Hey everyone, this is Ben Carmichael with New England on the Fly.
I'm here with my dad Andy Sparks for Volume 4 of Beer and Beer.
It's a really popular video series. Thanks for all of your comments and feedback.
We love doing these and glad you guys all like them as well.
Today we got two great products and beers to talk about.
We got Oxbow Brewing Company and Extra Tough Boots.
So we're going to talk a little bit about the beer.
We're going to talk a little bit more than we have before because people have wanted to hear about the beer.
Oxbow is a farmhouse style brewery from Newcastle, Maine.
That's real Maine, not a suburb of Boston like some of the southern parts of Maine.
They're known for some of their Belgian style beers.
The one that we're drinking today is the flagship farmhouse ale.
What is it? It's Belgian style brewed with Belgian?
You can go online and take a look at them. They have a pretty good website that lists all their beers.
But if you're going to get introduced to Oxbow first, it's probably with this farmhouse ale.
I was first introduced to it by my next door neighbor actually and she was a huge fan of it.
I kept talking about this little brewery up in Newcastle, Maine that you could get this great Belgian beer at.
They've since come down to Munjoy Hill, Maine. If you're out running around Portland and looking for a great Belgian ale,
we'd certainly recommend stopping into Oxbow. Great little place too, right?
We've been there a couple of times.
Beer is, I've got to say, I'm not a huge Belgian fan.
Some of them are a little bit too sweet and a little bit too sour for me.
Oxbow hits, I think, a really nice balance.
This is like, I don't know, if a pale American pale ale and a Belgian got together and had a kid, this would be it.
It's a delicious, just got like a little bit of lemon, sort of like Maine beer company.
It's got a little bit of that citrus. It's a really great beer.
These are Oxbow guys. I also got to say, big fly fisherman, supporting the...
Cheers to that.
And maybe, I know them through fly fishing, but also fishermen.
They've hosted the after party for the southern Maine striped bass fly fishing derby, the first year.
My buddy Bob Green and I went to that.
You won, right? No.
That was an embarrassing day for New England on the fly, I'm sad to say.
Did you drink any beer?
Yeah, we drank the woes away.
So, the Lupelo that we got here, this is like an Italian Pills.
I love pills, so that's a really good one.
And then the Loretta, they're also, Oxbow's also known for a beer called the Grazetta.
The lady today who's selling it to me was talking about how the back in like the coal mines, they used to drink Grazettas.
I don't know the history about that. If anybody does, please leave a comment.
I'd love to learn about that, but the Loretta is kind of a Grazetta spin-off.
And I have to sort of jump on to Ben's comment.
I am not a huge Belgian ale person, in truth.
I would prefer some of the different styles over Belgian.
Like IPA, pale ale.
But in terms of a Belgian beer, I think Oxbow's sort of done it right.
And they've done it right at least for my palate.
This one I would drink over many other beers.
Delicious beer, and cheers to the Oxbow guys for brewing a good beer, and glad to know you're a fisherman.
So let's talk about the Extra Tough Boots.
What we're talking about today is the 6-inch ankle boot.
This is a new introduction for Extra Tough in the spring 2016 mine.
Andy and I have been trying them out this fall, striper fishing here on the main coast, Massachusetts Cape Cod.
And I just love these boots.
I got to say just one thing to respond to some feedback that I received on these videos.
We don't review products that we don't like.
So we've been offered, we've been sent a bunch of stuff.
The products that make these videos, we think are really the best of the best.
We've turned some stuff down.
I really love these boots.
About a year ago, I went looking for a boot that was light, that had some insulation to it,
that was small enough in terms of height.
It wasn't a big knee-high boot that you could sort of multitask with it.
I had a couple of goals in mind.
I wear crocs a bunch of times in the summertime, and a lot of times if I'm boat fishing,
I throw on a pair of crocs so you don't mark up the boat.
But crocs, if it's raining out or if you're getting sort of beat up with some splash,
crocs have a downside to them.
They dry quickly, but they're certainly getting you wet.
And then secondly, and this isn't a pure fishing moment,
but I wanted a boot that I could walk the beach with.
We live here in Ocean Park, Maine.
There's about a 50-yard drop to low tide, so you've got a bunch of flats.
Flats are wet constantly.
Little streams running out them.
Fish in the low tide or walking the low tide.
You need a boot that's literally 6 inches high.
You don't need one 12 inches high, and you can't use one 4 inches high.
Rubber's great, leather's not, and this boot was perfect for that.
And just by sort of chance, Ben introduced me to Extra Tough,
and it's been great ever since.
And without sort of naming names, this is no bull.
I've sat around online looking at a bunch of boots,
reading a bunch of reviews, looking for something exactly what this one does,
and none of them sort of measured up to all the qualities of this one.
Some of them were much heavier.
Some of them much warmer.
Some of them didn't have the non-marking sole.
I mean, they all had something going on that just wasn't what I was looking for.
These happened to be it.
So cheers to Extra Tough, by the way, for putting this boot out.
One of the things that I like about the way that Extra Tough not only designed these,
but the way they talk about them, is they're designed for offshore anglers.
Extra Tough talks about offshore anglers as being athletes.
One of the ways that I think that that is true is if you're out all day,
you're in a boat, you're on the swells, you're running back and forth,
you know, one guy hooks up, you run to the back, you run to the front.
My feet can get tired.
You know, I wear some cheap boat shoes a lot of the time,
because they get filthy and dirty, and I'm not looking for a nice shoe.
But they don't have any arch support, they don't have any heel support.
My feet just hurt by the end of the day, and if your feet hurt, you're going to be tired,
you're going to be cranky, you're not going to be a lot of fun.
These have great, nice soles on the inside, really good arch support.
They're really comfortable.
I put them on, and I just wore them around the house last night, actually.
They were clean, so I could do that.
They've also got this really great liner called Express Cool.
I don't know exactly what that means, but what I do know is,
unlike some neoprene boots where you're just going to be swampy down there after a day of fishing,
these really wick moisture away.
That's what they're advertised to do, and I've got to say it's no BS.
They actually do that, too.
A couple of, sorry, quick other, a couple of specs on these.
They're also full rubber, so you would think that your feet might bake in them,
but they haven't so far.
Yeah, and can't stress enough how light they are.
When you're out for a day, fishing out on a boat for the day,
having a big hefty boot on is painful at the end of the day.
I have multitasked with these boots.
I know that they were built for offshore anglers, and the market is that,
I have to say that these boots, as I told you earlier, have walked the beach,
both with and without fishing pole in hand.
So a couple miles in these boots, a pair of socks or no pair of socks, comfortable.
Don't beat your feet up.
Support your feet like Ben was talking about. Feet stay dry.
So yesterday I was out in the yard with them.
We had had a bunch of rain over the weekend and took care of some house chores in them,
and I know that that's not what I got them for,
but it turns out that they're comfortable enough that I like them for that.
100% waterproof, so you can wear them out in the rain.
They've got these two little pull tabs.
It's a feature I know from my Blundstone boots, those Aussie leather boots.
Super easy to just pull them on.
You can also jam your foot in there.
One thing I would say is they come in only full sizes, so 8, 9, 10, not 9.5, I'm a 9.5.
I up to size 10, fit perfectly, so I would go up, not down.
And I'm a size 13, fits just fine, straight up in terms of width and length.
It's probably medium width on it, or medium large width, so it works fine.
I actually can wear them barefoot and I can wear them with a pair of smart wools.
So one cool thing about the history of these boots,
I posted a photo to the New England on the fly Instagram account.
If you don't follow that, give me a like, give me a follow.
One follower of River Snorkeling, I think this is handle,
commented that the history of these was Alaskan fishermen used to wear the full 12 inch boots,
but they would fold them over, maybe if they had to like kick them off,
if they fell overboard it would be easier to get them off or something.
And then over time that rubber would just wear out and so they would cut them down to 6 inches.
So now the boots have evolved to just be 6 inches.
I think extra tufts like flagship offering is a 12 inch or a much taller full rubber boot.
So as it relates to that, by the way, this is not criticism, this is only be aware, buyer be aware.
6 inches is great, but it doesn't always work in the surf.
I was down actually fishing this morning with these boots on, not on boat,
but walking on the beach surf casting and a couple of waves came in and every once in a while
you forget that since your feet are so dry and toasty and it's beautiful,
you forget that you are wearing 6 inch boots.
So they do flow up over well enough, but I have to say with a full boot,
within it is October 30th today and it's not a bad day out,
but it's still getting cool water and cool temperature,
but with a full boot of water emptied it out, stuck my foot back in, was warm for a couple hours later.
So kudos to that.
So that's beer and beer.
Your beer is gone.
I'm all out. That's how good it is.
That's beer and beer volume 4 Oxbow Brewing from Newcastle and Portland, Maine
and extra tough boots, their 6 inch ankle boot.
Thanks everyone for watching.
If you got suggestions, you got feedback, you got gear or you got beer
or you want us to talk about review, let us know, but thanks for watching.
Yeah, great time. Love the boot, love the beer. Thank you guys.
Yeah.
Now, one feedback we received on these videos.
My sister, Andy's daughter's boyfriend, Connor,
has commented that we fondled the boots a little bit too much last time when we did the Sims review.
So Connor, we got the message, your daughter's boyfriend says no fondling.
The intention, no fondling.
