Sam: Food has always been at the forefront
of brewing.
Going back thousands of years, humans were
using honey and grapes to aid in the fermentation
and flavoring of their beers.
Not much has changed in some respects.
Brewers still use a substantial amount of
traditional amount of culinary ingredients.
But some have taken it a step further and
found inspiration in cuisine.
Today, we're doing just that.
Sam: You can make a great beer with just four
ingredients: barley, hops, water and yeast.
But to make an extreme beer, those four ingredients
put together the same old way isn't enough.
This is Project Extreme Brewing.
Sam: I'm headed to the Dogfish Inn in Downtown
Lewes, Delaware, to pick up my long-time friend,
and former Dogfish coworker, Bryan Selders
of Post Brewing, to brew our collaborative
extreme beer, Bulky Oxen.
We're headed to Rehoboth to meet up with our
Brew Master, Mark, to get this beer started.
Sam: For a little bit of background, Bryan
and I didn't just brew together, we also rapped
together in our beer geek hip-hop collective,
the Pain Relievas.
Sam: Guess who's back?
Bryan: You're back!
Sam: We both are.
We're at the Rehoboth Brew Pub.
Our tour vehicle was my Element.
And you vomited on the side of it.
Bryan: On the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
Sam: That's rock-and-roll!
Bryan: At 60 miles an hour.
Sam: That's rock-and-roll.
Bryan: You can't get more rock-and-roll than
that.
Sam: So we would do a series of beer dinners.
In that era, you had to think of some crazy
theme as a reason to get people to come out
to think about pairing beer and food.
Bryan: Yeah, I mean, even the notion of having
a beer dinner, at one point, was an extreme
notion.
Sam: Mm hm.
Bryan: Simply because beer was not thought
of as something that goes well with food.
Sam: For us, every potential culinary ingredient's
always been fair game for a potential beer
ingredient.
How do the worlds of food and beer intertwine
in the world of Post?
Bryan: We think about beer flavor and food
flavor at the same time, using our own unique
ingredients and skill sets.
Sam: Yeah, not-- more complementing each other,
then combining them.
Sam: There are two recognized schools of thought
when it comes to beer and food pairing.
Complementary, or contrasting.
Bryan: So we're-- we take a complementary
approach to brewing, and think about what's
going to come out of the kitchen, and what's
going to come out of the brewery.
Sam: Meaning no one of those things is on
center stage.
They're all at the front of the stage together.
What kind of song--
Bryan: It's like New Edition.
It's a lot like New Edition.
Sam: I was going to say Boyz II Men.
Bryan: Boyz II Men.
Sam: Okay.
Bryan: Yeah, but Bobby B was in New Edition,
so.
Sam: Okay, so you're making some good points
there.
Bryan: Yeah.
Sam: I see what you mean.
Sam: We're going to get wood, Matt!
Pretend we need wood.
Sam: With those schools of thought in mind,
I decided to put Bryan and Post's pairing
philosophy to the test, by grilling up some
brats from Hickman's Market in Rehoboth Beach.
Sam: Oh, shit!
Must have gone out of business.
Sam: So.
Bryan: Sure.
Sam: Which Post beers do you think will go
well with these classic Polish/German style
sausage?
Bryan: So the obvious choice would be our
Howdy Beer.
Sam: Is it more of a Czech or German style
pilsner?
I know it's a pilsner.
Bryan: It is THE All-American pilsner.
Sam: All-American pilsner!
Bryan: Yeah.
Sam: What's your secret?
Bryan: Buying all American ingredients and
putting it into the beer.
 It's delicious!
Sam: I'll be the judge of that.
Bryan: It's soft, it's delicate.
Sam: Ah, that is nice.
It's going to cut through the heat and the
fat of this meat.
Bryan: It will.
Sam: Beautifully.
Bryan: Are you rapping?
You're rapping right now.
Sam: I can't help myself.
Bryan: We're rapping?
Cool.
Sam: The pilsner's so good.
Bryan: First come jazz, then came rock.
I'm sweet like sugar, you.. bitter like a
hop.
Sam: Bitter like a hop!
Bryan: Got it.
See, you did it.
Sam: Now take it from these beers, these beautiful
Post beers that you have concocted into the
beer that you and I collaborated on, which
is the Bulky Oxen.
Bryan: There's one dish in particular at the
Post that inspired the sensation and just
flavor profile of Bulky Oxen.
Sam: Mm hm.
Bryan: And so we have this tomato broth braised
pork shoulder, finished off in a wood-fired
oven, to give it nice smoky flavors.
And then topped with a sweet onion marmalade.
We really wanted to capture that richness,
that smoke, just how unctuous--
Sam: Unctuous, I like that word!
Bryan: Unctuous, that's a good word, that
dish really is.
We're going out after smokiness, we're going
after big luscious flavors that just are satisfying
and feel a little bit naughty.
Sam: In the best way.
Bryan: Yeah.
Sam: Mm hm.
Prost!
Bryan: Orrrr!
Sam: I mean, Post.
Sam: The spirit of collaboration is rich with
good karma for artists, for musicians or even
for brewers like us.
Just as a quick example, without our love
of collaborating on interesting and ground-breaking
new ideas, our popular white ale, Namaste,
wouldn't exist.
Sam: I've asked you some riveting questions.
Bryan: Sure.

Sam: But now, it is time for the part of our
Project Extreme Brewing series that we like
to call, "Liquid Truth Serum."
Bryan: Are you drinking this as well?
Sam: Yeah.
Bryan: So cheers!
I don't talk with my mouth full.
Sam: Okay.
Bryan: I'm chewing.
Sam: If you were stuck on a desert island
for a year--
Bryan: One full year.
Sam: Three-hundred and sixty-five days.
If you had to live off of one beer, that is
not a Post beer.
And one condiment.
And you could have one supermodel.
You've checked in with your wife, Allie, and
she understands you're stuck on this island
for a year.
Bryan: Picture this.
Sam: Yeah.
Bryan: The year's 1997.
I love drinking Saison Dupont.
Sam: Beautiful!
Classic!
Bryan: I love mayonnaise, so we're going to
have some mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise is useful for a lot of things.
Sam: Yeah!
It's got a natural high SPF, I think.
Bryan: Right.
So I've got my year.
I've got my condiment, I've got my beer.
My favorite supermodel from 1997 is Slate's
model, Sam Calagione.
Sam: Oh, he nailed it, folks!
Bryan: We are going to party with some mayo!
Sam: I'm coming to the island!
Bryan: Gonna hang out on the island!
Sam: Pour that shit like this.
It's going to be awesome! 
Sam: At this point, our beer was well on its
way to being left alone to sit for a while.
So we decided we'd help Mark with the finishing
touches.
Sam: So, it was great getting together with
my good old pal, Bryan Selders and brewing
this beautiful beer, Bulky Oxen.
We pretty much invented the Session Barleywine
style category.
This thing comes over at just seven percent
alcohol.
You can see it's got some really nice dark
grains.
And of course, the pièce de résistance in
the middle of Bulky Oxen is the real unique
wood-fired, onion marmalade that went into
making this beer so wonderful and so different
than what's out there.
Bryan and I are 99 percent confident the Session
Barleywine style category will likely overtake
and eclipse the IPA style as the best selling
beer style in America by the year 2020.
We'll see if we can make that happen.
Sam: So if you like the concept of a Session
Barleywine made with onion marmalade, smoked
over wood.
Or you just want to learn more about other
interesting ways into your journey to be an
extreme brewer, check out our book, Project
Extreme Brewing.
Buy it wherever you find books, but also you
can buy it at Dogfish.com.
Here's to you and your brewing journey.
Cheers!
