on the sportswriting legend of Jim Henneman at 1623 Brewing in Eldersburg with Matt Evans and Craig Weiss.

Nestor Aparicio hosts a discussion at 1623 Brewing in Eldersburg, featuring Matt Evans, a beer enthusiast, and Craig Weiss, who sells the brewery’s products. They reminisce about the life and legacy of Jim Henneman, a Baltimore baseball icon. Matt shares his passion for brewing, emphasizing the importance of temperature and water in beer making. They discuss various beer styles, including Matt’s favorite, the lager, and the brewery’s offerings, such as fruited sours and stouts. The conversation also touches on the competitive beer market and the brewery’s distribution strategy. Nestor promotes his upcoming 27th anniversary celebration featuring 27 favorite foods and beers.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore baseball, beer tasting, 1623 Brewing, Eldersburg, Maryland lottery, Jim Henneman, beer making, beer selling, beer styles, lager, stout, beer temperature, beer water, Maryland crab cake tour, 27th anniversary.

SPEAKERS

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Speaker 1, Nestor Aparicio, Craig Weiss, Matt Evans

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome back. We are W, N, S T am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. I am positively on a weird mic here, as I’m trying to get through this. Yeah, that’s my mic. Here we go. All right, we’re all good now. We’re out here at 1623, I am remaking guests. Here we have beer makers. We have beer sellers. We have relatives of Jim Henneman. It’s like royalty out here. John Allen’s picking free beer in the back here. We’re at 1623, we’re in Eldersburg, Maryland, beautiful Carroll County. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lot. I have two fresh tickets. I keep holding it. This is John’s non winning ticket, but I’ll hold it up anyway. The lucky sevens double as well as pressure luck. This is, on unpressed. Hopefully it is lucky. We’re gonna be out doing the Maryland crab cake tour on Friday at Zeke’s in lauraville. We’ll have some coffee in the morning, and then we’re gonna be a little bit of a respite for a couple weeks, and we come back with our 27th anniversary. 27 of my favorite things to eat in 27 days the entire month of August. We’ll be doing that. Craig is here, Matt is here we were out here at 1623, got people to make beer, people that sell beer. You’re related to Henneman, Greg, let’s start with that. I mean, like, Hey, anybody Henneman is my guy. I guess I saw you at his funeral. I saw a lot of people that day, a lot of baseball people that day.

Craig Weiss  01:16

It was, it was a crowded event with no doubt. So you are beer

Nestor Aparicio  01:19

and baseball royalty. You’re connected to both, correct Absolutely. Matt, you’re just a beer

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Matt Evans  01:24

guy. I’m just a beer guy. A big fan. Big fan. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  01:29

you know, Mike has spoken highly of you, and I’ve now sampled a few of your beers. I haven’t had the coal shit. So we gotta get the coal story out of you with the Henneman thing and just a Baltimore story. Because when I think a gym, everybody in that room. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a more Baltimore funeral. You know what I mean, a Baltimore baseball funeral where, like every corner of the room, there was Jim Palmer and there was Phil wood and there was Bill steca, and there were players and there were there Bob Brown’s son, Scott. He was there with it was just this incredible celebration of his life, but really of a life in baseball. I think it’s anything,

Craig Weiss  02:07

and Baltimore baseball specifically, yeah, it was. It was pretty impressive to see some of the folks that came out just just to pay their respects. That to me, you know, because as a little backstory in last 14 months was life. He lived with me at our house, with my wife and I, and because he couldn’t really get around much anymore. So I got, you know, I got an insight into what his life was like, a lot more so than even I thought I did. I thought I knew him really well. Now, how are you really give me? I am married to his daughter. Wow, his only daughter. So that makes me his favorite son in law. Wow.

Nestor Aparicio  02:39

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Well, God bless you, man. I mean, when did you meet your wife?

Craig Weiss  02:44

We met a little over 40 years ago. When did you meet her? It was in 1983

Nestor Aparicio  02:51

All right, so I met Jim around. Then I became Jim’s colleague on January 6, 1986 when I was birthed into the evening sun by Jack Gibbons, my boss, his boss as well. And you know, Jim was just an incredible mentor to so many people. But when I think I haven’t had Ken on the show, Ken Rosenthal on the show, but I was young, but young enough to know as a 1718, year old kid, when this young, 2122 year old Bucha, is about this tall came in and Jim Henneman was the legendary Jim Henneman, and he was going to sort of take his job at some point. Jim was going to be the national baseball writer. I remember Jim not being pleased with that, like in the beginning part, and then Jim sort of embraced all of it. And we’re talking 40 years later upon his death. We’re talking about a guy who adjusted even that I learned that his funeral was the Bat Boy, and the opening day 1963 down in DC, he’s got that picture of Louis Aparicio that was next to the casket, literally, that Tim Curtin took me up to. And I’m like, Man, my cousin touched Jim Henneman in a massive, massive way. And I’m sure Henneman, when I was a young guy. Said I knew your cousin. I knew Louie.

Craig Weiss  04:02

You know it’s and it’s funny you say, because in that picture, people don’t know is he’s wearing a pair of cleats that he borrowed from Brooks Robbins because he they the bat boy didn’t show up, so he had to recruit somebody, and his boss basically recruited him. Yeah, Stedman said, Jim will do it. Was crazy. He didn’t have anything, so he ended up borrowing cleats from Brooks, Robinson and riles were given a bunch of stuff, which was pretty cool. We had that picture at the house too. Is just cool.

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Nestor Aparicio  04:26

You’re young and sexy. Does this mean anything? You wearing an Oriole hat? This old Oriole lore?

Matt Evans  04:31

Oh yeah. I’m familiar with all. I hope it does.

Nestor Aparicio  04:33

Because, I mean, this is one thing in the parking lot of the funeral home at a due to rock. Our rock funeral. I called due to rock, because that’s done dog thing, but rock funeral home in Towson, I’m there in the parking lots with Brett Hollander. Might be closer to your age than my age, I would say. And Brett was, he’d done the game the day before, and was asking me, you know this and that? And I talked to him said, you know, Brett, there’s so few people that really know. And. Care to know who are in their 20s or 30s, beyond Jim Palmer being sexy in the broadcast or whatever, but how great Jim Palmer was. And now the Brooks is gone, and Louie is not around, and Frank’s gone. I, you know I saw during the rain delay the other day they did the Frank Robinson statue thing they were doing the other night. I hope that young people have an appreciation for people like Jim Henneman and people who laid the groundwork to make you want to wear

Matt Evans  05:25

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that he’s an idol for a lot of people. Oh, there’s no question

Nestor Aparicio  05:29

about that. Well, you make beer, dude, 1623, Brett’s a sexy shirt. You got there? My shirts not that good. But Mike is already sort of pre introduced you as being a coal sky and not necessarily an IPA, yeah, IPA, I say the IPAs. What the with the the Iranian wrestler was, is they decided,

Craig Weiss  05:50

Oh, great. Hussein, him and he

Nestor Aparicio  05:54

had the things he was doing on i

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Craig Weiss  05:58

What was his name? Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  06:01

Sergeant slaughter. It. I’m a stout guy, and I’m a coach guy. John had some dark thing over there look like midnight that I’d be getting into as well. But what do you drink

Matt Evans  06:14

as a guy? I’m a big lager guy, so coals is my absolute favorite. I’ll drink that any day. Culture lager. It’s a hybrid, so it’s a mix of an ale and Nicole. So we can get a little bit of both out of it. So you get those nice lager characteristics, but we get the tank times and whatnot, which is tank time, how long it sits in our tanks itself. So any they can range anywhere from two weeks to two months. It’s

Nestor Aparicio  06:37

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like, like, John, you play rock and roll. I listen to you make beer, I drink beer. So I’m here to learn today what’s the most important thing people need to know about

Matt Evans  06:46

temperature. Temperature is the most important thing, and water, water, I would say is probably first water is the most important water, water, some water. I’m a water guy. But then temperature follows shortly after that. They’re both very vital and how it comes out.

Nestor Aparicio  07:03

In the end, I had my first beer when I was out, 1011, 12, whatever it was. I think that was about same age. I never thought. I mean, from Dundalk man, We all drank, right? I mean, it’s a problem. Cannabis wasn’t readily available as it is now, to have a taste for it, I’ll be honest with you, this will involve Richard back here. Richard doesn’t remember this rich. We had a guy in Reisterstown Road. We used to camp after concert tickets. We’re going to talk about this. He took me back to his house in Pikesville, and I’ll never forget this. He had a coach, and he also had those Mickey wide mouth flyers, okay, yeah. And he also had the beer that had you pulled the top off. It was a German long neck. It was dark, but it’s like motor oil. Oh, gross, gross, gross. First time

Craig Weiss  07:53

I ever got drunk is like an 1112, year old was on. I went to chesco in with my sister’s boyfriend, Jessica,

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Nestor Aparicio  08:01

when he went to Jessica with John,

Craig Weiss  08:03

played play over there on Yeah, played, played pool with him, lost a bunch of and drank rolls all night and got,

Matt Evans  08:11

I don’t know, I don’t know rhymes with, but I mean, there’s a lot of different

Nestor Aparicio  08:16

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styles, other Dark Bach, Beck, Beck, Beck Spock. Bach, Beck, Spock, that was like motor oil, right? So when we were camping out or whatever it was like, I want Coors Light. Give me middle. We didn’t have Coors Light. We’re young. That was bootlegging, but, but, you know, like Miller, Miller, high life, Budweiser, there was barely a Bud Light. I’m going back into their own

Craig Weiss  08:39

natural light. Natural light bush. Bucha

Nestor Aparicio  08:43

Schaefer was the Weekender, red, white and blue. He had some really shitty beers. Job done. Alex

Matt Evans  08:51

might not have been great, but he got the job done. I gotta put it. I gotta put your fell down.

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Nestor Aparicio  08:57

I’m popping my peas, and I know better than to do all this. I i sound hot, even though I’m not on the radio. But so I drank all of these motor oil beers out in Pikesville when I was a kid, and I didn’t know any better, and I thought I didn’t like anything that looked like motor oil, like I’m literally, I’m telling stories I’ve never told before. It’s good. I’m staring at Richard because he’s involved in the day. But in Dundalk, we threw parties and keggers and we had cops and we, you know, we, it was bud Miller, Coors. It was like, lager, right? So I’m a lager guy. That’s probably one of the IPA thing. It’s just bitter and it, I don’t want more than one. I don’t even want to finish the damn one. You put

Speaker 1  09:37

new craze. It’s, I mean, it’s an acquired taste. A lot of people teach their own I’m not the biggest IPA fan. It screws with me a little too much, but you do get some good flavor profile,

Nestor Aparicio  09:47

dude. I’m a lager guy, and as I’ve gotten older, I started to get into stouts when I got a black and tan writing a black and tan and sexy, two different colors, two different flavor profiles. And then, as I. 56 now, and like my my my palate has changed from a food stamp, oh yeah, you know, I love foods that I didn’t know I would love, and I’m doing my 27 favorite foods next month. So if you’re into Indian food, if you’re into Thai food, if you’re into Chinese food, if you’re into far if you’re I mean, I’m all about that, but I’m gonna do cookies and snowballs and crab cakes too. I mean, I’m gonna mix it up, but I have a wide palette. And I would say, have a wide drinking palette. I don’t love whiskeys, I don’t love rise, I don’t like things that that give me the bitter tart. I don’t like tart, but I have fallen in love with stout. You have a delicious milk stout? Yeah? I mean, I, you know, I get the left hand milk stout for years, right? That’s a classic, good one, but that’s a gateway drug to COVID into breweries, and a lot

Matt Evans  10:44

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of it is the inspiration behind what we do. I mean, from my standpoint, I look up to a lot of those bigger breweries, like Deschutes, left hand, Lagunitas. Lagunitas is another good one. I got my start. I got my start at rogales out in Oregon, and I was there for a few years. So I come to appreciate those guys a lot, and take a lot of what I do and put it into our product here.

Nestor Aparicio  11:06

How many of you running? I mean, I got the big tanks back here, f1 f2 f3 sounds like engine. Sounds like a race going on back here. We

Matt Evans  11:13

have a total of 30 tanks in total, between fermentation, conditioning, all sorts. Some of our tap lines are fed directly from a 15 barrel tank. So that’s roughly about 400 gallons of tank space sitting in the cooler alone, and we have eight of those in our

Nestor Aparicio  11:30

cooler. You make anything blueberry for me or No, you haven’t got we did any blueberry

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Matt Evans  11:34

sour last year. Okay? We have a another berry sour coming out later this year that’ll probably be like a mix of blackberry and blueberry, but, um, that one will be a good one when it comes out.

Nestor Aparicio  11:45

I had a friend. It was a brewery rep for a famous Pennsylvania line. I’m not gonna and, you know, they’re little, right wing for my taste. But he said, We don’t put fruit in our beer. We don’t put fruit in our beer. I went up

Matt Evans  11:59

to I saw just saw King of the Hill meme for that, I saw

Nestor Aparicio  12:02

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Springsteen play up on the hill in Moncton, New Brunswick, up in northern Canada, up by, you know, beautiful part of the world. And I had a moose head light lime. That was good. And I, I’m a moose head drinker as a your Lager. Now, I’m a lager, man. You will never come into my home where there’s not a moose head in the fridge, that’s, I don’t drink it all. That’s a good sign. But like, I really like moose head beer, and I it’s a palette thing for me. And off of that, whether it’s the Mexican lines of limes and salts or or fruit in general, I don’t I’m not a Shandy. I don’t want a sweet beer. No, I mean, but I’d also don’t want the bitter beer. That thing

Matt Evans  12:45

going on. The big thing around here is it’s either your super light lager or your super sugared sour beer, and that’s what a lot of people look for, or high ABV. It’s kind of the general crowd. Now,

Nestor Aparicio  12:59

Craig, you sell it here, right? You sell the beer when it comes to pallets and different things like that. That’s the thing that is amazing to me from being a guy. I’ve been on the radio 27 years for the station this week, but I’ve been on here 34 years, and I was bud sponsored. I was Miller sponsored. They built my radio station. I mean, Budweiser gave me $30,000 in the middle of the strike in 1994 and said, How? Said, have a radio show. We want you to be in business. John Dowd, George Acton, over at winter distributing so I was bud first, but bud and John will hate to hear this, but I was a Coors Light drinker because Bud would give me a hangover. Bud Light will hang me over. I don’t know what’s in it. I don’t know what’s in it. Miller Lite will hang me over. Coors Light will not hang me over. So if you see me out drinking Coors Light, you make piss water joke. Have at it. I made that joke with the folks at Bond distributing I did my show in 1998 from Coors Field, and I called it pissy water field for a week. And the bond family and Leslie and Randy over it at the family, they called me over, and I’ll never forget, Bob footlich calls me into a student his office. He became a dear friend of I love Bob. I love both the Bob’s and I’m in their office. Bob footlich got his cigar out. He’s like, son, we can’t have you calling the beer busy water that we we need to come up with a deal. I’m like, gonna sponsor my show, Mr. Foot, like, you know, sponsor. I said I’ve been drinking Coors Light all. The whole time I’ve been talking about bud. I mean, I literally would get a Coors Light and dump it into a bud by I’m admitting things that I it’s true, because it would hang me over, no, and I just couldn’t do it. So I’m afraid of certain beers. And Matt, I’ll tell you that, by the way, Craigs here, Matt’s here. We’re at 1623, we’re drinking beer in Eldersburg. Two summers ago, three summers ago, I did my first crab cake tour. I did 25th anniversary. I did 25 crab cakes, 25 days, 24 counties all over the state. And the next year, because we had so much fun. My wife and I were driving around, we found all the breweries. And I said, we should, I mean, for the Maryland Brewer, says, yeah, like all that, we went, Well, we did 26 but I did about 37 breweries. You know, there were some out in the water. Really, it was out on the west side of the state, and I was hitting two a day. You know, two, one of the little too easy for you, though, yeah, and I didn’t go crazy. I mean, short glass in a lot of places, or in most places, I get a stout, I get a call, I get a lager, I get a pilsner. As a young person, I would spend time in Venezuela with my father, my family, there’s a beer there called polar P, o, l, a, r, it’s got a polar bear on it. Oh yeah, it’s a pilsner. It’s a pills. And so I they Alma downtown has it in bottle. He’s very hard to get in America, especially with Venezuelan corruption and all that. But that was a gateway for me when I was in my teens, early 20s, and I love that Pilsner. So I’m a pilsner lager guy, and probably everything comes off of that, except for stout and then Kolsch. So my wife had cancer 12 years ago and had her life saved by a guy who lives near Cologne, Germany. Okay, so we’ve been over to Cologne several times. And if you spend any time there at all, Kolsch,

Matt Evans  16:17

it’s a culture, yeah, it’s literally, that is the heart, that is the birthplace of the coals, and you will find the most amazing cultures from that area. Well,

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Nestor Aparicio  16:26

what are you making here? What are you making? Calls wise, we have quite

Matt Evans  16:29

a few right now. We have a fruited coal Sean with mango and passion fruit. We used about 800 pounds of fruit in total for that beer. And then we are bringing back so later on this year, we are going to be part of the waterfowl festival out in Easton, Maryland, and we’re gonna be doing a private label for that one as well. And that’s gonna be our Cole Schwartz, the Wade. So it’ll definitely be sticking around for a little while and coming back making a big

Nestor Aparicio  16:52

show. Next time you guys go to Cologne, I’m gonna send you to Bayer uma climbing. Bear uma climbing. It’s a it’s the most famous schnitzel place in the world, all right, so if you Google it, you’ll see it’s very, very humble. It sits in a normal neighborhood on a normal road with graffiti all over the outside. If you walk in, it’s not but it’s the best schnitzel in the

Matt Evans  17:16

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world. That’s where you find the best places. So conspicuous

Nestor Aparicio  17:20

beta uma climbing as I get crab dip coming in here, if I start eating it, I stopped talking, which is a hint. So I went in and I fell in love with the coals. There I got and I went. I had a lot of calls. I mean, we’re downtown cologne. You go around, they bring it to you. If you google this, they bring it in these, these metal, metal liquid milk cartons, and they’re all little cups. And they bring it with the wires. It’s almost like a crab pot, yeah? And they drop it, and it’s just beer everywhere with the heads on it. And they cut the heads

Matt Evans  17:52

off of all of it, right? And they just automatically start refilling. And they’re little, they’re little

Nestor Aparicio  17:57

six ounce cups, and the beer stays cold in the summertime. It’s delicious. I fell in love with this. You can Google this. It’s called it’s s u n n e r, but my German brothers from other mothers have said it’s zunair Zoo Now, S U N N R, I called it sunner summer. So I fell in love with it. The second time we went to Cologne, I googled it all up, and I found out where their garden was, and you could take the subway out of Cologne, three miles, you know, just on the other like the Parkville of Cologne. Yeah. And we went to their garden, and I sat there, and, dude, it just will be like me going over your tap. I’m over there in

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Matt Evans  18:35

Germany drinking. We get the request for that all the time. Let me just put my head under the tap. Can

Nestor Aparicio  18:40

I poop on Ron Furman down at Max’s formerly on Broadway Max’s tap house, Ron has had the sooner on tap three of the last four Octobers and refuses to call me and like, I remember it in December. He’s like, You got to come in October. It’s Oktoberfest. We get a keg of it. We get and we bring it in, we tap that MFR, and it’s gone by the end of the week. And I’m like, You got to get me in when it arrives.

Matt Evans  19:03

Yeah, before they test it control, we got our quality control guys right back here. That’s right,

Craig Weiss  19:11

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they’re here all the time. But my dad went to, went to Germany and Austria. He worked at Bethlehem Steel. They were, when they were bringing a continuous casting machine to Bethlehem Steel, they had to get people trained on it. So he was sent over to Germany and Austria for 15 weeks to learn how to use this machine, all this stuff, and he could never drink another American beer. When he came back, he came back, he drank beer over there for 15 weeks. When he came back, he said everything he got back here tasted so bad he couldn’t drink, I’m not big on warm

Nestor Aparicio  19:34

beer, so you know that? You know

Matt Evans  19:35

that’s another I was actually just having a conversation about this with somebody the other day about hand pulled beers hand like when they’re done well, they’re done, fantastic, and you can drink them at warm temperature, but it’s very hard to find in the States. That’s for one thing that very few and far between. I’ve probably found one that I’ve actually enjoyed out in Omaha, of all places, had a steak there once. Hey, they got a great Steakhouse. They

Nestor Aparicio  19:58

did. You know, it’s fine. I. All right, we’re talking beer here, just in a general sense. And we’re at 1623, brewing John’s been here. We’ve done rock and roll, we’ve done Essex. We’re going to do Live Aid. I got Richard Dave here. I’m lubricating him over here with some good European lagers for soup to nuts, to start a beer, and to say I’m going to do Nestor favorite stout online. We’re gonna have it here in October, when the weather starts to change or whatever. I’m kind of shocked you have stout year round. I mean, I don’t think of it as a winter thing. I I wouldn’t load up on it on 100 degree day, but I prefer it. I call it like a milkshake. It’s kind of like the beginning of the Guinness. Have dinner in a glass kind of thing,

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Matt Evans  20:40

right? And we have one too, yeah. And we have a dry stout on as well, too. That is a perfect all year round stout, light, drinkable, but you get full chocolate, roasty coffee, all the great notes that you

Nestor Aparicio  20:51

get that’s coming up next, the next segment, but, but if to dream up something that’s new that you want to do, to getting it done, what’s the sort of pregnancy of a beer? How long does this

Matt Evans  21:02

last? It depends. Really, I’ve gotten a lot of different places from a lot of random places, and he’ll confirm this. I’ve reached out like I’ve gotten random thoughts at 2am watching master chef. I want to do a cherry wheat Exactly. So it’s like you. So I was watching, I was watching master chef, and they were making these Turkish Delight candies on the show. I’m like, pomegranate pistachio that actually, that could work in a beer. So I texted him, I’d be like, Hey, you think you could sell this? Like, you know, it’s weird, but I think I could do

Nestor Aparicio  21:37

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it. And so you really are dreaming things up. You’re absolutely right. Literally, yeah, I get my

Matt Evans  21:42

inspiration from a lot of different things, whether it be food. I’m big on food, cooking and eating, whatever it may be. So they brought all this. I got wings.

Nestor Aparicio  21:52

They’re bringing me this stuff here. I mean, Mike’s handing me this if I start eating. This is crab dip. Was that? That is crab dip? All right, with a little non bread, all right. I’m gonna have at this. You guys have to talk if I start eating or start, we can handle talking for a little how are we selling beer? How does beer sell? Cuz i i part of the whole Miller Coors thing was, like, I used to go into any liquor store, and it was Miller Coors and Bud, maybe a little bit of Heineken ear and a little bit of these dark beers. And who the hell would drink that I was at it red brick station. I did the show couple months ago, and he was one of the first people I knew. Bill blocker, who I walked in and I saw his things and and we laugh about it. I was 30 years ago. We had a long segment we did, please go watch that. Bill is a great guy, his daughter, and they had this beautiful thing over at the avenue. We’re 50 miles away from the other side of town, here in Eldersburg. But I remember saying to him, I was trying to do my Raven show in his place in 9798 gotcha. I was bud sponsored. I was core sponsor. I was Miller. He didn’t have any of it in there. I’m like, how the hell are you going to stay in business serving dark, flat, warm beer, you know? And I was so wrong about brewery culture and all that selling this now, it sort of sells itself to some degree. When you say, I’ve got a pomegranate pistachio, and nobody’s ever tasted like I want to try that, right?

Craig Weiss  23:11

It’s, it’s not quite as simple as that, because there’s so many breweries now, like when you’re talking about he was doing what he was doing over there at red brick station. I lived over there. I lived over there. I lived in Parkville over the time, so we used to go over there all the time. It was a lot easier, because it wasn’t now, there’s

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Nestor Aparicio  23:25

the only place doing it, right? Yeah, it’s 150 breweries

Craig Weiss  23:29

here in Maryland, or whatever the number is now, and everybody’s coming out with something new all the time. So you think, you know, we come up with the pomegranate pistachio, sour, awesome. It’s going to sell easy. I want to go out there talk to people about it, but I’m like, one of 15 breweries that came in that week with a new beer. So the liquor stores only have someone. They had a

Nestor Aparicio  23:46

strawberry lemonade Shandy, and this guy had a peach, you know, whatever

Craig Weiss  23:50

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it really comes down. It’s selling like anything else. It’s, you know, it’s a relationship based business. You build a relationship based on the service you provide to a customer and stores. And once they get to know you, they know you’re always going to be there. You’re going to service them. Service when they have a problem, then they start you come in with something new, then they’re willing to bring it in. But it’s, it’s a lot more competition out there now for this, for this kind of beer, any of these things that has ever been

Nestor Aparicio  24:12

in the past, and I’ve heard that from all the breweries, you know? I mean, I’m not beer sponsored right now. I’m cannabis sponsor. My thanks to curio wellness. You could have told me that 35 years ago, that bud and Miller and Coors would just be decimated by a million of you, because you’re making a different concept. You’re bringing it local. We all know what bud tastes the same is the same as the same. And that’s what you want. And sometimes I want that. Sometimes, when I’m going to drink more than three or four beers, I’ll just start with Coors Light in the beginning of the day. My wife knows, like, if I’m going to a concert, I’m going all night, because I can’t mix sours with stouts with I don’t mix liquors, let alone me. I’m one. I’m 56, years old. I know what a hangover feels like. I’m at too many and I don’t want one today that I don’t mix and match in a general sense. Do you find that. There are certain beers you would say, like John had that other dark that you had going on and I had a stout. Is, is there a mix and match thing where, if I were to sit here and, let’s say, have two or three beers that have two or three different kind of beers that wouldn’t be

Matt Evans  25:13

upsetting to the system? Oh, absolutely. And it’s, it’s the way we approach a lot of the beers that we do. It’s approachability for all people and anybody’s taste buds. So whether you are a Selter drinker or just somebody who doesn’t like beer at all, we may have something that you like a whether it’s a very fruited or a sour beer, there’s always something

Nestor Aparicio  25:35

that tastes like beer. They taste like cider kind

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Matt Evans  25:38

of sort they do. Yeah? They have a very cider character, yeah. So there’s a lot of approachability to our beers that opens it up to people, to get them into the beer world. Actually introduce them like not all beer tastes the same. It doesn’t always taste like Budweiser Coors or anything like that. So you can really get some flavors like our Mexican Lager is a full flavored, full bodied Mexican lager. Yeah, it tastes if you

Nestor Aparicio  26:01

drink $1 you drink a DOS, EQUIS, it’s in that range, but it’s

Matt Evans  26:05

Yeah, but you know what you’re getting with that? And like, you’re gonna know what you get with our product, because of we’re always staying consistent and everything. But at the same time, it’s like we’re adding a little extra to ours to basically, really emphasize the flavors that we can pull from beers naturally, without actually having to add any kind of actual flavoring to the beer itself. Temperature, temperature, temperature, temperature, temperature

Nestor Aparicio  26:27

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and water. What’s it? What’s the if I stick my finger in there, is it hot, cold? What?

Matt Evans  26:32

So we have few vessels right here that are right up front. Those are our hot side vessels. That’s where all the brewing itself is done. And then all the tanks you see with an F number or a B number on there. When you say, brewing, how long does it brew? The brew process itself takes about 10 hours of the actual brewing, one time, yep, one time. And then the beer itself.

Nestor Aparicio  26:51

So it’s like an Easter dinner. It’s like 10 hours with the roast. Okay, got it all

Matt Evans  26:55

right. And then you have about two weeks to two months of it sitting in the F tanks. That’s ferment, yep, fermentation for

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Nestor Aparicio  27:03

ferment beer by the end of this

Matt Evans  27:06

segment. So it just depends on the style, whether you’re looking to do a lager, which takes a little bit more time because those have a longer conditioning period, or an ale that you could turn in, say, two weeks and have it ready for people to drink, and be able to turn those over fast and have fresh product on the shelf.

Craig Weiss  27:21

Just very, very, very dramatically by what type of beer you’re doing, really, it’s really what it comes down to, and what you’re trying to do with that beer.

Nestor Aparicio  27:27

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Craig Weiss is here. Matt Evans is here. Matt Bruce beer. Craig sells it. Work, 1623, it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. You guys are gonna get you’re gonna get the fresh press, the luck you get the first pressure look. So I have a whole new set of tickets around here for this month, I have the lucky sevens. I’m going to be giving these out on Friday morning, out at Zeke’s as well. You guys are open at two in the afternoon. The kitchen’s open. Laboratories is very involved. My friend Dante couldn’t be here this week. He’s on vacation. You get a lucky doubler, double seven doubler there. And John had a non winning he got the schmutz all over the table here. So, I mean, it’s a little rude. Well, the back to the futures. I still have a handful of these as well, and it is our final it’s gonna be a final crab cake tour stop on Friday morning at Zeke’s. I’ve got Dan Rodricks former car political political cartoonist Cal Kevin callagher, before he got fired two weeks ago. I have all the deposed Baltimore Sun people coming over. So Dan Rogers and also were cigs gonna be with us, and we’re gonna be talking about brewing coffee. So, like, we do a little bit of that here. He’s got the coffee thing that little animal poops at the thing, and yeah, we’ll talk. I talked to Thomas Rhodes about all that I love coffee too, man, like, I love a dark roast coffee. I don’t want any that light nonsense. So give me that blonde Bucha, I like I I have a very defined palate. I love food, I love booze, I love coffee, I but I don’t like bitter in a general sense. You, you’ve done a coffee style here.

Matt Evans  28:52

You’ve done a few coffee styles. We also do our own we are we do our very own Nitro Cold Brew as well that we keep on tap, and it can either be served. See, that’s

Nestor Aparicio  29:00

weird to me. I ain’t never done that before. You talk about the course, and it’s cold,

Matt Evans  29:04

no? It’s like, Yeah, cool. It’s pouring cold, but it’s poured like a Guinness, essentially, we keep it on tap.

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Nestor Aparicio  29:10

Like, I’ve never done the coffee version of that. I’ve never done the like, well, I’ll be sure to bring something, I’ll be sure to bring some beer. I’ll do beer, cold beer. I just don’t do cold coffee. Okay, ever. I’ve never had a cold coffee. Real life, it doesn’t even seem like it’s good. I like

Matt Evans  29:23

iced tea. I’ll bring you some. Maybe I can change it. Coffee is supposed

Nestor Aparicio  29:26

to be served hot. Beer is supposed to be served cold. I’m from Dundalk. Generally

Craig Weiss  29:31

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speaking, I do beer festivals. Do this stuff all the time. One of the main questions I get all the time, well, what’s your favorite beer? And my answer is always the same, cold one. Yeah, if it’s cold, it’s my favorite beer. That’s what I

Nestor Aparicio  29:41

well, I’ll end this segment after 30 minutes of beer conversation. It’s saying that Bruce Springsteen, before I bring Richard and David here to tell old, live age stories, Bruce Springsteen would say, heaven is cold beer at a reasonable price, at a reasonable price. We have that here at 1623,

Matt Evans  30:00

Right, absolutely. Happy Hour. Good here. Happy hours. Fantastic. All right,

Nestor Aparicio  30:04

well, I’m gonna get everybody out here. We’re in Eldersburg work. I’m two beers deep in here. Probably sounds on the air like I’m four beers deep. First time. It’s not the first time I’ve been inebriated on the air. I mean, I was bud Miller and co sponsor in the 90s, back when I was younger. Send out to Uber I’m out here in Carroll County. Well, we’re in a unique location. I told John like it’s sort of in the back of like a park, but once you get back here it is. It’s a place that it’s worth the journey. Great food out here, great beer. Our friends at 1623, and when Mike came over and did the show with me at Dante’s place, laboratories a couple summers ago, two or three years ago, three summers ago, three summers ago, summer 22 we did the show over there, and he left me like, like he’s doing with John a case of all sorts of random beer. I fell in love with the stout. Oh yeah, we’ll be sure to send you. So I’m a stout guy, and you know when the stout was in the fridge, those, those got drank first, before any the pills or the lagers or any of that. It’s maybe it’s my style to drink the stout, but I I’ve loved your stout. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Can I buy it anywhere? Can I Where can I get the stout? Like in the marketplace, pretty

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Craig Weiss  31:13

much most local liquor stores in this giant in the Carroll County under almost every liquor store carries their stuff. As we go around, around Maryland, you’ll find more and more as we keep working every day to try and get more and more pick it up. We’re pretty well spread out, and if they don’t have it, when you walk in, if you ask them for it, they can get it for you, because we’re distributed by the biggest distributor in Baltimore area. So

Nestor Aparicio  31:33

you ain’t got to drive all the way to Eldersburg. No, it’s nice. If you do, it’s fine. Gladly take you in. We’ll take it to the hook. Yeah, we’ll take it to them. Is that the idea, it’s like the milkman? Bringing a beer to them? We’ll get it down there. Yes, absolutely. My thanks to Matt and Craig for coming out and Mike for just being great and hosting us up today. John Allen has been out here telling rock and roll he can’t leave. Richard, David are here. They’re two of my oldest friends in the whole world. We are going to talk about Live Aid. They attended Live Aid in in London, I attended Live Aid in Philadelphia. Here are my ticket stubs, and we’re gonna get to this in the next segment, but these are my Live Aid ticket stubs. That’s the real thing right there from back in the day. And just to tell you that I really wasn’t Live Aid, my bumper sticker says I saw Live Aid. So Richard, David, are going to be here. They went to London, and they have, they brought a bag, and they started pulling stuff at him, like you don’t understand. We’re going to do this on the air. Hold us on the show. I don’t know what they have, and they don’t know what I have, but I have some pretty cool stuff here. So we’re going to come back from 1623 we’re going to continue to drink. We’re going to continue to give away, Back to the Future lottery scratch offs, as well as Lucky Seven scratch offs, as well as the new thing I have, which is the the pressure luck, which is the wham, you ever do the Whammy? Yeah, I take your beer. I love that show. I hated the Whammy. Everybody hated the Whammy. I loved him, but he would come and screw

Craig Weiss  32:54

you. Yes, he Well, yes, but he would dance across the screen. He was, he was he was inventive.

Nestor Aparicio  32:59

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He would make fun of you to, like, sort of piss on you while you lost. It’s bad enough you’re losing. You get my bankrupt and now

Craig Weiss  33:05

you get a cartoon character pissing all over your

Nestor Aparicio  33:07

corner. Chiron, you know, fully on pressure. Luck. Beat them. Go, go. Beat the beat the Whammy, and win some money our friends at the Maryland lottery and Carrie wellness putting us out. These are our final shows for our 27th anniversary. I’m going to eat a lot of food next month, drinking a lot of beer, eating a lot of pizza. We’re gonna be doing the show all sorts of places. We’re gonna kick it off at the Beaumont on the seventh of August with my favorite fried lobster tail. Although I’m not bougie everything’s not gonna be bougie like that. I’m doing crab cakes, yes, but I’m also doing cookies. I’m doing my favorite pretzel. I’m doing my favorite snowballs, yeah, I’m doing my favorite desserts. So we’re gonna do a lot of things. That is our 27th anniversary, because you’ve been here a long time. I may have 27 beers before I leave. Here I am, Nestor, we’re stepping outward 1623, we’re gonna come back and tell some old rock and roll stories of going to Wembley in London seeing Live Aid. I even wore my my, my, Roger Daltrey, yes. Belpa.