Jason:

The Buffalo Brews Podcast. Smokey Sips and this is episode 13.4 and you're listening to Barely Getting Started on the Buffalo Brews Podcast and we are talking about, I'm just going to go right into it because we had to change the camera angle because, you know, of course, batteries and malfunctions and what is your major malfunction? And then we figured that out.

So we are staring right now at Jack's Abbey Craft Lagers and they make Smoke and Dagger and it's a, I mean, I like it because it's a play on cloak and dagger because you're talking about a smoked black lager that you were talking about at the end of the last episode. I like Jack's Abbey and I just had some copper blend or copper legend over the weekend out of my Disney Germany boot and so I was excited about that. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about this then. Jack's Abbey Craft Lagers, Smoke and Dagger, Smoked Black Lager.

Craig:

Yeah. So Jack's Abbey, I think it's Framingham, Massachusetts.

Jason:

Yes.

Craig:

The actual, because they have Framinghammer, or is it Framinghammer? They have, that's one of the beers and that's their Baltic Porter. Yes.

But they are dedicated to lagers and craft lagers. So they are focused on, you know, sometimes with ales and the yeast, you know, some people say it's harder to make lagers even though they taste simpler or more simple. And that's because you're not trying to get too much of the yeast flavors and then these guys do a lot of old world techniques, whether it's decoction mashing where you are warming things up by taking portions of the wort or portions of the boil out and heating it, or portions of the mash out, heating it, boiling it, and then pouring it back in to raise the temperature of everything.

And they say that caramelization adds flavor and all this stuff, or, you know, they're the type that also have like that, I was talking about like floor malted barley and stuff like that, that they're purchasing and they try to get old, old world ingredients if they're making an old world style. So they're just the epitome kind of like dovetail in the beginning there of a craft, we call everything craft beer, right? Because it's not macro and they have a craft, you know, they're artisanal brewers.

They are very large at this point and they've acquired a couple of other, very large, yeah, and have acquired a couple of other breweries, I mean, still, if you were to compare them to like a Coors or a Miller or a Budweiser, they're small in scale to them, but they are definitely a large craft brewery, but they have rightfully earned their sitting in the throne of their little empire they're building because they have been dedicated to making good beer.

And, you know, they have some really good year round beers, but then there's tons of different seasonals they come out with and they all have a nice little twist on them and they try a lot of different stuff. So it's one of those, oh, man, I've never even heard of that type of beer, but they are doing it. And Smoke and Dagger is a smoked black lager.

So black lager could be, you know, there's dark Czech pilsners, there's Schwarz beers. That's the German interpretation of a black lager, where Schwarz means black and beer means beer. So a black beer there.

So taking a black lager, what is a black lager? I almost make it akin to like a porter where it's lighter on the palate, but it has those dark roasted coffee like notes. But to me, since it's a lager, it's a little bit more crisp and clean, not a ton of yeast flavor at all.

Depending on which hops they use to hop it, they're balancing the bitterness from the dark malts with the bitterness of the hops. And then the sweetness is getting kind of toned and balanced by both bitterness of the hops and malt and the roasted malt nonetheless. So, you know, let's let's start by taking a look at the back of the can because they're one of those breweries that does put everything on there.

So it's imported Bavarian malt. So starting with some German Munich Malk, you have smoked and roasted malts. So that's going to give us the dark and smoky flavor and then a little another process called step infusion mash.

So you can do an infusion mash where basically you just have a certain degree temperature that you have the water, you bring it up to that temperature and then you stop. There is a step infusion mash, which means, OK, we bring it to one temperature and let it rest for a little bit. And at that temperature, certain enzymes do their activities better than you let that happen.

And then you bring up the temperature and it kind of stops that process and starts a new process. And you're giving time for, you know, all sorts of things that are inside that malt to do their thing. And that that dedication to that slow process is a part of, you know, the craft that was.

People look at these large German breweries, they don't realize like, yeah, these are craft beers, man. Like to me, it's a craft beer because it spawned from a traditional craft.

Jason:

Sure.

Craig:

There was people that took time, effort, energy to make this beer the best it could, so much so that it stood the test of time. And there they've been open for centuries and then they create a cutting edge technique of their own to flip it on its ear. So just keep investing in yourself.

You get bigger, you get better at making your beers and you, you know, but you started out as one of the original crafts, all these beer cultures. To me, it's like when you take a Belgian beer from a farm, like it doesn't get much more artisanal than that. But then they just did such a good job and they get big and they start exporting.

And next thing you know, it's a global brand, but it's still a tiny farm brewery. And that's kind of with Jack's Abbey here. They just take pride and they take the time to really focus on the production of the beer.

So they're putting out high quality stuff. And when you have a brewery that does that, those are breweries that usually stand the test of time. And they have a nice little blurb on here.

It's 5.6. It's naturally carbonated, no forced carbonation, all just from the natural brewing process and the yeast action there. But the traditional old world ingredients and cutting edge lagering techniques bring you this devilishly good lager, smooth, smoky and perfect for whatever happens in the dark of the night. I think that's a little nod to the smoke and dagger, cloak and dagger kind of reference there.

But it's one of those beers versus spy. Yeah, right. It's one of those beers that, you know, at 5.6 percent, kind of just slightly above average alcohol percentage there is going to hopefully present a lot of different flavors. Now, I have had this beer. I think you may have had this beer with me as well. I had it with her.

There's a beer Stachelm and I did Bear Stachelm, which is basically a flaming hot poker that won't go too much into it. But basically they wanted to warm up really cold beers in Germany. So they were taking these irons out of the fire in the forge and they were like, let's just stick this in there.

It should. And they didn't realize that they were like caramelizing, but it added some caramelized notes, warmed up the beer. It also that heat pushed out the CO2.

So it kind of made it a little smoother creamier, almost like a nitro beer.

Jason:

And then we changed the texture.

Craig:

Yeah, that's a good way to put it, change the texture. And then they also warmed it as well as the head kind of had a little bit like a toasted marshmallow kind of, you know, just a fluffier, frothier head because that CO2 got pushed out so rapidly. And those caramelization notes, you know, there was enough to taste a definitely discernible difference, you know, nothing too major.

You know, it wasn't like turning water into wine, but one beer to the other. You could see why I kind of like this. And we replicated that here at Magic Bear once.

And this is one of the beers that we had offered. And I've carried it to other points because I always like to have, you know, we have over 200 beers. I try to make sure we have a good array of styles.

So black lagers, there's not a ton of them. So I try to have a black lager or a Schwarz beer or something like that. And then the smoked lagers, you know, this just checks off two boxes.

And now we got a smoked black lager. And like I said, when I was looking for smoked beers, I was like, wow, I got this smoked black lager, a smoked porter, a Rauchl beer, so a smoked Martzen. And then, you know, that Grajewskia, so we got four different types of smoked beer here.

We have enough to do a whole season, a whole slew of four episodes on different types of smoke. So to kind of recap before I crack this and pour this, you know, we're expecting a black beer, expecting it to be light, crisp. I'm not sure how much smoke they'll have in here.

To my memory, I think it's a nice balance. I think it was light.

Jason:

Yeah, light enough. Not as light as maybe the wheat.

Craig:

Yeah, kind of like how the porter was. But now we're trying our fourth beer in a row with smoke in it. So I think, you know, our palates will be very welcoming of that smoky flavor.

But we had a smoked Martzen. OK, it was a nice balance. Definitely had that freshly finished lager, you know, fire lager kind of aroma to it.

Then from there, we had a very light, crisp Polish Champagne Grajewskia. And to me and I believe you, it just came across a little bit more intense, even though overall I don't think the beer was as tense, intense, but it just it just had that just, you know, you had a smoked beer coupling that with a light based style. It kind of just really emphasized that this was a smoky beer, especially, you know, under four percent.

Then we had that nice smoked porter. To me, that was the most well balanced where, I mean, you took the like not even a ton of smoke aroma. It was more coffee and roast.

And then you had this nice waft of like just a hint of smoke, kind of like, you know, that fire has been done for a while, but you still know that it had some combustion going on. The finish was a little smoky, but it definitely started as a nice, roasty porter with a little smoky finish. And now here, as I crack the can and get us ready for our final beer in this series, we're going to see how the smoke stands up to a black lager.

Jason:

Nice.

Craig:

So what do you have to add to that?

Jason:

Well, Jack's Abbey Craft Lager, founded in 2011 by brothers Jack, Eric and Sam. And they're a mainstay in the craft brewing scene in the Northeast and nationwide. Like you said, they've been expanding in leaps and bounds.

And the brothers grew up in a family that promoted entrepreneurship and hard work. They spent their summers with their grandfather working on family's ice distribution business. If you didn't know that, now you do.

They learned the value of committed family members and loyal employees. And that's the foundation for which they're based. All of the pillars of their business are aimed at treating their employees like family from the brewing operation right up through the front hand help there at the taproom.

And I know I've never heard a bad thing about Jack's Abbey. I know we have local reps here in the Western New York area who I've talked to off and on. I've done a couple of stein holding competitions with Emily.

Craig:

She took a little time off for some of her family.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

But she yeah, she's she's very active in the area. Very wonderful person. And yeah, she helped me with my beer stock home.

And then she hosts a lot of the Stein holding hoisting competitions. So she's just an active part of the brand. And you don't see that a ton with a lot of brands.

I mean, some of the bigger brands every now and then they pop in. But I think they look at accounts and think whether or not they're going to be valuable or not. High turnover.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they look at places that they think our beer should be in here.

And I think and kudos to her, because Magic Bear, I try to carry better beers and a nice variety. And I think she recognized that. And I was carrying Jack Abbey for a little bit.

And then I stopped for a little bit. And I think she just wanted to know the why behind the what. And I said, you know, and due to her, I brought some more in.

And now she knows to bug me and I'll try and get some in. You know, it's all timing. Sometimes you just forget and you're just like, all right, you know, between seasonals and this and that.

It's it's tough to, you know, keep up with all of it. You know, there's only so much space on the shelf and only so many taps. But smoked, you know, the other big ones they have is they have their post shift lager, which is like their flagship.

And then shipping out of Boston is that one I've had before.

Jason:

Two.

Craig:

That's a good one. That's a nice amber, super malty and then smoking dagger and their Baltic Porter, the Framinghammer. You know, now we're talking, you know, two kind of really notably niche styles with the smoked, let alone black lager, as well as a Baltic Porter.

Now, they're some of their most recognized styles because they just do it so well and there's not many of them. So they end up being the exemplar. So as we take a look, I mean, just like, you know, this is actually not as dark as the Porter, in my opinion.

When you look straight at it, it looks black, but you lift it to the light. Well, I looked at the light before and almost no light got through and no change in color. I lift this up and I could definitely see the brown undertones, hint of red, nothing near that Mertzen, that Rauch beer we started with from Dovetail, but definitely some more mocha tones and light brown than just straight black.

That Porter from Leaning, that Leaning Chimney from Greysail was definitely like obsidian almost. It was actually pretty cool. It's not often that we look at beer through light and you don't see much of anything, especially with just a Porter.

So let's take a little sniff. Definitely a little bit more smoke than the Porter, in my opinion, but still less than the first two. Also a little sweeter on the nose, too.

Yeah, it's got a it's got like a nice sweetened coffee. Let's make sure we do a little toast. Right.

Take a sip and report back. Oh, yeah. So interesting to do a horizontal way, you know, especially we just had two black colored beers.

Jason:

I like this one. I really like this one because it's just it's a great balance of and there's that sweetness coming through on those malts.

Craig:

Yeah, this one is very, very similar to that Dovetail. So if we think about the Dovetail Mertzen, you know, it was a dark Mertzen, it was a dark Mertzen as well. Some are a little bit more amber and copper.

Jason:

I feel like this was darker than that.

Craig:

Yeah, this is this is definitely darker. But to me, this has a similar malt and smoke pairing of flavors. So, you know, if I was blindfolded and trying the first beer, the Dovetail and then this third beer and you were like, OK, tell me which one's the Rauch beer.

This this has very much similar flavors as the Rauch beer because it's not a super roasty black lager. That porter we just had definitely had more roasted flavor to it, in my opinion. The main difference between this and the Mertzen is first on the take.

Right. So to me, the take is as it's going in. Right.

The impression is nice, semi-sweet malts, darker malts with that nice fresh smoke kind of flavor. And then when it finished, there was not much roast at all with the Mertzen where this does have a little hint of roast finish versus the beer that we just had was roast on the take and finished with a little smoke.

Jason:

This is almost like a flip flop. This rates at 25 IBU, according to them. But I don't get that.

I don't get it doesn't have as much bite as the.

Craig:

Yeah, IBUs are always tough because they're not that they're subjective. It's an objective objective measure. Right.

They're actually, you know, it's the I summarized alpha acid, you know, parts per whatever. But it's all relative to the beer that it's in. Right.

If you same thing goes for I always compare to heat when I talk about spicy food. Now, if you have spice in a sauce that also has some sweetness and things to balance it, it still has this high Scoville unit measurement, which measures the heat. But it's perceived differently.

So where it's an objective measure of the heat and then beer, the IBUs and objective measurement of the bitterness is definitely subjective in it's the way it comes off and the way it's perceived. So sweeter, it's going to be less bitter. And a lot of times if it's higher ABV and this guy is back down, it's well, it's at 5.6 percent. So very similar to the first beer that we had. But since it does have that, you know, like you picked up the sweetness on the aroma. The roasted malts aren't super roast bitters.

So the sweetness that they bring, I think, balances it a little bit. So when you have all the other factors, that's why it's tough to just go off of something based on its IBU. You're expecting something and they're like, oh, I hardly taste it.

And it's like, well, there's there's smoke masking it a little bit, but definitely the sweetness tones it down and it's just well balanced. Whereas, you know, I think we felt it a little bit more with that light Gradjiskija because didn't have a ton of sweetness, didn't have a lot of flavor in its base beer. Not that it was flavorless.

It just wasn't as intense. So it was more of a canvas for the smoke and hot bitterness where this, the roasty and the smoky kind of, I think, lets the hop fall into the background, even though the bitterness is there on the scale of IBUs.

Jason:

Yeah, I mean, and you bring up a good point, like you're talking about how, you know, Scoville units and, you know, hot and things that are hot, like I'm a big hot sauce person. So I know that, say, 150,000 Scoville units between two sauces is widely different because you might have an oil based sauce versus a vinegar based sauce. So they're going to affect the palate differently.

So, yeah, I can see where then where, you know, I don't really pick up on that, but it's because of the different complexity to the beer itself that I'm not going to, I'm not going to pick up so much on that bitterness.

Craig:

Yeah. And then that hot sauce is weird because I like to use it because it makes sense. But then if you, you know, if you research it, like Scoville units ended up being how many, like how many, like how much sugar water you needed to take to like extinguish the heat in your mouth.

And that's because they wanted somebody to come up with a measurement. They're like, how do we measure how spicy this is? And that's basically how they were doing it.

I mean, I'm obviously talking very rudimentary form of how they developed it, but it was, I mean, I think an Elton Brown Good Eats episode that I was watching where they were just having someone, you know, they were talking, you know, they're just doing like a recreation of it. And someone was sitting there eating hot stuff and someone else was just squirting the sugar water into the mouth. And like, OK, how many squirts does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pot?

That was how many squirts to, you know, kind of extinguished that heat. Yeah. And then there was some sort of multiplier in there.

And that was your Scoville unit.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

And I'm like, you sit there and you think, all right, well, 150,000 squirts. Like at some point they came up with a conversion rate. And it's like now we have this base measurement.

That's usually what you need to find. Right. You find some sort of base unit.

How do we quantify it? And then once it's quantified, then you could take other things about it. And then, you know, it's a factor of that quantifier.

And next thing you know, you've got some sort of scale that you can work with. Sure. And then that scale is open to perception because the perceived heat, the perceived bitterness changes with what's going on in the rest of the rest of the beer.

Jason:

Yeah.

Craig:

I mean, there was even this one hot sauce was a hot sauce. It was called pure cap, came in a medicine bottle. It was with an eye dropper.

And that came in a medicine bottle with a child proof. And you had to sign a waiver. It was, you know, very gimmicky, kind of like that one chip challenge type thing.

Yeah. But pure cap because it was supposed to be pure capsaicin. It's like you kind of like we were talking about the liquid smoke.

Add a little bit to your chili. Like this pure cap was not meant to eat straight up. But obviously, you know, especially males like, man, we got to just take a drop of this.

It's going to destroy you. And it's like, well, that's not what it's meant for. It's like a couple of drops of this.

We'll just add a nice, real nice spiciness to this whole pot of chili. Right. Or you put one drop on your tongue.

And next thing you know, you're like, I don't know what to do with myself. And you're just chugging milk. Right.

Same thing with bitterness. You know, if it's, you know, concentrate and it's so bitter that it ruins the beer. It's like, why even do it?

But I have not seen anybody come out with that pure, pure iso alpha acid concoction and try and pass that off as some gimmicky way to make you really pucker up.

Jason:

I hope that that never happens either, because first of all, you're it's a gimmick beer and you're it's never it's never going to sell. So you'd literally have to do it out of your own tap room as a goof, you know, included in a flight. Hey, we made this thing.

You know, there was a there was a place that made a beef on wick. It was literally a beef on wick cider. I think it was OSB.

And OSB, they wouldn't sell that to anybody because it was just gimmicky. So what they would do is just like they wanted people to just taste it because they just wanted to have fun with it.

Craig:

Yeah.

Jason:

You know, they didn't think anybody would ever buy a pint of it. So they made a small batch of it and they were just doing it little, you know, little hand me outs. And it was fun.

It was different because it was like horseradish and salt. And, you know, and literally you could get every flavor of a beef on wick that came out of this thing. And it was atrocious.

But it was a great gimmick.

Craig:

Yeah. I mean, some of the stuff that you try, it's like I mean, sometimes like when we're going now that we're going, you know, getting on the tangent here, I think I like jelly bellies and like how indicative of the flavor a lot of them.

Jason:

Right.

Craig:

Like that butter popcorn. Wow. It's buttered popcorn.

And and the grape is so grapey. But then there was the Hogwarts version. That's like, oh, birdies, bots, beans.

Yeah. Birdies, bots or whatever it is. It's just oh, my gosh.

Like, oh, like, why would you taste tested this? And it's like, all right, that's good. This is a good one for vomit.

And this is good dirt. It's a good dirt bean. But it's one of those things where it's like, wow.

Yeah. Like, but you you're curious to try. It's like, all right, I want to try a booger jelly bean.

And it's like, all right, I don't ever need to try that again. Why did you guys see to do that? You know, the rotten egg one.

It's just like and it's just such a small bean. You don't think that the next thing you know, you're chewing. It's like, all right, it is taking over my palate.

I am eating a rotten egg right now. This is horrible. And why did I do it?

Jason:

And it was originally designed to be like Russian roulette. Yeah. And kind of like those.

What do they call those collision? The collision Doritos when they were doing those hot Doritos for a minute there where you like you get regular nacho. And then all of a sudden, oh, that's a hot one, which really wasn't that hot.

But same thing. Now, then all of a sudden people are like, well, we just want boxes of just the birdies, bots, beans. Why?

Yeah. I mean, that's literally a another gimmick where people is going to like, really, you want me to just like open up and just eat one of these? Because I know everyone's going to taste, you know, taste like horrible.

Craig:

I bought a couple of boxes of it once, and then they turn it into a game where it was like they had, you know, the bean that was the same color looked the same.

Jason:

Yeah, that was the Russian roulette.

Craig:

Yeah. But the game was like you went around in a circle and you had to pick your bean. But it like they had all the rules on the game.

And it was almost kind of like, you know, like you said, like a Russian roulette type deal. But it was, you know, did I did I get the bots being or did I get the real bean? It's like, no, no.

And now, you know, and it's you sit there, you start chewing and there's this. Oh, there's a chance that it's toasted marshmallow. And you're like, nope, it's Rodney.

I got the one that tastes like toothpaste. Yeah, right. So, yeah, I don't know how we got that far off.

Jason:

Oh, that's OK. I like it because we're talking about derisions between IBUs and, you know, comparing it to to Scoville's and stuff. So it's a it's a it's a good one.

Craig:

And then, you know, full circle, every staff party that I do with my team, it's around Christmas time. I try to get gifts. How do you start running ideas?

But then there was the Jelly Belly. They had they actually have beer flavored jelly beans. I found they come in a beer can.

Jason:

I was crafted those ones. Yeah, it was gifted them. They were craft beer.

Craig:

Yeah, I was like, yeah. But a little disappointing. They weren't they weren't very indicative of the beers.

I was like, but I was hoping that the IPA one would be like this really bitter kind of West Coastish IPA.

Jason:

They came out with an IPA one.

Craig:

It had like four different beers in it. And I think one one was like focused on bitterness. One was like a porter stout.

So just very coffee like one was like a lager. But I'm like, what does this taste like? It was just a little too sweet.

Tastes like anything.

Jason:

Jelly Belly flight.

Craig:

Yeah, that's you know. But I thought it was a cool little gift that came in a nice little tin. It was, you know, literally a 16 ounce can and, you know, could pop the top off.

And there was the bag of jelly beans inside.

Jason:

OK.

Craig:

So it was cool. I just I thought they would have done like, you know, considering how well they did the bottle Burts, where he said they they they just the craft beer ones were OK at best. Sure.

Jason:

You know, it's interesting you bring it up because that's kind of like stuff that comes out around Christmas time. And this this episode will come out around Christmas as we start to turn the corner into 2026. Do you have anything to wrap up on the smoke and dagger before?

Craig:

You know, the smoke and dagger, like I said, of all the beers, this one, you know, to me, we had smoke and dagger and the Rauk beer were very similar where it was just a very nice pairing. Then you kind of had the two opposite. Right.

So to me, it's almost like, you know, these these two two on the bottom of the pyramid. And then the the top was the the smoked Grajiska, because that one was just kind of the most intense because didn't have as much balancing going on with the base beer. And then that smoke Porter was kind of akin to it because it didn't it was just super roasty.

So you didn't get a ton of smoke. So we had kind of these very well-balanced versions versus two that weren't necessarily unbalanced. They were just they leaned one way or the other.

And Grajiska leaned towards the smokier side. The Leaning Chimney that Gracel smoked Porter lean more towards the roasty side with a hint of smoke. So to me, it was kind of like we've got we've gotten a nice foray into the world of smoked beers and sipping on some smoky suds.

Jason:

I like that. I like that. You know, in his his tradition with when we get done with the last episode of a series, I like to talk about Magic Bear itself.

And being that again, this will come out, I think, the week before Christmas. This would be the time to like if you knew if you if the crystal ball was in place here and you knew what was going on for the end of the year, what might be going on with that you could foresee for Magic Bear and going into 2026. Yeah.

Craig:

You know, the holiday season is great for us. It is really nice to just I mean, beer brings people together. And so do the holidays.

So we have tons of Christmas parties. Hopefully you are, you know, enjoying your advent calendar if you purchased it from me and you're getting close to the, you know, the ending of Christmas Eve beer, beer number 24. If you come to Magic Bear, usually around Christmas time, you know, we have our anniversary party earlier in the month.

So hopefully you attended that or were around. We have we should have if it's still available. I mean, it's not even known yet, but we usually have a bourbon county brand style class towards the end after Christmas.

So that is probably what's going on. We have that class. So we'll take all the variants that come out this year if we get them for bourbon county brand stout, as well as the double barrel reserve or whatever is offered in western New York this year, as well as the vintage year, the 2025.

And we'll sample all of those. I know that that'll most likely be happening at the end. So we'll have at least one class that one towards the end of the month, probably a Belgian or a chocolate pairing class going on at that point.

We have the Larkin Stroll, where there's all of our businesses on the street here in Larkinville on 799 Seneca. And, you know, going down towards the square and going up towards Smith Street and D.A. Taste and the distillery, as well as Paula's Donuts there. You know, we're all kind of adding something extra.

So hopefully you check that out. It all kind of falls on when this episode does finally air. But a lot of just festive things to enjoy.

We'll have plenty of Christmas beers available if you're bringing them to dinner parties or just family parties with friends and family that you want to try some interesting stuff. I've already preordered some nice Belgian options and got some barrel aged Christmas ale coming in and all sorts of good stuff.

Jason:

So we're literally recording this episode like the first days of November.

Craig:

Yeah.

Jason:

And I've already seen Kringle juice come out from Big Ditch and Casey's Christmas coming out from Roarbox. Yeah. So they're.