Beer in the new era

harpoon recently made one of those. it was super dry and clean, very much a summer beer.

I'm pretty sure people in Ireland drink Guinness year round.

just saw this, it does get hot in ireland sometimes, and some people drink guinness all year round, but a lot of people (me included) would only drink it in winter or on a cold day or something. it can be sort of refreshing but i dunno, it's definitely way better in the height of winter.

Personally only drink Guinness from bonfire night, 5th November. Can't drink it earlier.

i didn't know about this thread before!

my beer profile: we're not exactly super sophisticated beer drinkers, but we love drinking beer and we like to try a bunch of different stuff. bc we live in PA w/ archaic blue laws getting beer can be kinda complicated. these days we pick it up by the case from a local beer depot distributer. when we were down at the shore in NJ we got a ton of individual bottles of stuff we hadn't heard of before to try. we'll drink pretty much anything - and since we both like fruity beers we drink those a lot even tho they aren't ya know - the classe of the classe of beers. anyway, here's some of the stuff we've had lately w/ some vague + terse (if not non-existent) tasting notes:

in NJ we got bottles of:
Samuel Smith fruit ale stuff - Strawberry, Apple Cider, Apricot (that one was NASTY): all very sweet and enjoyable
Flying Dog Dogtoberfest - seasonal caramel taste iirc that was pretty good - we drank like 4-6 bottles of this
Angry Orchard Apple Ginger - more for char than me
Wild Blue - a bunch of this, blackberry + blueberry super fruity lager and boozy enough (at 8%) that it was a pleasure to drink
Tommyknocker Maple Nut Brown Ale - brewed with PURE MAPLE SYRUP: not actually that great
Rogue - I liked the Soviet imagery obv (it turns out i try a lot of beers bc i like the design, sometimes this isn't a great heuristic for tastiness) - i got a few but i don't remember the names, i still have a Yellow Snow IPA left that I haven't tried yet
Young's Double Chocolate Stout - stuff w/ chocolate in the name is never as good as i hope but this wasn't terrible. just, ya know, not super duper chocolatey.

we got some other stuff too but i can't remember what it was bc i already drank it. oh, a bunch of Magic Hat 9 which is generally my goto beer (RIP LUCKY KAT)

at the depot this afternoon i picked up a case of Hell or High Watermelon which was recommended and a seasonal autumn sampler of Leinenkugel's - neither of which i've ever tried before. over the summer we drank a ton of the Blue Moon summer seasonal sampler and a ton of the lemon shocktop. I should probably become a more savvy beer drinker and actually like idk research the stuff i drink + buy. maybe this thread will help improve my quality of beer drinking to new, unheard of beer levels. plz feel free to mock my crappy taste in beer.

i love saranac's white ipa - easily the best thing of theirs i've ever had, super clean citra/lemon peel flavor

buying beer in pa sounds so terrible

do you guys get brewdog beers in america? they often have collabs with us breweries.

yeah i see them around, my general sense is that they might not be fresh but i've never checked for a bottling date

Yes, they are avail in Chicago. I even see a sink the Bismarck on a menu every now and then. Xpost

buying beer in pa is pretty terrible

Mordy, www.ratebeer.com is an excellent go-to if you're curious about a beer you haven't tried. I'm not generally a fruit beer fan, but if you feel like exploring more hoppy realms the Chainbreaker I mentioned is like Blue Moon + bitterness.

In my college off campus house I had a few beer-afficionado/brewing housemates (I think they were slightly ahead of the curve in this way for circa 1999). I remember that one of them liked Brooklyn beers a lot, and in particular he was very fond of the seasonal Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, which is a very strong (10% ABV) and very chocolatey stout that was, at the time, the only thing I knew of its kind. He used to talk about it in these exaggerated, almost hype-man-like tones -- "Dude, it's the time of year for BROOKLYN BLACK CHOCOLATE STOUT! BROOKLYN...BLACK...CHOCOLATE...STOUT!" He would make this big event out of us drinking it in the house, and I still have nice fuzzy memories of the beer as a result.

the best fruit beer i've had recently is bramble rye but it's not around v. often

i can't compare perfectly as i don't know what the best us beers are, though i've had a lot of the bigger hitters, but some of brewdog's beers are incredible imo, despite the annoying marketing.

the new lighter session one "dead pony club" is really really good and serves a good purpose for when you're not keen to get wasted.

xposts oh yeah some of the really strong experimental brewdogs are fun too, the "tokyo dark star" one is about 18 per cent, really nice to give pals a small glass after dinner or something.

also if you see dogma, a stout of theirs, it was mindblowingly good when i had it on tap at least.

Which reminds me, the weather is finally starting to cool off, and that means it's almost time for BROOKLYN...BLACK...CHOCOLATE...STOUT!

xp i'll keep an eye out for those, their marketing is v. uncool

I didn't like the one Brewdog I had; maybe a freshness issue, maybe just not my thing, but it was foul-smelling in my pint glass, and monstrously hoppy but in an unpleasant way. Would retry one, I guess, but there are so many great beers made closer to home.

i would love to try brewdog but it doesn't look like they have samplers and i'm risk adverse to buying a whole case of one of flavor generally...

i also like beer that's really boozy cause i like getting drunk

must try that brooklyn chocolate stout. i'm quite impressed by the level to which brooklyn lager still is nice despite its near ubiquity around where i am in london, it's never a disappointment.

xpost woeful, i am ashamed when i drink punk ipa (which i love) in case someone imagines me buying it and thinking "what a punk i am". i rip the labels off (that's how fucking punk i am.)

and yeah i can imagine it doesn't make as much sense, same here with some US beers v UK ones with price obv a factor too.

more xposts i fucking love high alcohol content booze but there are times when it's dangerous!

ok, this watermelon beer is... not amazing. not terrible, but i guess i was hoping it would be fruitier? and it's kinda dry.

How is the availability of New Belgium and Widmer in PA? For reasonably priced, readily-available ales I like NB's Ranger and Widmer's Rotator series of IPAs.

And here was my Brewdog review a couple years ago:

Wow, Brewdog Hardcore IPA (Explicit Imperial Ale) REALLY did not work for me. I love Imperial IPA's, double IPA's and the like, but this is much closer to a barleywine IMO, with a very malty sweetness and almost syrupy mouthfeel. (And I like barleywine a lot, too, but I found this unpleasant; it left a really bizarre aroma in my pint glass.)

i think my depot will order whatever i ask them to, but only by the case

yeah the hardcore ipa is kind of weird, it is, as you say, a bit like cough mixture. drank it once or twice at a party but more in a silver bullet to get me trashed way, rather than for the taste.

if it doesn't taste good u might as well drink hard liquor imho

xpost woeful, i am ashamed when i drink punk ipa (which i love) in case someone imagines me buying it and thinking "what a punk i am". i rip the labels off (that's how fucking punk i am.)

lol

i drank 4 bottles of that w/ a box of guylian chocolate seashells a while back......punk rock flavour combo there

Best beer I've had recently was Three Floyd's Zes Zes Zes. Supposedly a saison, but taste more like a slightly different zombie dust to me.

irl lol at "slightly different zombie dust..." No idea what that was until I researched. 100/100 on Ratebeer!

at the depot this afternoon i picked up a case of Hell or High Watermelon

I had this for the first time when I was in D.C. recently. (21st Amendment doesn't distribute to Illinois.) Anyway, I liked it! The watermelon is noticeable enough to liven up an otherwise basic wheat but not so prominent that it's super-fruity or cloying or anything.

xp Zombie Dust is delish, it's true.

Hell or high watermelon is literally the worst beer I have ever had

Other 21st amendment beer is great tho, that's just a huge misstep.

high-alcohol beer is generally my preference as well, especially since beer is so bready and filling that I usually don't feel like drinking more than two or three

still kind of a "how far we've come" moment for me that london beer drinkers are fancying pints of brooklyn lager on a regular basis

High ABV FTW. Really, all my favorite beers are at least 8%.

I think 6% is kind of a floor for me

and that's mostly for beers for hot weather

See mostly when I go out it's for quite a while, what I find dangerous about high abv is I don't seem to drink the beers more slowly or in lesser quantities. Then bang!

I had four-packs of Ommegang Hennepin and North Coast Brewery's Pranqster recently - both tasty domestic micro-brews in a Belgian style (saison & golden ale).

Not to knock your enjoyment, but I've always found Ommegang brews to be a little lacking.

Anybody besides Omar had Le Merle? I got a bottle last week, 1st purchase under the state's new reasonable beer laws, and liked it pretty well. It's a saison.

ok i know that this sounds like i have gone crazy, but if you see a 12 pack of the sierra nevada beer camp sampler, buy it immediately - 4 of the best beers i have had this year. yeah, its $20 or something, but thats less than a couple of good bombers so suck it up.

The only Ommegang I've had is Hennepin, so I can't speak for the others, but it seems like a pretty good version of a saison to me - comparable to Saison Dupont for instance, but maybe that's lacking too?

I like Le Merle, too. Pleasantly creamy, iirc.

Haven't tried Le Merle, but I like Pranqster, so if I see it, I'll buy some.

I've also had their Old Rasputin, which is a very strong, bitter stout - probably not the best thing to have with food, but pretty well balanced.

Never like much I the OMG beer I've drank.

Last night enjoyed a Two Brothers Philosophers' Stone (black saison) and my first Dale's Pale Ale. Along with the G'Knight Imperial Red I had last week, I'm quite enjoying the Midwestern encroachment of Oskar Blues.