Well it's official. We have hit the big time. The City of Flagstaff invited us along with prolific Nevada beer journalist and perennial Beer Freaks guest Bob Barnes out to their city to explore the magical world of Flagstaff brewing and space exploration. Yes, they do both.
Our phenomenal tour guide, Meg, drove us to several tasty breweries, including Lumberyard, Beaver Street, Mother Road, Wanderlust, Grand Canyon Brewing, and Dark Sky, all within the city limits of the charming city of Flagstaff, most of which were walkable from our downtown accommodations, the very haunted Hotel Monte Vista. And yes, Derek got assigned to the most haunted room in the place.
But wait, there's more! Not only did we get to experience the best brews Flagstaff had to offer (and there were too many to recount here), but we also got a VIP tour of Lowell Observatory with Dr. Danielle Adams, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer of the observatory. Our hosts showed and told us all about how Pluto was discovered in Flagstaff, how the city still plays a major role in NASA (step aside, Houston), and how every single human that's ever stepped foot on the moon has spent time training in Flagstaff.
This whirlwind trip was an incredible experience from start to finish (except for the unprecedented snowstorm that doubled our drive time) and we can't say enough great things about Flag and the wonderful beer culture, community, and craft they've cultivated in the charming mountain town. You better believe we'll be back soon. And we hope to see you there.
Oh, there's one more thing. Because this was our first of hopefully many city tours in the future, we are working on a short film of the experience so that you can virtually come with us as we interview brewers, owners, general managers, and astronomers on this historic occasion. More details to come!
Well it's official. We have hit the big time. The City of Flagstaff invited us along with prolific Nevada beer journalist and perennial Beer Freaks guest Bob Barnes out to their city to explore the magical world of Flagstaff brewing and space exploration. Yes, they do both.
Our phenomenal tour guide, Meg, drove us to several tasty breweries, including Lumberyard, Beaver Street, Mother Road, Wanderlust, Grand Canyon Brewing, and Dark Sky, all within the city limits of the charming city of Flagstaff, most of which were walkable from our downtown accommodations, the very haunted Hotel Monte Vista. And yes, Derek got assigned to the most haunted room in the place.
But wait, there's more! Not only did we get to experience the best brews Flagstaff had to offer (and there were too many to recount here), but we also got a VIP tour of Lowell Observatory with Dr. Danielle Adams, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer of the observatory. Our hosts showed and told us all about how Pluto was discovered in Flagstaff, how the city still plays a major role in NASA (step aside, Houston), and how every single human that's ever stepped foot on the moon has spent time training in Flagstaff.
This whirlwind trip was an incredible experience from start to finish (except for the unprecedented snowstorm that doubled our drive time) and we can't say enough great things about Flag and the wonderful beer culture, community, and craft they've cultivated in the charming mountain town. You better believe we'll be back soon. And we hope to see you there.
Oh, there's one more thing. Because this was our first of hopefully many city tours in the future, we are working on a short film of the experience so that you can virtually come with us as we interview brewers, owners, general managers, and astronomers on this historic occasion. More details to come!
All right Stu!
Stu Haack:Derek.
Derek Krueger:What's up, dude?
Stu Haack:We went on an adventure.
Derek Krueger:We went on an adventure, dude, but seriously, like, so Okay, so this is the coolest thing that happened. I remember you texting me.
Stu Haack:Yeah.
Derek Krueger:And and I saw in the text was holy shit dude. I'm like, whoa like what dude, what's up? And then you wrote back like the same thing but it was like holy period shit theory. I'm like what's going on?
Stu Haack:It's building the suspense Yeah,
Derek Krueger:dude and then you told me it was like whoa,
Stu Haack:well first of all I'm a natural born storyteller so I had to I had to make you wait for a minute. Yeah, you did, but it was really it was just kind of like getting it in my mind and understanding what the hell was happening. Yeah. Because, you know for all the listeners at home as much as you love and admire us for the amazing work that we do. Let's be honest, our show is not you know, we're not Joe Rogan. We're not. We're not. We're not big time. We're not we're not big time now. We're not. We're not there yet. We will be.
Derek Krueger:We will be.
Stu Haack:But we got we got we got an email from Flagstaff from the city of flagstaff
Derek Krueger:the city, literally an .gov
Stu Haack:it's a.gov it's a.gov we're not talking about.org here and certainly not a fucking.com Yeah, this is a.gov this is the real deal. Okay. And Flagstaff for those of you don't know, is a small city in the north of Arizona. I went to school there for four years. Lumberjack go lumberjacks go lumberjack Northern Arizona University. And so it was it was just it was rant I I got an email basically saying like, hey, look, we listen to your podcast. We know you guys like fear. We know you guys like, like scary things, which I can absolutely confirm. We like both of those things. We like them a lot. And they said, Hey, look. So we have Arizona beer week coming up. And we would like to invite you guys out for this for this media tour. Yeah, that you guys are doing. And we're like, and, you know, it's you know, putting us up in a hotel and free beers all around the city. How many brewers end up going to like it
Derek Krueger:was 990. It was? It was every brewery in?
Stu Haack:Yeah, yeah. We were there for three days. Yeah. And not not we don't, we didn't even not just breweries. They took us to Lowell Observatory. Yeah. Where Pluto was discovered. We went to the meteor crater, not the meteor crater. Yeah, volcano, the volcano, sunset.
Derek Krueger:Sunset, sunset, something. Yes, sunset, gosh.
Stu Haack:Which don't let our lack of remembering its name. Take away from its quality because it was amazing. Amaze, Derek and I drank like sailors for three days straight. So our memories are hazy. Yes, of the specific details. But the overall was. But anyway, back to the back of the store. We gotta go to the beginning because we've got to tell you from the beginning. And so anyway, they invited us out. And it was shocking, because, look, this podcast has been around for what, three years, something like that. Yeah. And we've gotten some cool stuff. We've interviewed some really cool people, some people that we didn't expect to get on the show. So we've gotten some cool stuff. We've gotten some free beer, but we have never been invited on a media tour. Not to come out for three days. Yeah, hotel beer. And so I had I think I read it like five times even before I texted you the Holy shit, dude. Yeah. And I once I finally understood, I was like, alright, well, I think Derek's gonna like this. And so I sent you the text. And hopefully you did.
Derek Krueger:Yep. been like, Nah, that's not
Stu Haack:there was a little part of me that was like, like, I thought I thought maybe you'd be like, I mean, Flagstaff, who cares? You know? Well in that's actually would have been a mistake
Derek Krueger:to get into too, which is going to be awesome. Is all of you out there listening and watching. You're gonna Your minds are gonna be blown with information we're gonna give you about Flagstaff. That like no one knows. I then no. Student even there for four years. Yeah. It's it's pretty mind blowing.
Stu Haack:It's a town that is phenomenal. And so today's podcast is going to be all about our phenomenal fucking experience. There. It was. I want to move there now to be quite honest. 100% I think my wife's gonna let me there in a second. But outdoorsy, beer beauty, I mean, community. We're going to talk more about that. Oh, should we let a roll first I
Derek Krueger:we need to let it roll think
Stu Haack:123 Hi, I'm Stu.
Derek Krueger:And I'm Derek.
Stu Haack:And this is our podcast about all the weird, spooky, creepy things that keep us up at night.
Derek Krueger:And the one thing that makes us forget all about them,
Stu Haack:ladies and gentlemen,
Derek Krueger:beer freaks. Dun dun dun
Stu Haack:we're recording Well, yeah.
Derek Krueger:Isn't that nice? That's
Stu Haack:a nice one. That's a nice gash brought to you by our by our sponsors, not sponsors, Mother Road. Thank you for the beer Mother Road brewing in Flagstaff, named after Mother Road, which is another term for route 66. But thank you for the beer. They're not a sponsor, but they gave us beer. But again to get that email. Yep. So we get the email and then to share it with you. It was just like this is this is crazy. This is like, like not not only is this amazing that our podcast is now being a little bit more recognized. Yeah. You know, we're getting invited by the government. The government government is inviting us to Arizona craft beer week
Derek Krueger:and decided for the FBI to send us like a thing. Yeah. That'd be cool. Like,
Stu Haack:you knew the FBI has like special beers they want to share with us. Like beer would know what they you know, FBI probably has beer with no hangover. Like they have hangover freebie. They'd have to, you know, because they gotta let their agents blow off steam. Yeah, but they can't have a hangover.
Derek Krueger:No and not be hungover and they they can't get a call at 2am and then like, be hungover?
Stu Haack:Absolutely. So like it's a buzz that lasts for like two to three hours. And you're done. But But anyway, you know, those FBI folks don't get hung over. But we don't need to talk about that. No, we don't need to talk about the
Derek Krueger:Flagstaff government. Yeah,
Stu Haack:the, the actually, so specifically, it's a part of the city of Flagstaff called discover Flagstaff? Yes. And for most people, they do need to discover Flagstaff because they've never been there. I've been there. But it's changed. I mean, I graduated in Oh, eight. And so I've been back a couple of times since but not much. And and I gotta say, I mean, it's it's just grown immensely. In good ways. Right? It's a small town. 70,000 people. You know, it's college town. I think the college is now up to like 30,000 people when school is in session. So 100,000 People Max. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's got a snowboard and ski mountain. It's got the quaintest downtown I think I've ever seen in my life.
Derek Krueger:It's it's super cute dude, Sue reminded me of like Gilmore Girls.
Stu Haack:I know. And we talked a lot about that and I gotta tell you, it really it really hurt my masculinity to talk about it but I agree with you. I agree with you a lot. It's like Stars Hollow the fact that I know the name of the town and Gilmore Girls painful but look doesn't matter. Because here's what happened. We said yes. We said Yes to the Dress we went we decided we were gonna go out to Flagstaff we did we did it. We did it and and actually someone who if you listen to this podcast, you're familiar with it. And if you're familiar with Nevada beer you're familiar with Bob Barnes accompanied by Barnes. I got to tell you about it. We got to spend three days with Bob Dude, it was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome.
Derek Krueger:I What About Bob
Stu Haack:and I one more thing to add and we'll probably talk a little bit more about this later but Bob was probably more hung over than he's been around a long time.
Derek Krueger:I think so man think he is well I love but
Stu Haack:we all so we all went Yep. Right. So we they gave us about two weeks notice we got ready. We prepared everything packed up our bags. Okay. On a Wednesday morning. You're missing
Derek Krueger:a very big part here. Okay, you talked to Meg Who is she was our host she was she was amazing. She oh my god she
Stu Haack:is if she is not running discover Flagstaff. By the next time I get to Flagstaff I'm gonna be upset because Meg's was
Derek Krueger:fantastic is the best. Just awesome.
Stu Haack:I consider I consider my family now. Yeah, heck yeah, man. She drove us around Flagstaff. Yeah, three to set a birthday. Just celebrated a birthday. Yeah. Did she and he, again, if it sounds like we're being facetious right now we're not Meg was amazing. She was literally like the sweetest person and incredibly knowledgeable about Flagstaff. I mean, she
Derek Krueger:you introduce this to everybody. You could feel her passion. Yeah, we're the city.
Stu Haack:Yeah. She's also a Northern Arizona University graduate. Oh, dude. Yeah, and alumni. She's lived there. I think most of her life and I mean, she's just awesome. I mean, anytime I go back to flag I don't know about you, but I'm definitely gonna text turnips so she can meet up for a beer.
Derek Krueger:Well, so you so you talked with mag to figure out a hotel like Where should we stay Right. And obviously beer freaks, right? So we talked about beer, we talked about fear. So, so hopefully so you guys try and find kind of like a haunted hotel.
Stu Haack:Yeah. Initially Meg was gonna put us up in, she was either gonna give us like an Airbnb option, I think was on the table or we were just gonna stay like a normal hotel. Yeah, like, I think one that was close to downtown, whatever. And then and then she mentioned in another hotel that really struck me because I remembered it from my days in Flagstaff is the most haunted hotel in all flag, and it had a ton of stories. Super. Right. And this is where this is really where Derek gets happy, because because I go hotel montavista Absolutely, yes. 100% We need to be in a hotel montavista I know that that place was haunted. In fact, back in 2007, when I worked for the TV station in in Flagstaff, the college TV station, we did an overnight in one of the Haunted rooms. Well, and we you know, we had some beers, and there's like, six of us, you know, we just stayed in there. And, you know, none of us saw anything. Partially probably because we were all just drunk at that point. Yeah, but depending on the members, there's probably a ghost just chillin was the whole time I don't even know he's probably having beers with you. But regardless, so so I'm like, Yeah, hotel montavista Sign us up. We are in for that one. Because be able to get some great stories. Maybe we needed some an actual haunting as part of our tour. Yeah, I did not specifically asked for any of the Haunted rooms. However, boy, however. Derek, winds up in room 306. Yep. So
Derek Krueger:look it up. Look up room 306 at the hotel monta Vista. You will see well, we're gonna tell you to but look it
Stu Haack:up. Yeah, it's so But Derek has no idea I have no idea and so so that's what's waiting for us in Flagstaff. So so we but before we get there, you know, we pack up our bags and all that kind of stuff. And you know, we're all ready to go we're texting Bob. We're gonna meet him in flag you know, Wednesday afternoon. Should be three and a half hour drive. Yes. Should have been should have been and Derek you rode with with my family. Yep.
Derek Krueger:That's me. Yes. Pick me up. It was nice. Yeah. So for and
Stu Haack:I thought Yeah, it was like look, it'll be a quick three and a half hour drive me we'll grab some food and Kingman or something like that. It'd be a quick one, you know, no problem. But of course, Flagstaff experiences. Record storm, Northern Arizona and jet not just flag but all of Northern Arizona. Easy. Record storm record cold. So the 40 freeway that takes basically Kingman to Flagstaff is shut down going east. Yeah, you can go west. Even go west all day. Can't go east. Yeah,
Derek Krueger:it's like a straight shot. Once you get to Kingman that 40. Yeah. And then it's just straight to Flagstaff. Yeah. compared to if the 40s closed, you have to take a different freeway, which takes you down all the way all the way around to almost Phoenix in the calm back up, which is how far out of the way we want three hours.
Stu Haack:That's instead of a three and a half hour trip and want to be in 777 hours. Seven hours
Derek Krueger:in the kicker was we had things to do that night. Yeah, it's we we went domain crazy late to it. We missed one thing. Yeah, we missed one thing.
Stu Haack:But don't let that deter you Vegas, folks. Okay, don't let that deter you. Because 99.9% of the time, you're gonna make a flag in three and a half hours now. That was just our experience. So good for us. Very nice. Way to start the trip. Yeah. But we got we got to see a little bit of North Phoenix and yeah, it was kind of
Derek Krueger:cool. Because I'd never been up there, man. Absolutely. So it was kind of nice to see all the different terrain and in areas and so it was cool over.
Stu Haack:We got to sneak our way into a country club so my son could poop.
Derek Krueger:Oh, yeah. Who doesn't like a good poop in a country club?
Stu Haack:I mean, I hate public toilets. So like if you're if if I'm gonna have to poop in the public, you know country clubs where it's at. I give you that. So we get to Flagstaff? Yes. We're in Flagstaff we we get to hotel Mauna Vista. We Park The parking lot is full of snow. Yeah. But we may make our way we're good. We throw our stuff in the hotel. montavista. My family decides they're just gonna chill. Right? So it's just the three of us. Yeah, you me, Bob. Meg and Meg. Yeah. And there's a first time meeting Meg. instantly felt like friends, you know, is amazing. She's just she's I can't stress this enough. Meg is awesome. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:Some. So when we get to a hotel monta Vista. Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah, tell them we throw all the stuff in in our rooms. So yeah, I mean, to your point. We get up because we're already late. So I go in we check you know, we check in we got our rooms we go up, we drop the stuff off. So I grew up to my room. Room. 306 This is before I know any of the stories that the room was haunted. I didn't really
Stu Haack:Yeah, just just jump in there. I hadn't told Derek a whole lot about hotel MonaVie Is that I thought it was a slightly haunted hotel. But I don't think I had gone into the level of depth of the stories and how gruesome some of them were. Yeah. So no, he had no idea. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:So I check in, I take my stuff up. I throw it in the room. I change real quick. I go to the bathroom. And then I just leave. Yes. Like we were late. So we had to go. So I didn't spend much time in the room. But I remember getting in the room. Oh, I did. I did FaceTime Ashley, my wife real quick. And I showed her the room I kind of did like a panel the room, but I do remember getting into the room and feeling like a little weird sensation
Stu Haack:in the room. And Ashley didn't see any ghosts in the FaceTime or anything.
Derek Krueger:No, not that she said. But I just chalked up the weird feeling to like, it just kind of looked like old but not old as in isn't gross, but just it's an old hotel. It isn't. It's a very old old so it had that frickin rocking chair in the corner. And I remember telling national like dude, that rocking chair when I go to bed tonight it's going in the home like it's not staying in this bedroom at all. So okay, so anyway, so I dropped my stuff off. I leave
Stu Haack:so so we didn't get too far because again, we're rushing so we go to we go to Lumberyard Brooke make drives us over which we realized she really didn't need to drive us over there. It was, it was like a block away. But it was very, the hospitality was amazing. So she drives us all of two minutes away. We go to lumberyard. That was the first one we went for someone Yep. Right. Yep. And that's where we meet Kelly and Winnie
Derek Krueger:Kelly and Winnie dude. Well, we met I think we met Kelly.
Stu Haack:Oh, that's right when he wasn't there when he wasn't there that day. But we did also meet Dr. Danielle.
Derek Krueger:Yes. Dr. Danielle came. Yeah, she is which we'll get into later she is.
Stu Haack:She's the Chief Marketing Officer at Lowell Observatory, Lowell Observatory, but she's also a doc. So she got that role because she she has marketing experience and astronomy experience. And there's not a whole lot of people who have both. Yeah, I'm super jealous, because that sounds like a blast of a job. So we were going to spend some time with her the following night, knowing that she wanted to come see, you know, talk a little bit about what we were going to see the following day. But she just had dinner with us. And it was awesome. Yeah. And that again, kind of speaks to the community of Flagstaff. Right? Like, like, they're just like, Yeah, well, we'd love to welcome these guys from Las Vegas. We want to see what they're talking about. And just have some dinner, have a couple of beers with these guys see what they're doing. You know, and it was funny that we met the and I'll just preface with this because I mean, we met a million people while we were there. Yep. Every single person we met was friendly, awesome, welcoming. I mean, like we didn't meet a stranger in Flagstaff. No. But but so we go to Lumberyard we meet we meet with Kelly we didn't meet with when he we met with when he the next day but Kelly is the owner of beaver street brewing lumberyard and bruising cues. Yeah, which is all just south of the train track and Flagstaff Yeah, just north of the school. And all places I used to frequent except for Lumberyard because I don't think Lumberyard opened until 2009. Ish and I graduated annoyed. But Kelly Kelly was amazing though she was talking about a lot of the beers that they were brewing at lumberyard and she brought back one of my best memories of all time you remember this?
Derek Krueger:That's right, man, Stu. Stu had this this memory of a beer that you had in college. And it was it was a Hefeweizen Yeah, right. And it had, but the orange was like built into the beer Hill wasn't an orange. No, who has banana and clove, banana and clove. That's right. Yeah. So it's built into the beer instead of putting it you know, like an actual banana and stuff into it. It's it's in the mix. It's in the it's in the deal. In stew was curious as to if they still have you still have it's been you know, it's been years. It's been 15 years.
Stu Haack:And it was on the menu. And they still had it because one, it was the first beer that they actually I think won an award with it. Great American Beer Festival.
Derek Krueger:Oh, geez. Yeah.
Stu Haack:So you got to keep that on the menu. So I think it and again, I mean, going back to 2007 2008 when I had it for the first time. I mean, this is when I was in college, you know, like I was drinking primarily Keystone Coors Light, you know, like, not, not that there's anything wrong with those beers. But you know, like, I hadn't explored what a good beer tasted like a whole lot yet. I mean, I thought Killians Irish Red was the
Derek Krueger:shit. Yeah, that's an awesome beer. It was a craft beer of that time. That was the craft beer
Stu Haack:and then blue moon came out like, but like so. So those were those were really good beers. And then, you know, and then I went to beaver street brewing when I was you know, 21 in Flagstaff and I got to try their half of Eisen because I'd seen that one that's silver metal on and it was like mine. It was like mind changing like it was just like holy shit like beer can be this good. Like, this is insane. And so I was like, There's no way that they saw this beer 15 years later, like, you know, most crap aparece they'll keep a few flagships around, but they don't keep like everything around. And I don't think this was one of their flagships. I think it was just a really good beer. And I was so excited to see this. They'll have it. And so that she So Kelly brought it out. Yeah. And I think we got to edit. You took a video the first time because there's, and it was like that moment you remember that moment in the movie Beer Fest where they taste the recipe of that amazing beer that their grandfather had passed down. You'd never get the fuck out it.
Derek Krueger:I haven't seen that movie. Yeah.
Stu Haack:And you know, you host a beer show. Look, for those of you who are cool and have seen that movie before. Derek excluded from that list for multiple reasons. There's a scene where they where he takes a drink of this recipe that's been passed down for hundreds of years, and they brew it. And it's amazing. And they just like talk about it for minutes about how wonderful this beer is. That was that moment for me. Yeah, it was like it brought back I was like, I was like 21 again. And like, you know, all my life was ahead of me. And it was just like tasting craft beer for the first time. And she she brought that and she was like, Yeah, you got it. You got to try this again. Like you gotta have it and nothing changed. It was it was so amazing. You could
Derek Krueger:see it in your face. Like it felt good. You You looked like you were on a different plane. I was yes. Yeah. It was awesome, dude. And it wasn't the three beers in that same look you had with Greg Cook. Yeah, the whole thing. Sorry. I yeah, like sparkles coming out.
Stu Haack:I felt like I couldn't even hear I remember I was talking to you. I think one time after one of our podcasts, like when we weren't recording. And I think I told you, I was like, I was a little mad at you for the Greg Cook interview. Because you talk to him more than I did. And I was like, but it wasn't your fault. Because I was so starstruck.
Derek Krueger:Because normally You're the talk I couldn't like you just weren't talking so I had to fill in. But then obviously it's because you were Yeah, that's your
Stu Haack:as I told you, I told me I was like, I recognize that in the moment. But I was still mad at you at the time because I was like, No, I want to talk to him. But I can't talk to him. I can't do it. You want
Derek Krueger:to do it, but I can't
Stu Haack:tell I felt that's how I felt when I was drinking this beer. Like I was speechless for me.
Derek Krueger:They had amazing beer like there. They had a red so I remember that because we were talking about Killians Irish Red and they had this amazing read dude. Oh god it was so good. And I wish it would have got some next time we're gonna flex if I need to but
Stu Haack:we gotta we gotta get to Flagstaff again soon. Yeah, by the way. Because I would like to go back when it's not freezing cold and it is so beautiful dude at that again. I forget everything you know about Arizona. Yeah, it's not it's not Phoenix and it's not Tucson. Yeah,
Derek Krueger:it's not hot. Not desert.
Stu Haack:Those cities are cool in their own way. Don't get me wrong, but like but Flagstaff is a it's Flagstaff is more. If you if if it was if there was a city that was like a 10th of the size of Denver that's Flagstaff. Oh 106,000 feet elevation it's outdoor sports everyone hikes everyone bikes everyone snowboards or skis and then everyone and you know after they after they've been outdoors and experiencing outdoor fun all day, they go have some beers. So great mountain beers. Yeah, dude. And then and then they and then they kick it. Yeah. So we gotta go back in the spring.
Derek Krueger:We definitely have to go back to Yeah. So okay, so we get so we do Lumberyard Yeah, we're that we got food.
Stu Haack:We got we got some really good food, amazing food. And Kelly gave us a great tour of Yes. Of the of the of the because the the building so so they have a restaurant in the front. And then in the back, obviously the the brewing section. It was actually originally a lumberyard. It's why they call it Lumberyard brewing it was it was actually a lumber, it was a lumber mill. And they kept the original red brick. Yeah, it's got really high gite like really high ceilings across the entire space. Really cool place. And I would just highly recommend that, you know, all the places that we talk to you about our high recommendations, you got to do them all. And the cool thing is, you know, it's a lot of breweries, but it's small towns, so it's easy to get to all yes.
Derek Krueger:And the cool thing about the breweries too, is they have if you go to the visitor center, what's for one, go to the visitor center, because they have all the information, all the different places to go to all the cool things to check out in Flagstaff. But they also have a little map for the breweries which you know, I don't know most towns are starting to kind of do this. Yeah, you know, Vegas has started to do kind of like a map of the breweries. But the cool thing about Flagstaff is they'll give you the map. If you go and fill out you get a stamp for each brewery you go to Yep, if you if you go to I think it's five of them. I want to say it's five I'm not five surgeries. Fiber.
Stu Haack:It's like 10 Oh, if you get Okay,
Derek Krueger:yeah, I'm not 100% Sure, they'll tell you You're the visitor center. But you get a certain amount of stamps. You bring back the card and they give you this really cool. They give you this really cool. Party class. Yeah, it's awesome, man.
Stu Haack:We got one. Yeah. So like, Well, yeah,
Derek Krueger:yeah, because we did it. We did it. We did all of them.
Stu Haack:Make knew we were gonna do it she gave to us before we did it, but she knew we were gonna do. Yeah. And we did.
Derek Krueger:But it is pretty cool. Man. The Visitor Center is awesome. It's like, it's right at the train. Station. Yeah,
Stu Haack:that's all it's on the old route. 66 train tracks, man. Like, it's just cool to be there. Yep. And it actually does help you plan out your Flagstaff vacation because there's a lot more to do than you might think in a 70,000. Person town.
Derek Krueger:Yes. And again, to get back to the things about Flagstaff that you would never know about. You'll find out about him in the visitor center, but we're not going to tell you yet. That's right. That comes in day two and a half
Stu Haack:keep it a mystery. But what's no longer going to be a mystery is my Pepto well, we'll get to Pepto here in a minute. But we got to finish day one first. Yes, the mystery room 306. So we finished with lumberyard. Kelly gave us an amazing tour was awesome. We got to we got to see all the cool copper kettles and kegs and so cool can art they had a hole was that the brewer I think had a collection of old beer cans, perhaps and all like all kinds of really cool can art that inspires some of their stuff. But then we wrapped it up and we call it a night. We're tired. We didn't for seven hours. Yeah, you gotta get a bit. Give us a break. Yeah, you know,
Derek Krueger:so we had our beers, you know, after so we got food. We were ready to call, right? Yeah, we hadn't. We had to do a little nightcap. And the cool thing about hotel entrevista they have they have a cool like, awesome little cocktail bar. Like in the hotel. Yeah. So that's where we went. Yeah, back to the hotel because we were all staying there. Yeah, so me you and Bob. We go there. We sit down.
Stu Haack:I got a hot toddy. Yeah, you got a like sold fashion.
Derek Krueger:No, I got this like cinnamon. Oh my god. It was this amazing drink. Crap. I can't remember the name of it. It was fun. It was it Aloma. Did you get the pillow? No, it had whiskey in it. But it was cinnamon. It was frothy fashion. Yeah, Bob got
Stu Haack:your No, he just got bourbon.
Derek Krueger:I think he got straight up. Yeah, I think bourbon. So anyway, we're sitting there. And then Stu decides to ask the bartender a question.
Stu Haack:And you and you weren't paying attention at the time. So you didn't hear when I asked. But I was like, hey, you know, so we're here. You know, kind of like learning a little bit about the beer scene. We're on this media tour. But we also want to learn about the haunting stuff. And so what's like the most haunted room in Hotel montavista. And he didn't even hit him for it wasn't even a pause. There was no pause. He was like, Oh, yeah. 30636. And I immediately just pointed a dare. Oh, shit. I'm like what happened? And he didn't Yeah, cuz you didn't hear? And I'm like, Oh, dude. And so I think you walk to the front. You got a flyer?
Derek Krueger:Well, yeah, because the bartender, like, I thought you were joking. I thought you guys were in on it. I thought you were messing with me. I was on a room. And he's like, No, seriously, like, he's like the front desk as flyers, la all the different rooms with all the different haunting stories, blah, blah. So I go to the front desk. I get this flyer. I remember reading it at the front desk. I see room 306 I see the story. Yeah. I come back to these guys. I'm like, Yep, I'm not going to be staying in that room. Tonight or tomorrow. He actually changed I changed rooms. Yeah, I
Stu Haack:can't I couldn't do it. Honestly, I could not believe it. I thought Look, man, suck it up for the team. Not doing our podcast is about beer and horror. You are staying in the most haunted room in this hotel. This is perfect. Okay, so gotta do it.
Derek Krueger:But here's the story with room 306. And this is a big reason why it did. It creeped me out. I left the room and wanted to change rooms. So room 306. Back in. I don't know the early 1900s I think
Stu Haack:I think the hotel was founded in 2819 28. So almost 100 years old. So it was probably I think it was the 30s If I remember correctly.
Derek Krueger:A gentleman was staying in the room. He hired prostitutes, to prostitutes to hookers. Whatever the PC version of that term is. ladies of the night, ladies of the night, so we hired two of them. They came up to his room. He ended up killing them both and then threw them out the window in this room.
Stu Haack:He's like, by the way, what a better way to get rid of bodies.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. The Ramada window into the main drag of all of flex. Yeah, it was a different time. Different time. Yeah. But so the stories that people have had of The Haunting of this place is pretty much geared towards men. Yeah, they hate men. Yet they hate men. Obviously, sir. Um, men would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like they're being choked. Like a hand covering their mouth and throat, not being able to sit up. That is why I changed rooms because I'm not. And I'm by myself, students got his wife and stuff. I'm like, I'm by myself not bringing
Stu Haack:my kid into that.
Derek Krueger:Like, no, I'm out
Stu Haack:there. Derek was like, oh, yeah, why don't you just take your family in there? And I'm like, I'm gonna take in my son in there. Exactly, man. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:So I get a new room. So I have to go up to the other room to get my stuff. And so now, I know the story. So I'm freaked out. So I opened the door, in Luckily, my suitcase is like, kind of by the door. So I grab it. I'm trying to put stuff in it and zip it up as I'm, you know, holding the frickin door open because I don't want the door to close and then be like, bum rush by the ghost. But then I just figured out like this has taken way too long. I just throw my suitcase in the hallway. And then I left my phone like on the dresser so I have to like I'm holding the door and I can't reach the phone. So I have to let go the door real quick and grab the phone. I run back out before the door closes. And then they gave us a little care package like discover Flagstaff, give us this sweet little care pack. You gotta like beatings and stuff. It's on the table, which is far away all the way across the room. So there's no way of holding the door. So I literally took it to the table as the door starting to close. I run back the door closes halfway surprised you didn't get
Stu Haack:tripped on your way by a ghostly leg.
Derek Krueger:Oh, should I have everything in the hallway? It's like a mess in the hallway. And I just read the door close and I fucking pack up in the hallway. Dude, Jesus. Yeah.
Stu Haack:I mean, it's
Derek Krueger:look creepy.
Stu Haack:I get it. I get Gary. If I'm the last one awake in my house and it's dark. And you know, I get a little to get a little chilled. Yeah, dude. But I mean,
Derek Krueger:dude, I've had my fair share of ghost stories. I've seen my fair share of stuff. That's it's resume you
Stu Haack:have it's real easy. And you've seen some real stuff. Yes.
Derek Krueger:And I think until you see your own like experiences. Yeah. I think it is kind of like a thing. But once you have that first experience, you're like, Okay, I get it.
Stu Haack:Yeah. i Yeah, that's true. Because I love horror films. I love scary books. Yeah, I've never actually seen anything. Yeah, right. So like, I just think it's funny. Yeah, but I guess I guess. Yeah. But I guarantee anyone who would have walked by Derek's from I wish someone would have walked by because I was only like a room over that process. I was only a room over. But I was downstairs at the bar at the time waiting for you to come back. Oh, man. And, man, I wish someone would have walked past you just be like, What the fuck?
Derek Krueger:What are you doing man?
Stu Haack:Psychopath.
Derek Krueger:I would have told them Hey, hold the door. I gotta go get this frickin thing have to do to
Stu Haack:elicited help. Yeah. Then it turned out to have been the ghost and you invited them in? Or you invited a vampire or whatever. But my new my new room was great. You moved to a whole different floor. Loved it. You wouldn't even tell me what floor it was because I think you were worried that I was going to tell you a made up story. Yeah, at that room. Yeah, at that point.
Derek Krueger:But I felt really good in that room. Yeah, I didn't sleep very well. The first time only because of the other store residual. Yeah. But it felt really nice in that room. And if there was a ghost, he was awesome. Or she was awesome. Like,
Stu Haack:well, that was the thing is actually if you read the pamphlet, from Hotel montavista There was actually only like two angry ghosts. Yeah, there's like, there's like the 306. And then there's like one other room where there was like a mean ghost. The other ghosts were actually nice. There's like a dancing couple. Yeah, you know? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they like died in the hotel together. But they're nice. They're happy. You know?
Derek Krueger:That's right.
Stu Haack:They're very happy ghosts. They're there. You just have one. We did. We did ask Meg. If she had intentionally booked 306 For us she she says that she did not. I don't even make as much as we love you. We're not sure that that's the truth. But okay. So you come back.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. So I come back. New room. New room. Gainesville, like a new man. Yep.
Stu Haack:I feel great. Feeling good. Yep. So we had I think another drink Bob went to bed. Yeah, Bob went to bed I had seen I think while I was waiting for you that the one of my old fraternity brothers was actually working as a bartender. Oh my god.
Derek Krueger:Yeah, that's right. This first night just
Stu Haack:right down the like, literally, my Google Manitowoc. My Google Maps had like 300 feet away. Yeah, like that. And so we ended up going to something north Yucca north, you look at North America, North eighth Yucca north, which is just a little side street off of it. And by the way, when we're talking about downtown Flagstaff, we're talking about like three square blocks. Yes. Like it's not literally like three square blocks.
Derek Krueger:This perfect size. Yeah, it's great.
Stu Haack:Well, it's all waterfall. So we go to the yoke north. We see Pat Patrick goes by Patrick now. So we go see Patrick at Yucca North And it's funny because like, I mean, honestly, we're still like Facebook friends probably connected maybe three or four times since college. Yeah. So I was telling you as we were walking over, I'm like, I don't know if he's even gonna recognize me. Yeah, at all. Like, we're gonna walk in. He's gonna be like, like, as soon as I walk in, he's like, stew. Oh, shit. Alright. Rock and roll, man. Well, you
Derek Krueger:waves at you. Yeah, like, Oh, perfect. But yeah, but
Stu Haack:he didn't say Stu. He waved at us. Yeah. And then he later if you like, an hour later, he's like, oh, yeah, I had a buddy who looks just like you. And I thought that's who you were at first. And
Derek Krueger:like, then when you got closer, he's like, Oh, well, wait. That's yeah. Yeah. See, recognize you.
Stu Haack:I don't know how. Yeah. But anyway, so I just want to give a shout out to Yucca north and Pat Patrick. Because he is probably got to be one of the best bartenders like cocktail like mixologist. So Mike, Flagstaff, I think he's been recognized with a few awards.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. He said, Yeah, he had a lot of awards for his Oh my God, His he made a so many amazing thing. We
Stu Haack:had a few. The best one. My favorite one was the one with the turmeric and mezcal. I think it was. Yeah. Or no, it was gin. Was it the gin and turmeric or was it Mezcal and turmeric? I think it was. It was like, you might be right, because I think the two the next two that we had were with Mezcal Muscat. I forget the name of the cocktail. It apparently is like the unofficial drink of Flagstaff. Yeah. And it's incredible. So if you're ever in Flagstaff, and you don't want a beer, which would be unfortunate, because there's so many great breweries. Yeah. Go to Yucca Nora, look at North find Patrick, you will know who he is because he is going to be the most eclectically dressed gentleman there.
Derek Krueger:There. He reminded me of the guy. Fear and Loathing
Stu Haack:Yeah, yeah. Great way to describe reminded me of absolutely yeah, he had he I mean, it was nighttime in a bar. He was wearing some shades I think that are like yellow
Derek Krueger:tinted yellow tint. And I had like suspenders on with one like it was we're not suspenders. The you know, I'm talking about the big like, yeah, Tiki style kind of overalls.
Stu Haack:Yeah, and he definitely was the most interestingly dressed gentleman. And so you'll know, asked for I mean, I'm sure all the bartenders at North are amazing. Just gonna tell you because I love Patrick and he's awesome. Go find Patrick. He's the dude find. He'll mix you the best cocktails of all time.
Derek Krueger:And don't be I mean, Yucca north you I mean, you get there you walk in. Obviously, you may not feel like they have
Stu Haack:these amazing cocktails. Yeah, cuz it's more of an industry bar. Right? It's not it's not like it doesn't look like this big walk
Derek Krueger:in you're like, Yeah, I got natty light you know? I mean it's nothing spectacular. Nothing against Yucca north but it's just I mean you know, it's yeah, it's it's a bar it's nothing like you would think you're going and getting these high end cocktails from right but you do and it's awesome.
Stu Haack:And it's amazing. I mean, literally I think he makes his own ingredients like he's not you know everything is so syrup all the simple serves that he's making himself he's she's sourcing local ingredients. I think he's sourcing local honey and all that kind of like what's his office and he's making this stuff at the bar he's not like this is not bought at the store. It's not like some bullshit like it's real stuff. So yeah, Patrick, you man. Thank you so find him if you if you want a good cocktail and flag Yes. And that was pretty much the end of night when we got back to hotel montavista Derek was not haunted.
Derek Krueger:Yeah, you guys went to bed I did not go to bed. I think yeah, you didn't sleep I think I stayed up with friends on because that's just fun. Oh, you just put friends on in the bedroom and friends you know friends is always on you just throw it on.
Stu Haack:Yeah, it was Seinfeld Seinfeld or friends or you know you can always find all
Derek Krueger:the lights were on TV was on oh right
Stu Haack:so you were you were rattled? Hell yeah, man. I mean, like honestly, like after after the beers at Lumberyard in the in the cocktails that yuck I think I might had I was asleep before my head
Derek Krueger:would have been nice. But that freaks me out anyway. So they want on the books they
Stu Haack:want in the books. And I think before we get to day two, we should probably give some time to our sponsor Pepto
Derek Krueger:Yep. facto for for non sponsor. These past two years. We really appreciate it. Yeah,
Stu Haack:right outside of this frame. If you're watching is a hole in the wall. TV used to be because we're not sponsored by you Pepto. We need some sponsorship dollars. That's needed. Look, look, these wires are just hanging down. Because you're not sponsoring us yet. We need money.
Derek Krueger:Thanks Pepto.
Stu Haack:Thanks Pepto great cut to commercial and owed Ode to Pepto Oh Pepto Bismol how majestic and pink. With you by our side. It matters not how many beers we drink from When Derek has a sour and waits for an hour, because of you, his toilet won't stick. Pepto Bismol sponsoring the show since well, maybe tomorrow. Thanks Pepto thanks guys. Or not thanks. Yeah, I know we need money
Derek Krueger:really? What are we thanking them for? There's
Stu Haack:giving them free. We're giving them free. Amazing. Advertise Jesus.
Derek Krueger:I mean, they do do great work for your belly.
Stu Haack:I might have something tonight. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:We'll see. Anyway. Oh, dude. So day one we finished they want to
Stu Haack:sling done after a long road trip. Some of us long white side winding road trip. Yeah. Through the rattlesnakes and scorpions of Arizona. Fantastic till the beautiful green country of the North. It's it's super world up there. Tell 100% telling you right now. But day two. Day two was a full day of
Derek Krueger:non stop Non Stop dude, non stop.
Stu Haack:And, and and so we all woke up. You know? Well, Derek never slept.
Derek Krueger:never slept.
Stu Haack:I don't know how you made it through day two. But
Derek Krueger:they do. It's rough man.
Stu Haack:I woke up I felt great. Wow. Yeah, I got a full night's sleep. You guys hit breakfast. fant me and the family had breakfast. We went and had some really nice breakfast down south of the tracks. It was when I first started walking outside because my my my family was waking up and I was waking up and you know, my wife was getting ready. And you know, I get ready in five minutes. Yeah, she's getting ready. And so I'm like, I'll go find some coffee. So I walk outside. It's five degrees. Yeah, I mean, it's literally it was a cold day. It was frigid. But But I made I found some coffee around the corner.
Derek Krueger:What coffee places you go to did you go to the one? Like right like, right just kitty corner from the hotel?
Stu Haack:No, not kitty corner. Right. Run down on on the 66. Yeah, I think. Yeah, it was. But I can't remember the name, which is a theme. Not because I was drunk at that point I was over. It's just a long week is a very long
Derek Krueger:week, man.
Stu Haack:But it was good coffee. I did. I did ask for an orange juice for my son. I didn't even have orange juice there. I mean, they were fully dedicated to coffee. That's fine. You know.
Derek Krueger:I love that though. That's when you know you're in a good place. They did have bourbon that they could put in the coffee for you. Oh, totally. Exact same place. Yeah. Yep.
Stu Haack:Did they have a skeleton? Do you see the skeleton over there sitting in the one of the tables? Yeah, I've had skeletons everywhere. Not Not at this place. They only have I mean skeletons all over Flagstaff.
Derek Krueger:Oh, I still No. Still no.
Stu Haack:On observance? Probably. Yes. No, it's not a mission for coffee. So we ran into which is again, a testament to how small Flagstaff is you know, we're all walking around downtown. I see Derek because we're walking back from breakfast like hey, Derek. I think you were out to go get coffee at that point. I
Derek Krueger:had to get my coffee man.
Stu Haack:And but then the day started. We got we got rockin and rollin man. So the first place we went to was Grand Canyon brewing Grand Canyon brewing, dude. Now a couple of interesting things about Grand Canyon brewing. Okay, one it was the furthest from all the
Derek Krueger:brewery's Yeah, that was
Stu Haack:them and, and wanderlust. Yeah, wanderlust is way on the east side. Grand Canyon is down on just west of the campus which is and by the way, when we say far in Flagstaff, that means like two miles Yeah, it's this is a small town out walking distance. Yeah, it's not walking distance. But it's not like LA where we're talking about 10 miles away or anything like that. Like it's it's a mile or two. But we went there, and we had some lunch. Yep. Lunch was great. Yeah. Oh, now one of the unfortunate one of the unfortunate things right of of Grand Canyon is we got to meet some really incredible people including their head brewer kiss carry. I don't care who's the head brewer. He's like their experiments or
Derek Krueger:experimental Brewer. Yeah. Which was I mean, that's, that's, you know, fun stuff. Well, he's, uh, he bought some stuff.
Stu Haack:He used to own his own brewery in Kingman, Arizona.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. And he worked at it. And then he ended up buying it. Yeah. And then yeah,
Stu Haack:and then and then he sold it and now he's working for Grand Canyon.
Derek Krueger:Just doing what he loves. Just enjoy like, I
Stu Haack:think he's just enjoying life. Yeah, this dude who, and hopefully Kerry doesn't take this the wrong way if he listens to this looks like Yosemite Sam like in his golden years. Yeah. Right. He has a sweet mustache, long hair. I mean, you look like a lifer. Yeah, yeah. And I mean it just a dedicated to his craft. He loves playing around with flavors of beer. He knows his craft. He's a brilliant dude. A lot of fun. A lot of fun. But Grand Canyon was great and they also they were launching a beer that carry brewed. Yep. So right up your alley.
Derek Krueger:The second day we were there. They were going to be launching a beer. It was a jalapeno. Was it a lager? Yeah, I
Stu Haack:think it was a lighter beer.
Derek Krueger:But jalapeno and that's my jam. I love the weird stuff. Like things you don't think would go together? That's what I like. You like what? I'm gonna be here? Yeah. We're coming up the next day. So I said, no matter what, I'm coming back here.
Stu Haack:And they didn't believe you. Yeah, they pretended like they believed you. But when we actually showed up the next day, they were like,
Derek Krueger:super surprised. Yeah. So I bought I bought a growler of it. It was I'm telling you, I've had my fair share of jalapeno beers. This one was definitely hot. Like you could have maybe one glass and be good for the day.
Stu Haack:Do you remember my reaction when we had the sampler? Oh, yeah. I mean, we're about to hit the road. So like I didn't have a full beer because I was driving to back to Flagstaff or back to Vegas. The moment I took a shot like this little this little tasters this little one ounce taster. I just start hiccuping I started hit like, and this happens to me when I have hot food and beer. But I've never had like a spicy beer be so spicy that I actually had this reaction, one sip, like one sip and it was a shot. I was hiccuping so I think that I was turning heads in the like people were like, what is wrong? Is this guy gonna Ralph like, what's his problem?
Derek Krueger:It was hot. Did Yeah. It? I mean, it was good. It was amazing. Yeah, it was but it was definitely hot. So if that's your flavor, it's very, very good. Very,
Stu Haack:I mean, honestly, other than the hiccups I enjoyed it. Yes. You know, IKEA, but But anyway, I mean, we had we had some great lunch there. They I mean, what was the food that we had? Do you remember the lunch? Oh, we all had
Derek Krueger:to try it try to I had a Philly. I had a Philly cheesesteak I think
Stu Haack:it was like a steaks. It was a steak sandwich.
Derek Krueger:Yeah, steak sandwich. Yeah. It was incredible. I think they made it with Cheez Whiz, which is like the Philly way to do it. If you have cheese take us Cheez Whiz, like the actual K and like the cheese was not normal cheese.
Stu Haack:I think I think the city of Flagstaff had like an overrun of beef. Because every brewery we went to I shit you not steak sandwiches. They're
Derek Krueger:special. Like hey, yeah,
Stu Haack:what's the special today steak sandwich. Every fucking one was a steak sandwich. These
Derek Krueger:random animal animals came up and
Stu Haack:just like a bunch of cows wandered in flag and there's like, alright, we'll fuck it. We'll just do it.
Derek Krueger:Okay, so we go from Grand Canyon. Yeah, we were
Stu Haack:so we were a Grand Canyon, which was awesome.
Derek Krueger:After Grand Canyon, we did not go to Mother Rhode Island. We did. Oh,
Stu Haack:yeah. So we got to talk to Dylan.
Derek Krueger:Yeah, some other road was awesome. Because so we leave Grand Canyon brewing. We go to Mother Road. And I like mother and was so fun. Dylan was great. Yeah. We talked to Dylan a dirtbag. Yeah, Dylan the.
Stu Haack:I didn't call him that he called.
Derek Krueger:Yes. So Flagstaff, I'd never even heard about it until my wife and I were living out of our van rock climbing and live in the dirt bag live with Pastor Bishop, California.
Stu Haack:He was a he's a rock climber living out of his van with his girlfriend in California. And they were trying to find the next place they wanted to move to and they were just drawn to Flagstaff because of the community and the beer scene and all the all the stuff that goes along with it.
Derek Krueger:Yeah.
Dylan from Mother Road Brewing:And then had to always have to go check up beer see? And of course, so we went to a couple other breweries, Lumberyard dark sky, and then we came into Mother Road and didn't know a soul in town 1800 miles away from home and immediately felt at home. Like I had friends here.
Derek Krueger:And rightfully so. I mean, they made they made a good move. Yeah. But so we go there. We talked to an amazing guy named Bruce. He is a shareholder in the business. And we end up talking to them about Pluto. Yeah. And the reason we start talking to them about Pluto is because Mother Road is doing a collaboration beer with Lowell Observatory, which Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff is the observatory where Pluto was found was discovered. So every year they they've been doing mother wrote in them. I've been doing this collaboration here for I think, what three years now they've been doing this collaboration. Yep, yep. And so that event was happening that night. So were they weren't Pluto festival. I heard Pluto festival. So we're there earlier in the morning. It's maybe one Yeah. So we're going back there later in the night. But our first experience with Motherload we talked to Dale and we talked to Bruce a shareholder. We're talking to him about Pluto. And then we try their beers which are just fantastic
Stu Haack:Mother Road and this is you know, by no means a discredit to anybody else. Just because everyone in Flagstaff is brewing good beer, it's it's actually shocking because everyone's making good beer. But I gotta tell you, man, I mean of all the breweries. Mother Road probably has blown me away the most.
Derek Krueger:I will give you that. And I was gonna say that too.
Stu Haack:Did I just steal your thunder? No, no, I
Derek Krueger:wasn't sure if I should say because we went to so many breweries.
Stu Haack:I feel I feel a little bad make might be like, hey, out of
Derek Krueger:all the breweries I will say like, there was just something about that place. And I don't know if it was Dylan or who like whatever it was. Maybe it was the whole Pluto event. You just felt like this connection. But yeah, Mother row definitely had This. This. They heard about it. It had
Stu Haack:a good vibe. Yeah, it had a good I mean, every beer that I tasted was really free one dude. And by so I'm drinking another mother road right now. Yeah, by the way, and well, I think you're drinking the what is the daily driver, the daily driver, I'm drinking the conserve and protect. And I just want to read the back of this because this is cool. Because again, this just goes to show how committed and connected the Flagstaff community is like it so this one says cheers. You're a hero for wildlife. For every can of conserving protect sold. Mother Road Brewing Company donates a portion of the proceeds to the Arizona Game and Fish Department to help with on the ground conservation of over 800 species learn how you can help at AZ wildlife hero.com/join. Now, not only is that cool that they're you know committed to there is this national wildlife in Arizona that again, I think people just overlook they think desert they think hot yeah, you know, 120 degrees in the summertime 100% which is accurate and Phoenix but if you as soon as you start driving north on that 17 It turns from cacti to sagebrush to pines real quick
Derek Krueger:to see what's the cactus names.
Stu Haack:saguaros
Derek Krueger:Saguaros.
Stu Haack:Saguaro
Derek Krueger:Oh, man, those are sweet,
Stu Haack:which looked like middle fingers to God. Did you know but they're the best cacti
Derek Krueger:and then John St. Joshua Tree Joshua
Stu Haack:Tree John's Yeah. John's got a different kind of tree. But Joshua trees are cool. Yeah. But yeah, but I mean, it's just It's wild. Because your as soon as you start entering Northern Arizona, it's it's a whole different land. And you know, and again, so these brewers are committed to it. So Mother Road is doing their part to conserve and protect which is the name of this beer. It's a golden nail, you know, it is 4.3% 19 IBUs. And I'll tell you right now it's clean because again, you know, I have historically not been a big fan of lighter crisper beers. Yeah, changed a little bit since I went keto after your keto. That's that's your jam. Now. It's more my jam. But I would say this is one of the better ones that have ever had. Yeah, and so again, Mother Road even even the beers that are not traditionally like in love with they're making good ones. Yeah, they're making really good beer and and, and
Derek Krueger:their cannon is crazy to count art school. I love it, man. It's retro. It's like illustrated. Yeah. Yeah. Very, super cool.
Stu Haack:It probably also helps that we like Mother Road so much, because we went and saw them like three times.
Derek Krueger:Oh, my God, dude, we went through a lot. Yeah, there are on the third day, which we'll get to. We did a whole tour of their their brewery. Because the the mother road that we went to, is because it's a brewery even open
Stu Haack:to the public? I don't think so. Yeah. Not the not the actual brewery operation. Yeah, not the
Derek Krueger:actual brewery operation. But the place we went to is their tap room, essentially, because they don't
Stu Haack:brew beer they used to, and they're going to brew beer again, but a smaller portion of gotcha, right. That's what they were working on. Right? Because they were actually doing a little bit of construction while we were working on it so that the taproom is not where they do the vast majority of their brewing, but the beautiful place.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. And yeah, so we went there a lot.
Stu Haack:Yeah. And so first, we got to meet with Dylan, who's their general manager, Dylan, The dirtbag. Dylan hope you don't take offense to that because
Derek Krueger:it was your words and
Stu Haack:your words. But I say it in jest because actually, Dylan was a badass. Yeah, he was a super cool guy. And Bruce, the shareholder was cool.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. And the one thing I think that that Dylan said that stood out to me was when he first went to Mother Road, you know, for beer, obviously, right? He he said he just felt like he was at home. Yeah. And then that, you know, took him on his journey to now being the gym. Which is
Stu Haack:awesome. And I don't I can't disagree with them. No, I mean, honestly, if I could just chill and live in downtown flag. I'd have you know, I don't want to work right? Yeah, who I'm just talking about literally like going hiking, going snowboarding going biking. Then hanging out at a brewery called it a night in a beautiful place. I that would be home to me too. Because everyone there is amazing. So after Mother Road, which we would, we're going to go back to Mother Road later in day two, we'll get to that. We went out east to wanderlust. We
Derek Krueger:did wanderlust. That place was great. I mean, it was cool. Like super, very is very industrial,
Stu Haack:right? It's Aryan, versus I think everywhere else that we went it was it was probably the most industrial planning. You're in the brewery when you're in the taproom exam. It's all it's all one giant room, very industrial. It smells like a brewery which I love that
Derek Krueger:you love that smell resumes.
Stu Haack:It smells great. And you're taking it all in?
Derek Krueger:Then Katherine was just amazing. I thought it was Christine. Or as you say, Christine,
Stu Haack:I felt so bad. We're, we're interviewing your interviewer. And I'm just so confidently just like, So Christine just killed it, dude. I did. I did. I mean, I'd had a few beers at that point. I was like, Yeah, Christine. You know, tell me a little. She's like, That's not my name. So Christine, now that we're so far away, that's not my name. That's not your name. I figured I'd stop you before it was. That was a good idea. You're ready to do that. And she wasn't even mad. That was the nice part. But she was very definitive. She's like, That's not my name. My name did and, but it was it was Catherine. That's it. And she caught and it was good. Because we didn't go. I could have gone through the whole interview. Totally calling her Christine. Yeah. And she would have just had, we would have had bad footage. She could have told me at the end. Hey, actually, my name is Catherine. I'm like, oh, fuck, we got to throw all that
Derek Krueger:out. Let's restart.
Stu Haack:So it was good. It was very good for her. Yeah. And we had a few beers. They actually, they gave us some swag. That was
Derek Krueger:give us Yeah, we got some cool hats. Yep. And do their flights. Holy crap, man. Because mind you, we're on a little schedule, because you know, we're having to hit all these different breweries in the day. And so I don't think we ever finished a flight because we were just,
Stu Haack:oh, you know what? That's true. Because it just so you guys know, like, here's the thing. I've never not finished a flight my life. Yeah, ever. Yeah. I mean, and I think you're probably the same. Yeah. But So Derek and I are actually also trying to make this video. And this was something we decided on the drive on
Derek Krueger:the drive was not an hour drive, we figured we do, right.
Stu Haack:So we're just like, Well, why don't we turn this into a cool video, like we could almost make a documentary about like the beer scene in Flagstaff, discovery of Pluto and all that kind of stuff. And so we're gonna make that. So so but that adds a lot of pressure and time requirements at every brewery that we go to. And so we recognize like when we go to Grand Canyon, when we go to Mother Road, I mean, we're spending most of our time actually setting up the camera. We're spending time setting up the audio and when I say we, I mean mostly Derek, but I'm helping a little bit. Yeah. And, and so every time we're on this time crunch, we gotta leave. We're there for like an hour. And then we gotta go. Yeah, so we're doing the interviews. We're trying to eat some food. We're trying to have some drinks
Derek Krueger:are on the go. We take a bite. No, do something. Take a bite. Go do some.
Stu Haack:Yeah. So like crazy. So so our flights and we get a flight at almost every place because we want to try a little bit every year. I mean, maybe halfway through almost every flight. I did, right. And so
Derek Krueger:it was it was hard to see man. It was like seeing a little baby bird and you can't do anything about it. Yeah, because I hurt baby burden. You can't do any
Stu Haack:cuz here's the reality, though. I mean, so so we went to 123456 breweries on on Thursday on day two. Dude, if we had finished if we had finished every one of those Well, I think that's
Derek Krueger:why Bob Bob I think finished Bob was a freshman at Bob was crushed
Stu Haack:by I gotta give nothing but kudos to Bob. Bob
Derek Krueger:Rock. And he was he was like trying the stuff you really
Unknown:liked. Like, oh, yeah, dark.
Derek Krueger:He likes Dodgers. Like Like I ABV stuff. Yeah. Who Bob you, man. Bob.
Stu Haack:Here's the Bob man. A man among men. Yes.
Derek Krueger:Cheers, man.
Stu Haack:And by the way, so I'm just recognizing right now that we should have Bob. Well, we should have. We dealt with 100%. Moving you Bob for a second round. We did skip the first brewery of day two. Because we were already talking about lumberyard. We didn't think we were st. But we went to beaver street and bruising. Diego beaver stream. He was actually our first one. Yeah, well, I definitely I didn't even drink half that flight.
Derek Krueger:No, dude, because I was like, I had like two. Yeah, but But that is kind of yeah, that is what started it off with to beaver street went to WWE.
Stu Haack:That's where we met with Winnie and Kenny and Kelly. Yeah. And Gary the head brewer. Yes. I liked the dynamic aspect of it.
Gary from Beaver Street Brewing:I mean, it is a lot of repeating, so to speak. But you get to create and you get to evolve and learn. And so it's been dynamic for me. And that was one of the reasons I really enjoy my job.
Derek Krueger:And that was fantastic. The rest of the time was great, but they were amazing. We had the beers of beaver street was fantastic. As much as I, you know, the two that I had. Yeah. But I think because it did kick off the day. And we were trying to do video like we hadn't really caught the groove yet. Like we weren't sure because we did try and add in all this extra stuff. Yeah. randomly. Yeah. So so they, I mean, they were it was the perfect start, because they were so sweet. They were so nice. Yeah. Like we're setting everything up. And, and luckily, I think you know, we had extra time there. Yeah. I do. We kind of found our flow.
Stu Haack:We did and that and that took it took time to find a flow because we honestly, we walked into this again, first time doing a media tour, first time being invited by a city to come cover their beer scene. Anyway, so. But I do want to talk just a little bit about beaver street. Yeah, please. Because Winnie who is the original owner with her husband? Yep. They were the first they were the first craft brewery in Flagstaff. That's right. And they opened right around the same time as like one other brewery. But that was back in 94. To the 1994. I mean, that was before brewers were cool. I think what did she say there were 350 craft breweries in America at the
Derek Krueger:time. Yeah, dude in now this now they're assuming that we count 1000s.
Winnie from Beaver Street Brewing:So my mom had read an article about brew pub. And back then there's only 250. And we did our research, having a Restaurant and Brewing beer was super accessible. And so we decided to pack our bags, saw a house and moved here.
Stu Haack:So they were they were the first along with one other brewery in Flagstaff as like a craft brewery. And you know, and they they lit I mean, just a wild story where they had just come from, you know, they lived in California. They were I think they were engineers. And, you know, they didn't love what they were doing. They weren't finding a lot of success. You know, it was just kind of like, No, this is more of my passion is now and they were like, look, they did a little bit of research. I think she even said her mom had read an article in a magazine about the brewery scene in America. Yeah. And like, hey, maybe you should check this out. And they did. They're like let's move to Flagstaff and opened up a brewery in Asti and they did it and they've been there now almost 30 years, which is crazy. And for a craft brewery that's a long
Derek Krueger:time it's a long
Stu Haack:damn time they I mean, they have stood the test of time and so I think that that's really cool. So that so now as we kind of talked about, not only do they have beaver street but they have lumberyard and they have brews and queues. Yep. And so they we made a joke to them I think about like eventually they're just going to own all of the bars south of the tracks
Derek Krueger:when their family is like really like kind of I think old Flagstaff two Yeah, I think their name kind of goes back I don't know how far it goes back but I mean it's definitely kind of in the Flagstaff roots. Yeah,
Stu Haack:well that's that's what we talked to them about. Because they think they're their last name was Hans F. And so they do have they have like deep roots in Flagstaff history. Yeah. Now if you ever go to Flagstaff you'll notice the name Babbitt everywhere. Babbitt all over? It's on it's on the university it's in downtown Babbitt brothers Babbitt. This Babbitt that Babbitt's were like one of the original like industrial families of flag but the handsets handsets. Yeah, man that's tough to say. It's a tough one to say. the Hanseths. Yeah. Who are great and again, so like we spent some time with with Winnie who would her and her husband were the original founders of beaver street. And then Kelly, who's when his daughter, and I mean they were there. And they were so they were so nice. And then we got to spend some time with Gary, who do I think is the head brewer of beaver street? And Lumberyard I think he maybe he just worked on one but they kind of work across Yeah, but But Gary was awesome too. And you'll you'll be able to hear more interviews on the video that we put together but just I just checked them out there the Oh geez. Yeah, they're the
Derek Krueger:start your start your trip there. beaver street worker. Sure. First, then lumberyard and then and then bruisin. Queues is kind of more of a I think they get like pool tables and tables. Taproom kind of deal. Yeah. Like beaver street and Lumberyard
Stu Haack:or the brand. In brews and queues you remember that bar? Oh, yeah.
Derek Krueger:So they brought this old bar which is like 100 plus years old. Was
Stu Haack:it from like Deadwood or something like that or monster or yet Montana, Montana
Derek Krueger:and they had was a Cody. Now that's Wyoming. But somewhere in Montana, but it had a bullet.
Stu Haack:because it was like it was like a cowboy bar 1800s or something like that is beauty got like a bullet hole in it. It's still preserved as cool. It is
Derek Krueger:more just bar. I mean, they they brought it it is, besides the bullet hole. It's pristine condition. Right? It is amazing. But go check them out.
Stu Haack:But anyway, so So we're heading back to Mother Road. Yep.
Derek Krueger:So so we leave wanderlust. But we go back to the hotel, we
Stu Haack:go back, we take a little respite like
Derek Krueger:30 minute break. I think I don't even know what we do. I think maybe we went to the bar or something, I don't know. But then we end up leaving a hotel mag picks us up, which is, again, amazing, because you know, we're not going that far again. So we had a backup mother wrote for this event, but we ended up cutting I hurt Pluto. I heart Pluto, we end up getting there, too. Well, I don't think we get there late.
Stu Haack:Now. We were late. We were okay. We were late. We were late. But we weren't that late. But we did. I mean, again, you got to imagine at this point where we've already gotten a 1234 breweries. Yeah. Okay. And it's only five.
Derek Krueger:You know,
Stu Haack:so and it's only five. Yeah. And so we've, I mean, so we get in and we're just like, happy meeting people. I think we saw we saw Dylan Well, hey, Dylan. How's it going, man? He's just over beers. Again. Dylan, Dylan gives us some beers. But I also think Dylan's kind of like, ah, like, there's a there's an event going on. Come on, but like Be quiet. Yeah. And so because because there's the main tap room. Then the backroom is where the I heart Pluto festival is happening. Because which Alden Tomba Yeah, son of Clyde Tombaugh. The guy who discovered Pluto, the guy who discovered Pluto 93 years ago,
Derek Krueger:his frickin son. Is there. His mother own brewing?
Stu Haack:Is that Mother Road brewing for the I heart Pluto festival craze who you know, welcome this new beard to talk about his dad and all the cool stuff that's happened at Lowell Observatory where Pluto was discovered. And all this kind of stuff. I mean, this guy is a living legend. You know? Because he you know, he's he, his dad did something phenomenal on whether or not you want to call Pluto planet and by the way, don't say the Pluto is not a planet.
Derek Krueger:On the planet or not. It is
Stu Haack:you might see some angry people for the like, that's the only way to make Flagstaff. Ian's angry. Yeah. Right is to say, Pluto's not a planet or that their beer sucks.
Derek Krueger:Right? Poor guy out there, man. He's a planet.
Stu Haack:You know what? And again, watch the video. Dr. Daniel will tell you why Pluto is a planet. Yeah, yeah. And but anyway, so we show up. The you know, Al Alvin is already speaking. You know, they're they're already kind of going a little
Derek Krueger:bit. Yeah. Because we're about which 20 minutes late. I
Stu Haack:think by the way, this is my probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Yeah, because Derek is a madman. Derek is an absolute maniac, okay. Like it. I am definitely like, I can be talkative. I can be outgoing. But in a public with a lot of people around I am a very reserved person. Like I am not going to go get in the middle of like, everything I'm not going to do I don't want to disrupt anything. I don't want to piss anybody off. I don't want anyone to even look at me weird. Like, that's gonna make me feel terrible. Yeah. But we're so we walk into this room where I heart puto festival is happening. And there's got to be, what would you say like 4050 people in there, you know? Well, and they're all media of all different kinds. There's, you know, there's news media, there's podcasters there's video folks. There's, you know, all kinds of people. And you know, they're doing this presentation. They're talking about the discovery of Pluto. They're talking about the beer. And I kid you not Derrick, in the middle of this thing, like walks in the middle of the room. In front of, I mean, almost all the people in the media sets up his camera. interrupt the presentation to get owls to get out miked up Yeah. mics up out. Oh, man in the middle of the night. He's like, because because we want our own audio to work, dude. And so they stopped the presentation while Derek mics this motherfucker up and I'm just like, What are you doing? I'm embarrassed right now. And I'm standing off to the side. Yeah, but I also was like, incredibly proud because I was like, That's fucking I can't believe you did that. Get it done. You just and you didn't look embarrassed at all like you didn't give a shit. I was baffled. I can't I disrupting the flow of the community to me is like, the most terrifying thing. And here's like, whatever for a
Derek Krueger:break. I mean, it was a break barely
Stu Haack:a break. It was like they were changing. Jump in and get it. They were like changing the slide on the PowerPoint. Perfect. It's like a two second break. Yeah. Like, Hey, can I make you up? But I was I could honestly, I couldn't have been more proud of you. Because I was like, I cannot do that. I can't I couldn't do that, sir. But it was, even though you'll you guys will never hear what that presentation sounded like it was pretty cool because he was clearly very proud of his dad. Well, yeah,
Derek Krueger:man who wouldn't be I mean, in that's, that's where we'll get into the end of the night on day two is, you know, we had a amazing tour of Lowell Observatory, and found out all this amazing information
Stu Haack:call this I've ever been in my life. Yes. So after we listen to the presentation is amazing. We got to try the Pluto beer. Still Still, they're still they're still there. Which do you remember why it was called still there?
Derek Krueger:Because because the guy not al-din Not. Not quite dad, not Clyde. But so the original guy who wanted to start looking for he realized there was probably this other planet. And it's kind of a long story. Like, he finds, you know, there's this planet in the gravitational pull from another planet is pulling this planet. But then he sees all these differences in things like, okay, there's another planet, and then finds this planet, but then same kind of thing. And they weren't able to find the reason for this gravitational pole on this one planet. So he's like, there's gotta be another planet. Yeah, like, it's the only explanation. So he's on the search for this planet, which ends up being I think they call it planet X. Right? So which ultimately ends up being Pluto. But in this guy's lifetime, he's looking for this Planet X, he never finds it, because he obviously passes away. But before he becomes this, you know, astronomer and finding, trying to find these planets. He is a guy that just loves looking into the stars in space. And he starts building his own telescopes, because he can't get anywhere to do it. So he just was like, I'm gonna build my own. Yeah, so he digs a hole in the ground to build this because I guess when you when you build these telescopes, you need still air? Yeah. Because if you look through a telescope with which is another reason why Lowell Observatory is where it's at, because higher elevation or whatever, yep, there's some with the air. It's almost like looking through like clouds. Right? Right. If you don't have the still air,
Stu Haack:any movement of air is going to create, you know, blurry or photo, it's all matter, even though it doesn't look like matter, because we're looking through it and it looks crisp, I'm looking at you right now, it's crystal clear between you and me. Yeah, but there are movement of molecules that are that are that are impacting the clarity of the vision. And so that's why they're, you know, and we'll talk about it with the lower portion of this, but like, Flagstaff has played a monumental role in the discovery of Pluto and, and in NASA and other things like that, because it happens to have a geography that is very unique. It has very cold, very high elevation, very dry, you know, weather and all of that helps see far out into the universe in ways that a lot of other places, don't you. So check the boxes, man, it's checks the box,
Derek Krueger:which is which is now we're going to be getting into the stuff we're telling you about Flagstaff, that probably anybody I've talked to, doesn't even
Stu Haack:know well, but one before that, don't jump ahead of dark sky ahead. But don't forget about dark sky.
Derek Krueger:But that's that that's the trip we're gonna go on here. And that's right.
Stu Haack:That's right. So but before before, in case we hadn't had enough beer yet. Yeah. Because I think I had like three still airs while I was at Mother Road. And those were
Derek Krueger:I mean, those were up there man. Those were like seven eight percenters. Yeah, it was good. So
Stu Haack:then we go to dark sky dark sky. Which by the way is named because Flagstaff
Derek Krueger:is the first direct dies right? Yeah. International International. Dark Sky City.
Stu Haack:Yep. And if you don't know what that is, well then you're fucking stupid. I'm just kidding. It's not your fault.
Derek Krueger:Well, yeah, no ideas.
Stu Haack:So I well, I did oh, did
Derek Krueger:you Oh, I had no because
Stu Haack:Nevada actually has the great bass National Park which is part of the dark sky recognized recognize national parks. Which I've never been to I do want to go to that. But dark sky basically means that you are taking as many measures as possible and there are specific like boxes, you got to check to do it in order to be considered a dark so like, so like, I think all the lights in Flagstaff have to be under a certain number of lumens. Yep. Right. They have to be angled downwards. Yeah, you
Derek Krueger:can't have any can't pollution coming up.
Stu Haack:You can't have the light going up. words right? After 10 o'clock there are certain light restrictions were asked to go even further down or something I forget
Derek Krueger:exactly a lot of them are like amber colored because it just helps your eyes I guess compared to that, right?
Stu Haack:Yeah, there's a color of light that you're supposed to use. And and so Flagstaff was one of the first was the first to actually put in ordinances to get this in place. And they were the first recognized city for it.
Derek Krueger:Dr. Daniela was telling us Yeah, you look up you can see the Milky Way with your naked eye. Yeah. That's how less of light pollution there is in that
Stu Haack:which, which I don't I don't know that there's any other cities in America where you can do that. Like, yeah, if you go out to Death Valley, you can see that if you go to Great Basin National Park, you're gonna see that you're in a city. Yeah. And you're seeing that and it's pretty incredible. And so dark sky brewing is named for that very purpose because Flagstaff has a commitment to dark sky. Yeah. Which is which is also phenomenal. It's it's really cool. And especially coming from Vegas, where we have roughly three to four stars that we can see.
Derek Krueger:At night. You have to squint, you can maybe see one that yeah, it happens. And boy, oh, that's,
Stu Haack:that's, that's, that's a start. No, that's not a star that's just the Luxor light or you know,
Derek Krueger:it's my cataracts.
Stu Haack:Dark Sky brewing was really cool. Because it had it actually had multiple sides to it again, so it was like, it was one of those where it had kind of like a food area on the right place in there. Then that pizza who do god dude, and again, like, I know, I like it when someone's on a keto diet. Do like when someone's on a keto diet. Like they talk about being keto, all the fucking time and I know I'm doing that. But this time, I only bring it up. Because like, I don't eat that much pizza anymore. Like I very rarely do. And so maybe that played a little bit of role in this, but fuck that pizza was so good. The pizza was so good. And I broke keto all that weekend. Because obviously I was drinking beer the whole time. Yeah, eating all this kind of stuff. It's like,
Derek Krueger:it's like the holidays. Yeah, you don't really count it. Yeah, it's just doesn't. It doesn't count.
Stu Haack:But that pizza. I think I my whole pizza. I think I had some of Bob's pizza dude. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:Oh my god.
Stu Haack:I think you leftover pizza might have grabbed a couple of slices of yours, too. Didn't that.
Derek Krueger:Just just look up the pizza place inside dark sky? It has I swear it has pie in the name. Yes. pyar pizza in the name of it. But it was so good.
Stu Haack:So we had we had dinner there. And Stephanie took care of us the whole time. Stephanie was amazing, was great. And she she took care of us for dinner. And then she walked us over to more of the beer side of everything. Yeah, we'll remember that for the next one. But so one of the coolest things about dark sky brewing was that incredible art throughout the brewery. Do you remember that? Yeah. Do the art was on? I mean, the decor of the place? Yeah. I mean, and again, I just want to make sure that I continue to reinforce this. The beer was phenomenal. Yeah.
Derek Krueger:Every place we went to not a bad beer. Yeah. Which is, which is wild. Granted, some places had better beer than others. Yeah, but not one place had a bad beer.
Stu Haack:No, no. I never had a bad beer the entire time. I was there and I even had some sours that I was like, wow, I don't even love his hours yet are like really good. But But yeah, so dark sky was awesome. Stephanie gave us a phenomenal tour. And I think we were basically to the point where I was either ready to party my ass off or pass out, but neither one of them happened next. No, we were right on the line. And we went to an observatory. Yeah,
Derek Krueger:it's a Lowell Observatory, which this is at like eight o'clock at night. Yeah.
Stu Haack:After we've been drinking since 10. Since six breweries later. Yeah. And somehow, it was so cool. That it was so cool. It maintained. It was all so cold. Yeah, it probably helped you. So But Dr. Daniel Adams gave us the best tour of all time, maybe even two guys and and Bob. So three guys who were pretty busy. Yeah. And either tired or rented party. Yeah, we didn't do either. But we just we walked around basically for two hours learning about Pluto learning about Lowell Observatory. And we were engaged the entire time.
Derek Krueger:You're like, Dude, it was so fantastic. Like, right when you got up there, which is so you think observatory? You think automatically it's far away? Yeah. You think you're gonna be driving for 30 minutes? I mean, it's not even 10 minutes from where we were. If we were right in the center of town.
Stu Haack:It almost honestly like kind of pissed me off because again, I was like, Dude, I went to school here for four years. You never know. I never went up there and I heard of it. I did hear okay, but I just never went there. Yeah. Because of that assumption, I was like, well, it's probably like way out of town or something like that. It's like Mars Hill is literally a 10 minute drive to from downtown.
Derek Krueger:Well, it's okay. So it's funny you say Mars Hill? Because the whole reason for Yes, Lowell Observatory. This is really cool. This is really cool is low lol well I can't remember his first name for the life of me. Mr. La Percival, Percival Lowell who obviously you know Lowell Observatory is named after it because he started it. His his sole purpose of doing Lowell Observatory is purpose personal purpose. I love that was to look for alien life. Yep,
Stu Haack:he that was life on Mars. I
Derek Krueger:thought there was life on Mars. There was a whole reason he started this observatory. He saw
Stu Haack:the canals right. On southern lines. Yep. No, he's on the lines on Mars. Yeah. So the lines on Mars thought they were artificially made, which So apparently, and this is what Dr. Daniel said, because I do think this is a really important part. Because honestly, this thing that Percival Lowell did, yeah, in some ways has indirectly led to this podcast. Yeah. Because he he possibly in a lot of ways. Built the groundwork for alien movies. Yeah. He so he believed he saw it. And he and many others saw lines that looked too straight to be natural. Yeah, on Mars
Derek Krueger:that they were man made and or
Stu Haack:made by an intelligence of some kind. Right. And so he, he wanted to investigate that. Yeah. And that's where he started to, you know, put investments into how to Wi Fi. And again, he wasn't the only one saying it. This is exactly these are almost like, directly what Dr. Daniel Adams said. He wasn't the only one saying it. But he was the loudest one saying yeah, so he was he was being very loud and definitive about like, I think that there's something out there and we need to go explore it. Yeah. And and literally some of the earliest movies about space and about alien life and all that kind of stuff came from not written or made by but came from his observations and his theories.
Derek Krueger:Yeah. It's It's so wild that it happened in Flagstaff. Yeah. Which is again, now we're starting to talk about the things that people don't know. Or whatever think of with Flexa
Stu Haack:Yeah, this isn't Houston. This isn't Fort Lauderdale. And this isn't this isn't where you see this the spacecraft's take off from this isn't you know, where? Where everyone. But guess what? And this is, I think, a quote from Dr. Daniel as well. But every single person who has been on the moon has trained in flexed inflicts
Derek Krueger:F, which is mind boggling. So apparently,
Stu Haack:where we actually went on day three, the sunset volcano crater. Yep. Has a geographic terrain very similar to the moon.
Derek Krueger:Yep. So astronauts, Neil Armstrong, all those guys train there. Yep. Before they went up to the moon in the 60s. Yep. And I guess when they were training there, one of their suits got ripped by some of the terrain. And they're like, Well, yeah, we can't really have this happen. You know, because you're out and beef it up moon. Yeah. So I mean,
Stu Haack:get some shit on there, man. That
Derek Krueger:terrain and flake stuff made them reduce it up. Yeah,
Stu Haack:we can't have some paper mache up here, man. Like that's not gonna work.
Derek Krueger:It's just It's wild. is so wild.
Stu Haack:It's so so we so basically what happens is, you know, we're all leaving dark sky. And again, Meg's driving. Dr. Daniels in there, Derek and I are in the backseat, you know, and by the way, Derek and I are probably wearing three to four layers of peace and we are still
Derek Krueger:freezing dude. was so cool sock. So thank God for the goodie bag. Because we got gloves, which I didn't bring any,
Stu Haack:the and the little packets, the little little heat packets. It saved our life like a little microwave in your hand. I
Derek Krueger:do. Oh my God. And so we get up there. Yeah,
Stu Haack:so we finally get up there. 10 minutes later, I say finally felt like
Derek Krueger:Devin Slater up there, get up there. And it is just it's the coolest fricking thing they have.
Stu Haack:And again, like I just want to say like Meg is awesome. She drove us dealt with our assets for six breweries and an observatory but but also Dr. Danielle just seeing her passion once we got to law. I mean, she's passionate the whole time but like, she was so excited to show us all this stuff. Like they have a thing where like, I just got one. They have a thing where they basically like show us show you on a smaller scale of the distance between the Sun and Pluto to try to get you to understand and grasp the concept of this of this size and the difference. So like, they have the sun, right? Where it's like, you take, what was it maybe 20 feet to get to earth or something like that. Yeah,
Derek Krueger:it was, like all marked out on this path to where you had to walk. And then, you know, when you got to like, where the scalable Yeah, thing was like, Oh, okay. It's like a little
Stu Haack:signposts like, here's the sun, here's where Earth would be. So you take like, you take like, 10 steps a year at Earth. Yeah, you know, and then Mercury and Venus arrives before that. And then there's Mars. So so but but knowing like, where Earth is relatively in the solar system, you know, it's called 20 feet, 30 feet, something like that. Pluto was like, a quarter mile.
Derek Krueger:We just kept walking is walking and walking. And all of a sudden, Dr. Daniels like, Okay, and here's Pluto. We're like, what we
Stu Haack:just got to Pluto. Like,
Derek Krueger:we've been walking for a minute. Like, that's how far latest it is
Stu Haack:out there, man. Like, I mean, and obviously, we've all seen like, like the images and like, here's, you know, what it should look like. And but you can't grasp the scale. And I'm sure we still don't, but at least you have a little bit better way.
Derek Krueger:And that was that was a really cool way to kind of do it. Yes, it does make you think, like, holy crap in that is bar,
Stu Haack:then and then we got to look through several different telescopes. Yeah, we got to really see star clusters, they normally wouldn't. Unfortunately, I think it was a little bit cloudy that night. So there were some telescopes that we couldn't really look through. But most of them were able to, we were able to look through and I mean, it was amazing. It was so cool, dude, it was amazing.
Derek Krueger:But then one of the coolest parts towards the end, we got to see the telescope. Both kinds of telescopes were Clyde Tom bow, good old Clyde. Bound frickin Pluto.
Stu Haack:We got a picture of it. What
Derek Krueger:steps in the place where he found this planet? Derek and
Stu Haack:I have pictures with the original. And again, I just want to make it very clear. It was so fucking cold. I mean, like,
Derek Krueger:it was so cold.
Stu Haack:It's a testament to Dr. Danielle and how crazy cool all this stuff was that Derek and I weren't just like, Alright, that's it. Just drive us back. Dan this anymore? Because it was also fascinating. There's like it's worth it to just stay here. Yeah. And, and it was it was just record cold in Flagstaff. It was so cold. I'm cold thinking about it right now. You just lactated and your MacBook Pro turned off. So just want to make sure we're still recording there. And everything is falling short right now. Maybe we should take a break. Oh, cool. That was man. Derek was lactating up in Flagstaff, just thinking about it's making them do it again. Dude, I don't blame him. I don't. And I don't want you to think I were pushy. He was just like, it's like, you know, it's like one of those things. You can be cold for 10 minutes at a time. That's not a problem. You can deal with it.
Derek Krueger:This was constant bone chat. Like,
Stu Haack:we were out there for two, two and a half hours, three hours.
Derek Krueger:Bob had to go inside. And I don't blame him because it was so
Stu Haack:cold. I was done with it. He was done with food.
Derek Krueger:But I will say that the end was like worth it. Yeah. That telescope and to get down there. And it was just neat to hear the story of like he was there. Yeah. When he found Pluto. And then he went down the hill that we walked on to go. It was it was not it was really cool. It was it was all
Stu Haack:I mean, it was so fascinating. And honestly like, there's no way we're going to do justice to it versus what Dr. Danielle is going to talk about. Yeah, because like they're she's a rock. So level of depth to the story and the blinking of the lights and the glass, the glass panels and how they had to analyze these glass panels and every like square millimeter square centimeter was like 1000s of stars, this trend of track movement. Yeah, it was nuts.
Dr. Danielle from Lowell Observatory:So this is the blink comparator. It's a fancy microscope. So you have the two glass plates. Here. They're six days apart. You lined them up so that when you blink back and forth, you see the stars don't move. And so this plate would have 300,000 stars. So as he compares the star fields, he's got to go through 300,000 pairs of dots. To find one very faint dot that moves. It's called the blink comparator. He would look at one plate the other plate back and forth. Yeah. And then the dot that moves is not a star. And so the story goes that, you know, he was taking photographs at night. During the day he was developing the film, the plates and blinking Um, and so on February 18, he was blinking. And the other astronomers in the building, were used to this, blink, blink, blink, blink and stopped. He found Pluto. Wow. And he ran down the hallway to the other side of the building and