Beer in the new era

i agree w/al on the new enjoy by, this is one of the best of the series from what i've tried at least

Went down to Philly for beer week festivities this weekend, some serious whale hunting for an east coaster -- Pliny, Blind Pig, BCBS, §ucaba/Abacus, and scored some RR sours in bottles.

Main takeaway: §ucaba is ridiculously good, procure whenever possible

^ picked up a couple sucaba last week! haven't tasted yet though, there's a place in town that will have it on tap this friday but i have to miss it unfortunately

Awesome! You're in for a serious treat.

curious about that stickee monkee stuff too

I found a couple bottles of stickee monkee and bought one in spite of the name.

Ok, zero hyperbole here - the Stillwater Artisanal Gose Gone Wild is literally the sourest beer I have ever had, and it is incredible and amazing. It's the closest thing I've had to the one glass of the cuvée mother lambic I had two years ago.

The Stone Summer Chipotle Pepper Porter I had tonight is making the end of the school year feel realllllll good.

mmm that sounds good!

I just bought one of those! (TJ's on the way home from work.) Glad to hear it's good.

Making a trip to Vermont in a few weeks -- anything I should be keeping an eye out for? We're timed right for a Lawson Finest's Farmers' Market, and may be able to squeeze in a trip to Hill Farmstead, both of which I'm pretty excited about. I hear getting Heady Topper can be a chore, even if you time it right with distribution...

the best method for getting heady is showing up at the hunger mtn coop in montpelier a bit before 3:00 on friday and buying up to a case. anything else is gonna be a crapshoot.

if you do hill farmstead be prepared for a 1-2 hour wait for growlers, it's been real bad on my last couple visits.

The Friday we're there is July 4, and it looks like Hunger Mountain was closed last July 4. Pulling into Burlington on Thurs so may give it a go there, and if we strike out will call the coop to see if they're getting a Saturday shipment (don't have high hopes, though).

Is it easy to get at bars, at least?

Also damn, did not expect such lines -- HF is way out there! Hopefully my partner will still be on board with that, though drive and wait for still more beer may try the patience...

they only get a shipment on friday. you can check the alchemist site for other stores that get it that might work for you, but you'll run into limits on what you can buy.

both heady and hf stuff are easy to get in bars in waterbury and montpelier, not sure about burlington but i think you'll be able to find something.

Awesome, thanks for the pointers!

Any of you beer geeks live in SC? Or elsewhere in the westbrook distro area?

And as a general proposition to Vermonters on this thread: if there's anything distributed in DC/Phila that's hard for you to locate up there -- Victory, Troegs, Weyerbacher, Stoudt's, Sly Fox, DC Brau -- I'd be glad to bring it along and arrange a swap. I'm not looking for anything in particular (looks like I'll have a shot to try a lot of awesome stuff), and would be down to trade anything from four-packs to cases; just happy to help ease the bummer of beer being out of reach. PM me if you're looking for anything!

xp this lived in here for a while before I hit submit, whoops

No Westbrook here. But someone needs to send me some gose.

Some thoughts on a few beers provided by ilxors Al Broccoli and psychgawsple:

Blend Love - Upright: Very nice fruity wild ale, was afraid it might be too sweet based on color but it wasn't at all. Was good on a humid evening though a full 750 of just about any sour beer is too much for me, luckily my wife had a glass.

Pliny the Elder - Russian River: Very good, but a victim of hype like so many other beers. I mean, GOOD. Good IPA, balanced and tasty and all that. But (and I expected this) the hype takes away from it in the end, I'm afraid. Just as good as Two Hearted, Abrasive, HT, etc. The unobtainability factor must be the thing that puts it over the edge. Still, I'll happily drink more, and I'm looking forward to sharing a second bottle with friends. Got a sweet keyring bottle opener with the bottle design on it, too!

Red Swingline - Trinity: As I said before this was tasty and very interesting. Sour beer with a hoppy IPA finish is about the only way I can describe it. Definitely worth trying if you have a chance because it's so unlike anything else out there, anything I've had at least.

Still have Peche & Brett, some triple IPAs, and a handful of other bottles to get through. I love trading bottles but it might be time for a break, I have an excessive amount of beer in my possession.

Jeff -- next time we get a shipment of Gose in I'll try to get some for you.. it's very popular tho and usually sells out and then we have to wait to get more.

also facebook msged JJUSTEN about westbrook.

That would be awesome.

I think there's something about shipping hopforward double+ ipas across the country without refrigeration that always leaves me tempering my expectations a bit...

which leads me to ask if there are any budget friendly refrigerated shippers?

Yeah, that was part of my line of thinking too. Just gonna have to get them to distribute here! Kinda curious how they send beer to the Philly area but not Chicagoland.

Does anyone have any recommendations for sour type beers? I had my first American Wild Ale (Surly Pentagram) recently and really liked it.

Cuvée des jacobins x 1000000

Agree, and Bruery's Sour in the Rye is good too.

la folie's lips of faith is a good place to start and easy to find.

once you dig deeper, you'll start seeking out
belgian stuff (west flanders red): rodenbach, cuvee des jacobins rouge, duchesse
belgian stuff (flanders oud bruin): monks cafe, petrus, goudenband
belgian stuff (lambic/geuze): cantillon, 3 fonteinen, tilquin
american stuff: any wild ales from russian river, lost abbey, cascade, and the bruery

there's also berliner weisse and gose and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

I'm going to Baltimore next week - any local/regional breweries I should be looking out for? Other general beer tips also welcome.

Baltimore's not really gonna blow your socks off as far as local breweries are concerned, but I would recommend a trip up to the Hampden/Woodberry area to hit up a) Union Brewery b) De Kleine Duivel (Belgian beer bar, amazing if that's your thing) and c) The Wine Source which is a solid (by Baltimore City standards) beer/wine store. All these are within walking distance of each other in a not-bad part of the city.

Brewer’s Art in Mt. Vernon is a good stop too. Max’s Taphouse in Fells Point should probably be mentioned. Huge selection.

re sours, tart of darkness is a pretty unique style (sour stout) and is, afaik, the only widely available beer in that style

Thanks! xp

Thanks guys xxp

many xps to dan - glad you liked the blend love! for whatever reason 750 mls are pretty common around here, far more common than other sizes, but they're generally not priced too high

i think there is definitely something to say about shipping ipas across the country through warm climes but i think for the most part you got the normal pliny experience. a few places around here have it available p much year round for $5/bottle, and i def find once the hype/unobtainability/exclusivity is taken away it tastes far more delicious.

still have to say heady topper is my #1 by quite a lot, though i still haven't tried two hearted or abrasive. fresh notorious might be my current #2 but i don't wanna oversell it for you and mordy!

and this is not in the same league of beer-nerdism at all but the laurelwood green mammoth is a damnnn fine 2IPA, i think they really stepped up their game this year. i was surprised to see lukewarm reactions on BA (it's a 2IPA ffs) but those seem to be based on the 2012 release

re: sours, tried a glass of cascade sang noir recently and !!! i need to get a bottle before this goes away, such a great use of bourbon + wine + sour

oh, also had a chance to try the arctic saison that cad sent my way... great stuff! a lot of awesome stuff going on, funk + tartness + some herbal/citrus too. i didn't seem to notice any of the problems w/the bottle (noted upthread) at all

the only sour in a can i had before tnite was the alchemist's petit mutant but i got a 6-pack of anderson valley's holy gose and holy shit it's delicious. i highly recommend.

I like it.

I'm doing this crazy thing where I only drink beer on weekends now. It's hard to do! Last beer I had on a weekday was on Memorial Day.

the av gose is so refreshing and delicious

fwiw it was the arctic soiree that i drank from cad, the hill farmstead / anchorage collab

Drinking Beer Hates Astronauts today. In my top 2 of Half Acre beers.

The av gose is really good, perfect summery beer.

I just bought a 10 barrel swill radler as I've never had one before and it has a "you will either love this or hate this" disclaimer on it which I saw as a challenge

very curious about that one!

i think i fall on the "hate it" side, too sweet for me

wanting to try the 10 barrell cherry sour tho

also, if you are in oregon look for the breakside passionfruit sour in bottles. good stuff, well priced for a bomber of sour beer

huh sweet was not what I expected to hear regarding a beer that is like 4.5% or whatever

yeah i mean it's technically 1/2 beer and 1/2 grapefruit soda! i think if you know you like / are expecting something like that it's a solid bet, but it is still very sugary and soda-like

ive yet to have a radler that rivaled Stiegl

I actually kind of liked the Swill but it wasn't really a "beer" per se. My wife loved it but she has a deep shameful love for the Leinenkugel summer shandy.

yeah i mean if you're in the mood for a shandy you could do a lot worse than swill

so i guess fort george released a 3-way ipa last year with lompoc and gigantic that i remember nothing about, but this year's release with boneyard and block 15 is just insanely good. kinda awesome to see something with the same level of quality as other boneyard and block 15 beers benefitting from the canning facilities and distribution of fort george, i think this stuff will actually get sent to the east coast? but it's worth at least 3x more than the $2.50 it's selling for around here, definitely worth a try

Tried the Half Acre/Maine Beer collab session IPA over the weekend, actually thought it was pretty disappointing. It might have been because I tried it after a couple of Imperial Stouts, but it just tasted pretty bland. Seems to be getting decent reviews though, maybe I'll have to give another chance fresh.

Picked up a Space Station Middle Finger and a Pipeworks Mocha Absuction the other night, anxious to make it though my work week of hell to get to 'em.