Episodes

Can we all admit that Houston makes some damn good Pilsners? This week Ryan and Drew set up another spectacular blind tasting to crown Houston’s Best German Pilsner in an episode rife with controversy. Will Lil’ Snack from 11 Below hold onto its blind tasting crown, or will one of the new challengers steal their thunder? Listen to find out!

After many months on the road gathering the latest and greatest beer news, Ryan and Drew highlight the highs and the lows, the ups and the downs, and the the rising and falling breweries of the Houston area and beyond. It’s not all gloom and doom my friends… in the words of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, craft beer is “not dead yet.”

And the winner is… America, obviously. The Beering Ain’t Easy podcast embarks on a blind tasting adventure through the most recognizable American Lager macro beers and one notable exception - Troy Aikman’s patented Eight Beer. Can Troy’s beer redeem the Cowboys playoff losing streak, or will he be relegated to the Keystone Light division? Will Ryan’s love of conspiracy theories finally pay off in a big way by being the first to uncover Houston Brewery moves? And lastly, will Ryan love or hate his Nickelback concert experience? You don’t want to miss this one.

We drink two of the best sours in Texas, Atrial Rubacite from Jester King and Sea of Waves from True Anomaly, all while sharing our opinions and detailed instructions on how to perform the biggest faux pas when visiting breweries.  Ryan brings it home with some beer news and Drew shares his toddler woes on airplanes.

We back? It’s been a minute since our last episode, so we pay penance to the beer gods by drinking weird beers while we bring you up-to-speed with the state of affairs in craft beer and in our hoods. Tarot cards, anonymous Facebook posts, and Troy Aikman branded beer, all in the same episode?

It has been well established on our Podcast that host Ryan likes his beers (and other drinks) unadulterated.  So what did we do to him?  We made him face his fears and drink a wide range of beer mixed drinks for the first time ever, tournament style!  And let him talk about more conspiracy theories.

Ryan and Drew crack into some of the best beers from Belgium and Germany while sitting outside on the edge of the Austin, TX wilderness.  In an episode rife with bad accents and pronunciations, your hosts discuss why Euro beers have fallen down so far on the Beer Advocate ratings while paying homage to these classic styles.  Will Ryan learn to appreciate the Belgian quad? Will we be able to finish the episode without being interrupted by coyotes?  Tune in and find out.

In this episode, we do what we love best - beer news and blind tastings - but also answer some pretty important questions. Mexican Lagers are often considered basic beers, but are craft Mexican lagers an exception? And more importantly, could you pick them out of a lineup? And while we’re at it, where do you stand on putting fruit in your beer? It's time to take a stand.

The Beering Ain’t Easy podcast has evolved into a new form fueled by Chat GPT and Artificial Intelligence, or in short, Beer GPT. We test out the capabilities of current AI and whether it poses a risk to white collar jobs, the writer’s guild, or at a minimum the low-grade humor you come to love on our podcast. We play around with AI generated beer descriptions, movie descriptions, and even generate and record a Beering Ain’t Easy rap!

One of the earliest US craft beer icons from New Belgium, the one and only Fat Tire, has gone through a major overhaul. New recipe, new logo, and new branding with sustainability at the forefront. We pull out our last batch of the old recipe and drink it side by side with the new and debate which tastes better, what does it mean to be a carbon neutral beer, and whether sustainability actually sells. And in true podcast fashion we’ll go off track with trivia about the brewery, pop culture from Fat Tire’s original release in 1991, and popular songs that were hijacked by movies.

So, you’re supposed to drink IPA’s fresh, right? Well it may be common sense to you but we’re going to test it in an experiment anyway as is our tradition. We sample three Saint Arnold Art Car IPA’s at varying levels of freshness and answer why do IPA’s degrade, how do they degrade, and what are the best and worst types of beers to age? And just in case proving common sense beer facts is not your thing, we also provide a meticulous and entertaining recap of the Bud Light Culture War Saga from the month of April!

Asa Hanrahan, General Manager of the Houston Flying Saucer, joins the podcast to share his experiences spanning 16 years at the cornerstone beer bar and landmark of Downtown Houston!  We discuss the craft beer evolution in Texas, Houston new downtown patio space along Main Street, the staying power of the franchise, and the resurgence of Euro beers.  You’ll even find out the most famous people to step foot in the Houston Saucer!  And if that’s not enough, Drew finally joins the Ring of Honor after 18 years!

This week we talk about the one topic Ryan enjoys more than beer… conspiracy theories. We go through a series of wacky beer-related conspiracy theories and make up a few unsubstantiated theories of our own. Plus Ryan runs down Birds Aren’t Real and his favorite conspiracy theories of all time and Drew explains the myth of the Sumerian beer goddess Ninkasi. As Shania Twain might have said: Man, hops make me feel like a woman!

Does the color of your beer affect how it tastes? Is Saint Patrick’s day and its green beer ruining your favorite lager? You better believe that the Beering Ain’t Easy podcast is here to conduct the experiments that no one asked to be conducted. Featured Beers: Cloud Punch. Bad Astronaut Brewing. Houston, TX. German Pilsner. 5.2% ABV. Loggerbier. Equal Parts Brewing. Houston, TX. German Pilsner. 4.9% ABV. Other Shout-Outs: “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy Disney World Wu Tang Clan Inside Out (Pixa...

Adam returns on this episode to share some great beers from Austin and we gush all about the beer scene in Dripping Springs! And of course in addition to the beer we stray off course with some truly ridiculous and hilarious stories (as is tradition when Adam joins the podcast).

After we had so much fun tasting verticals and horizontals during our Eureka Heights episode, Ryan and Drew are back at it again with none other than the Negative Space Milk Stout from 11 Below Brewing! Come find out all about the awesome Negative Space variants and whether this beer is better fresh or slightly aged (and our thoughts on beer aging in general). And if that’s not all, we’ll bring you up-to-speed with our quest to visit all 70+ Houston breweries and make up excuses on why it takes so long to get to all of them!

Join the Beering Ain’t Easy podcast as we jump in a time machine to drink the top 5 beers of 2010 (hint hint one is a big one!). But that’s not all - we’re going to give you the full and unadulterated 2010 experience. This means top 2010 news stories, top music, top movies, slang, and of course after 5 beers we engage in passionate discussions on the history of craft beer itself. Take a break from your first world problems because this episode is lit!

Ryan and Drew use their extensive research to tell you about beer-related world records so you don’t have to google them for yourself! And don’t google them, because we may have made some of these up. Plus, do kids ever throw up where you want them to and is Wade Boggs full of shit?

Stout Season is here! Ryan and Drew go full-on “nucular” by tasting a variety of Eureka Heights Nuke the Whales Imperial Milk Stouts aged across multiple years and their variants. What can go wrong with drinking four 11% ABV stouts? Apparently a lot of things.

Come join us this week while we take a trip down memory lane, rattling off some of our best beer memories as we discovered beer and craft beer, and of course some of the most painful experiences to keep it from being too sappy! And on that topic, sometimes there is a fine line between a great beer experience and a painful beer experience. Is it possible to achieve the perfect buzz? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

Do you hate a beer that everyone loves? Love a brewery that everyone hates? Are you the type of person who holds back your opinions for fear of how stupid you sound, or do you just put it out there in the open for all to dissect? Well, Ryan and Drew choose the latter path, letting rip their beer industry Hot Takes and Unpopular Opinions.

We’re back with the third annual Oktoberfest Episode! This time we ramp things up by not only tasting our beers blind, but also taking our reigning champ, Paulaner, and putting it head to head with three Houston beers. And if that isn’t enough for you, Ryan and Drew test the myth of “Das Boot” with a good ole’ fashioned beer boot chug!

This week we take our beer Adjunct Series into the wild world of blueberries! That’s right, we’re trying four different styles of beers from four different breweries to tell you the best way to enjoy fruit in your beer. While we’re at it, we’ll tell you the many different ways of how to brew with blueberries!

The Beering Ain’t Easy Podcast is celebrating it’s two year anniversary! We bring back original co-founder Adam onto the show to talk about his move to Austin, Drew turning forty, and Ryan’s bathroom etiquette conundrum. Plus we do micro-recaps of the HTown Brewery challenge and cover Turkey Forrest, Elder Son, and Klaus Brewing!