Beer in the new era

so yeah, that pizza boy dollars for diabetes blueberry sour is pretty fantastic.

had a great weekend for beer, though i realize that all these experiences are very place-specific so it probably won't do much to excite all you midwesterners and east coasters and people who don't live in the pacific nw...

on friday i went to the commons for their two-year anniversary party where they brought out a bunch of special kegs and was pretty blown away. my favorite was definitely the 'gin enkel', which was aged in gin barrels and was just an all around great, complex, light-in-color but still very strong belgian. they also had a ton of delicious bourbon barrel-aged stuff and were selling their popular urban farmhouse ale for $1 a pint.

my most significant discovery, though, was dean's scene. seriously, if any of you come to portland, make sure to hit up dean's scene. it's not an official establishment, it's just a dude - dean - who opens up his basement to visitors 4 nights a week and always has 4-8 beers available on tap. it works sorta like a house party - you put at least $5 in the donation box, grab a beer glass, and taste whatever you want. he made one of the brightest/freshest tasting cdas i've ever tried, a nicely hoppy bock, one of the most unique pepper-based beers i've ever had (i think he used anaheims?), and the only thc-infused beer i've ever even seen (pretty good! tho it was very, erm, potent). not sure how long it'll stay open but if you ever had the desire to drink a bunch of great beer in a dude's basement while he smokes an enormous bowl and brews up the next couple of batches in the kitchen, this is the place for you. i guess it's set to be featured on that "brew dogs" show fwiw

I always have trouble keeping track of which Firestone Walkers are hard to come by and which are readily available, especially since they expanded in Chicago. The Double DBA ... easy to find? Hard to find? Sounds delicious.

Probably the easiest to find of their barrel series. Still, I don't see it very often.

i see it somewhat often on the west coast, but then again i used to live near paso so i might not be a representative sample

oh man dean's scene sounds so beautiful i want to cry

But it sounds like it's only a matter of time before it gets shut down.

def going to go to dean's scene next time I can leave canada and get down to pdx (not for q while,immigration shit),sounds right up my alley.i suppose they've gotten round licensing laws with the by donation system?

Dean's Dream morelike

Oh shit I'm going to be in portland next week, staying not too far from dean. I wonder what his christmas week hours are like.

Lots of Double DBA at my local store, so bought a bottle. Very excited to try it!

i don't really like meantime shiz. i mean, it's just not very good relative to the competition any more. it's a cutthroat world in the london beer game. on your feet, lose your seat.

my favorite pale ale, india or otherwise, is five points. it is the fucking bomb. there's another one whose name i can't remember that i had a duke brew & cue, which was fantastic, but it was on tap which means i'm comparing apples to oranges. for pale ale in a bottle it's five points for me.

/hipster

went to tired hands tnite and had the cask communication is the key lime pie coconut cream pie (lol that name) it was delicious tho, citrusy + very smooth w/ most of the coconut in the aroma. i've had the communication is the key ipa in like 4 different iterations now (og communication is the key, communication is the key lime on cask, communication is the key lime on normal draft, communication is the key lime coconut cream pie on cask) and it's notably different + delicious each time. i think my fave of the bunch is the current on draft key lime bc i think i can really taste the graham crackers that they conditioned it on (lol graham crackers).

then had the new sergeant salamander berliner weisse. i got a growler to take home of it normal so at the pub i tried it w/ their vanilla bean + cinnamon syrup which i guess is not traditional berliner weisse syrup (which is generally raspberry?) but still really nice - very sweet and seasonal tasting and strongly reminiscent of cinnamon toast crunch cereal. i missed the sourness tho - the syrup def masks most of that.

never had last year's debut of sierra nevada's narwhal but really really loving this year's edition. flavor reminiscent of speedway stout but i find it doesn't have the lingering chalky finish of the latter.

narwhal is good but not elite for me in the non-barrel-aged imperial stout category. founders imperial stout is just as good as breakfast stout but i feel like no one talks about it. and the bottle of bell's expedition stout that mordy sent me really kicked my ass. that's a great beer.

i'm really happy you liked that one! i'm aging one -- ppl rave about older ones

Founders Imperial is great. Haven't had any recently though, need to remedy that.

Stumbled upon a Backyard Rye tonight. So I ended up getting a little of everything of this years BCBS.

xp there are some totally unfounded rumors abt bell's starting to distribute here and i can't help but hope they're true

I'd wear this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bb3AuMEIIAAVtdT.jpg

omg, that is really something

beer sponsoring minor league hockey makes perfect sense

If Narwhal isn't an elite for its category, it's close enough. Probably my most consumed imp stout this year.

Bought an Erdinger Variety Pack 5 beers + a cool glass. Had only had the Weissbeer and Dunkel before, Kristal was a revelation.

xp there are some totally unfounded rumors abt bell's starting to distribute here and i can't help but hope they're true

― call all destroyer, Thursday, December 19, 2013 11:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where do you live? I didnt realize they had limited distribution.

i live in mass, i think they only make it as far as ny

bell's is wonderful, expedition is one of the best strong stouts out there

mordy shared this distribution mapping site, it's kind of interesting/handy

http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

Useful map.

― Jeff, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:44 AM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did too!

I do wonder how current the data is and how often it is updated. Still says only Surly in MN.

OIC, not since October.

I figured it probably would have been posted already, but the thread is v long so I didn't check.

This thread is long. You guys drank a lot in the last 6 years. Are we still in the new era?

oh man. so this local bar realized that they could expand into the space next door and sell singles under the auspices of them already being a bar. unfortunately bc complex PA alcohol laws they can only sell (12) at a time so i go in, buy 12 and then my wife goes and buys 12 more and we're thrilled, bc that means no more buying cases of beer and hoping that it's actually good. got burned on the cases buying that watermelon swill shit which is so disgusting i can't even give it away. but anyway we went today and they have a HUGE selection and i bought a bunch of different stuff. it's in my trunk atm, but when i get home tonight i will list all the cool beers i bought. lots of different stuff.

― Mordy, Tuesday, October 16, 2012 2:37 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

this event changed my life for real ^^

also, looking back, i complained a lot about pa beer laws (and some of them - like that you can't fill a growler from another brewery at a second brewery - are still so dumb) but i got used to it and philly for a bunch of reasons is such an amazing beer city - the bars, the brewpubs, the central location for distribution.

i'm pretty unfamiliar with east coast beer culture - outside of bigger names like dogfish head or southern tier or w/e - and i'm heading out there in a week or so, what local stuff should i seek out? i'll be in philly, dc and nyc

if this has been discussed ad infinitum upthread i apologize. this thread is huge.

http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/the-definitive-top-10-ipas-as-chosen-by-a-hopped-up-panel-of-beer-writers

I've had 7/10 of these and while Two Hearted will always be the best in my opinion, this isn't a bad list.

troegs, tired hands, ithaca, cigar city now distributing to the area, fegley's, lancaster, stoudts, neshaminy creek, yards, terrapin, shmaltz (not sure what their distro is elsewhere)

where in philly are you going to be? if you want to meet up for drinks, let me know. lots of great bars +brewpubs in philly area

Decent list. Good job bunch of white dudes.

staying with some friends in fishtown, i'm definitely hoping to hit up some brewpubs, will be in touch

xxp - how is torpedo on that list? that seems like one of the worst examples of an ipa, the type of thing that makes so many people hate the style. it's so dry and overly resiny and has a whiff of that terrible boozy aftertaste you get from shit like mad dog/4 loko/etc, and it has the price point and alcohol content to compete with that stuff too

lists like that are so weird to me--like isn't alpine barely available outside the brewpub they make it in? but in a random sample enough of those guys had it that it sits alongside huge, nationally available beers.

I like how Heady Topper is on that goofy list at like 25th (not a strict "IPA", clearly one of the better beers in the USA).

Always puzzled how Anchor Liberty is never on these "IPA" lists either, as I'm pretty sure that was the very first aggressively hopped pale ale made --the grandfather of them all so to speak-- but never recognized as an IPA.

yeah i think heady and.....deviant dale's? are the only two on that list that self-identify as doubles

xp
I love Torpedo, it's my #1 reasonably-priced IPA. And I don't think I'm alone in this thread in liking it.

I plowed through some of the comments and it appears that some of the raters "missed the memo" about limiting the choices to single IPAs.

i end of drinking a lot of Union Jack due to it always being marked down to $8.99 at the Whole foods by me. At that price you really can't do any better.

xp
I love Torpedo, it's my #1 reasonably-priced IPA. And I don't think I'm alone in this thread in liking it.

― nickn, Friday, December 20, 2013 2:56 PM (9 minutes ago)

This too! i had a few cases of it for my wedding beer

xp do people here prefer it to celebration? there's such a huge gap in quality between those two imo, celebration is my #1 reasonably priced ipa by a long shot

plenty of that top 10 are nicely priced (ballast point just started distributing far more heavily) AND very very good. there's a huge west coast bias though so maybe torpedo and lagunitas ipa are the only non-seasonals with national distribution, that type of exposure has to help

celebration is way better than torpedo imo

^^^ totally agree, but it had been a long time since I'd had a Torpedo until recently, and it was surprisingly good!

And yes, big ups to Liberty Ale. That's an excellent beer.