Beer in the new era

Wasn't familiar with Heady Topper. 120 IBU, holy hell...

rodenbach grand cru

wth is this

A sourish red ale, similar to cuvee. I like it a lot.

I can't remember what we had on tap at our reception.

Well, your reception was at a bar.

i don't know anything about this stuff, but i just read that above 100 ibu you can't distinguish more bitterness.

also sweet action is a cream ale? really? i thought that was just something genesee came up with to sound fancy. maybe i should try more cream ales (are there others?) cause i really like sweet action.

I'd like to try Sweet Action again, but I'm not going to pay for it.

not sure about this rodenbach

I've never met a cream ale that I've liked.

Here's what Sixpoint says about Sweet Action, btw:

Take, for instance, Sweet Action. What is it? Is it a cream ale? Well not really, because it is brewed with elements of a Hefe-Weizen. So it is a Hefe-Weizen then, right? Well, no... because it has a hop profile similar to a Pale Ale. All right, well what is it then? It is Sweet Action. That's what it is.

this odell 5 barrel pale ale is much more my speed

i really like sixpoint, they have a pretty fun really casual brewery tour, which is basically just one guy talking and showing you around his garage.

I also had a Two Brothers I really liked recently having never previously heard of the brewery -- it was a rye

Probably the Cane & Ebel. Jaymc likes that a lot.

I do! There was a time -- maybe about four years ago -- when I'd routinely tell people that it was My Favorite Beer. Then, after a while, I began to gravitate toward beer that wasn't as overtly sweet (one of the key ingredients of Cane & Ebel is Thai palm sugar). But I actually just bought a six-pack recently and reflected on how nicely balanced it is.

Oh, and I also just had their Pillar of Salt, a limited-edition "white rye" that was brewed as a light, dry antithesis of Cane & Ebel. Recommended.

I kind of like rye beer to be sweet because it balances out certain other strong flavors for me

I've recently hit 500 unique beers on my untappd, so I thought I'd see what style I drink the most of from that data. Since December 2010, my top 15:

American IPA - 63
American Imperial / Double IPA - 49
American Imperial / Double Stout - 42
American Pale Ale - 34
Rye Beer - 15
Russian Imperial Stout - 14
Witbier - 12
American Amber / Red Ale - 10
Belgian Strong Pale Ale - 9
American Barleywine - 9
American Porter - 9
American Strong Ale - 9
Saison / Farmhouse Ale - 8
Sour Ale - 8
Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy - 8

Congrats, Jeff. How was the Hyperion?

#IPADay

Is it? I don't think I'm drinking tonight. I'll consider the Great Lakes Lake Erie Monster I had last night to be my contribution to the cause.

http://ipaday.org/announcing-ipa-day/

I had a Sixpoint Resin last night, it was tasty but I think the can design was better than the beer overall.

Which is not to say it was a bad beer, but it was $.

Bengali Tiger > Resin, IMO.

every time i visit the US, including in the past week, i return home only to be further disappointed by how rare it is to find IPA in Montreal bars :/ or anywhere for that matter

Weyerbacher Blanche - not bad! A refreshing Belgian-style white ale - perfect for summer.

went to the churchkey bluejacket release thing last night (bluejacket is their gypsy brewery - collabs with cigar city, bruery, etc). considering how po-faced churchkey can be, the beers - a porter that tasted exactly like a reese's peanut butter cup and a quad with strong caramel apple flavors - were surprisingly wacky and over the top. the rose de gambrinus on draft more than made up for it though.

place on the UWS supposedly has cans of HT

Will be back in DC in 3 weeks. May just move into the Churchkey.

Wait, when exactly? Are you going to just follow me and Kr around wherever we vacation?

by the way can i just say goddamn, heady topper is an amazing beer??

you can say it as many times as you want

Whole Foods is doing a 20% off thing for IPA day today, which puts their high prices below many discount stores' prices. Got some Sierra Nevada Torpedo (16 oz cans) for $6.39/4-pack.

Which is not to say it was a bad beer, but it was $.

― DX Dx DX (dan m), Thursday, 2 August 2012 14:43 (7 hours ago) Permalink

I think the can design is kind of deceptive actually, because they look small next to the normal sixpoint cans, but they're 12 oz (standard is 16), so you're still getting a 4-pack of normal sized beers that, I might add, are 9.1% ABV. So it's really not badly priced at $10-12 a fourpack as far as I'm concerned.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/217779_10150990003713616_1130669433_n.jpg

Had an epic night of boozing on Saturday while watching the men's 10K finals. Dark Lord (2011 and 2012), Firestone Walker Parabola(2011), Firestone Walker Sucaba, Three Floyds Boogoop, Founders Frangelic Brown. Should drink like that more often.

I had some of that Parabola 2011 (and the 2012 & Sucuba) a couple weeks ago, great stuff. Bought two bottles of their Double DBA, which I don't remember the details of but it's also barrel aged.

I googled the details.

http://www.firestonebeer.com/beers/products/double-dba

Yeah I wanted some of that, but those releases sell out so quickly here. I've never had a bad Firestone walker beer, all so good.

Ha, just picked up 2 DDBA's. Surprised to find them.

how do you all feel about german beers? just spent 10 days in hamburg and berlin, not generally a massive fan of the typical german stuff but i did get into augustiner helles quite a bit, at least in the sense of it being a lot nicer than mass-produced lagers. some good pils aswell along the way.

Beer in the old era: I have drunk several beers over the past few days that have been maturing in my drinks cabinet for 10+ years and HOO MAMA.

I think there are some really good German beers - mainly lagers and hefeweizens though some pilsners too. IMO, the best tend to come from Munich. When I went to Berlin though, it was surprisingly hard to find good Munich beer there. Seems like each German city has a few big regional breweries that tend to dominate what gets served in restaurants, etc. Not sure about Hamburg, but Berlin doesn't seem to be the best place to explore German beer.

xp

http://blog.theater-nachtgedanken.de/__oneclick_uploads/2011/06/augustiner_hell.jpg

this one is everywhere in berlin and hamburg, it's good tho.

this microbrewery was cool, by chance very near my friend's apartment. they had a sort of germanic take on amber ale that was really good, and a round of 12 beers over a few hours between 3 of us cost 27 euro.

http://www.hopsandbarley-berlin.de/

So report from the field - the surly Syx is a lot like getting punched in the face with like 40 flavors and a shitton of alcohol

Finally got around to doing this: http://www.cellarhq.com/cellar/jeff

I have a bad record of actually being able to save beer for any amount of time. Usually I just get it and drink it up within minutes. Totally jealous of people that can always pull out a bottle of good stuff for special occasions.

yeah i tried to start a collection recently, then i was broke for a few weeks and drank it all.

Does beer keep very well though? I was under the impression it's best when fresh.

Depends on the style and the ABV. Higher ABV keeps longer. I like barrel-aged stouts/barleywines/old ales to age. Most IPA's, PA's and the such should be consumed relatively quickly.

if you find this buy this and drink this

http://beerpulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Brux_Face-Label.jpg

ooh that looks excellent