Beer in the new era

how do you pronounce dyao's lager beer

sugarloaf ska

two of the most delicious beers i've had have been porters -

troegs dead reckoning and the founders porter are both ridiculously tasty. can anyone recommend other readily available porters to try? such a joy to drink

smuttynose, fuller's

sinebrychoff is pretty great. duck-rabbit baltic porter, flying dog gonzo (barrel-aged version, if you can find it, is especially good). great lakes edmund fitzgerald. deschutes black butte. captain lawrence makes a nice one, the name of which escapes me.

i don't know if my bottle of edmund fitzgerald was bad but i was really disappointed in that beer

Had another Trader Joe's 2012 Vintage Ale, the best under $5, 750 ml, 9% abv beer you'll ever drink (made by Unibroue).

Yup, I've already gone thru a few bottles of that this season.

― jaymc, Friday, January 4, 2013 9:51 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too. I am quite a stan of this beer, as I may already have made clear in this thread. They do indeed also have a Unibroue-brewed golden ale now as well, which I intend to pick up. However for the time being I'm working through my $22 3x750ml (plus very nice glass) Ommegang gift set (that I bought for myself) from Costco. Hennepin is fantastic. Also comes with Three Philosophers Quadrupel and the kind of cornily-named Chocolate Indulgence Stout

i've had the great lakes eliot ness and christmas ale and found them pretty lackluster

Deschutes is now available in Chicago! Last night I had a bottle each of Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Red Chair Pale Ale and the Black Butte Porter. All good, with the Red Chair being especially wonderful.

Almost everything I've ever had from Great Lakes has been at the very least very good.

it's possible that it was just old - imo some great lakes stuff fades extremely quickly, and a lot of it tends to sit around on shelves for awhile. burning river is a beer i love fresh but which gets gnarly after a month or two

that's possible, i don't know how long it was sitting before it came my way.

Consistently disappointed in GL's normal line up.

edmund fitzgerald smelled and tasted like malt extract

sounds like a wreck

boooooooo

jk

speaking of GL, this is a kinda dumb list http://amog.com/lifestyle/155665-10-american-cities-brew-beer/

considering the source... smh

no michigan, no credibility imo

Yeah, I'm not wildly excited about any of the basic Great Lakes beers (the brewery's website lists Edmund Fitzgerald, Burning River, Commodore Perry, Eliot Ness, and Dortmunder Gold as its year-round offerings), but some of the specialties are worthwhile. Nosferatu (imperial red), for instance, is quite good. Conway's Irish Red is one of the most pleasantly surprising beers I've had -- I tried it at a friend's place, not expecting much at all, and found it very drinkable. Curious about the Blackout Stout, which I've started to see around recently.

AVOID Boatswain brand beers at Trader Joe's. Admittedly I shouldn't have expected much from a $2 22oz beer that's 8-9% ABV, but yuck.

no michigan, no credibility imo

Michigan has no shortage of great breweries, but they're fairly well spread out around the state, aren't they? Grand Rapids (Founders), Kalamazoo (Bell's), Holland (New Holland), Battle Creek (Arcadia), Marshall (Dark Horse), Sawyer (Greenbush), Dexter (Jolly Pumpkin), Bellaire (Short's), etc.

Grand Rapids has a bunch of others, they should prob be on a list. Some list.

Speaking of I'm probably going to sign up for the Grand Rapids marathon specially to go to breweries afterwards.

i have never had a founders beer i didn't like.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17271/54379

porter talk reminded me of one of the worst beers i've ever had - bootlegger's mint chocolate porter, picked up in LA last year. kinda tasted like drinking a porter and smoking a menthol at the same time

hey friends,
never drink anything called a "lavender ipa"
take it from me,
ij

oh my goodness

at least u lived to tell the tale

AVOID Boatswain brand beers at Trader Joe's. Admittedly I shouldn't have expected much from a $2 22oz beer that's 8-9% ABV, but yuck.

― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2)

Had one once (can't remember the type), I wouldn't say "yuck" but no desire to re-buy.

And I had that Avery Mephistopheles Stout (16.2% abv) that a bought a couple weeks ago. Very good on the first sips, alcohol not overwhelming, but later tastes had a very slight funkiness in the aftertaste. I was eating chili with it, and maybe that was the cause. Would like to try it again, but at almost $9 for 12 oz, it may not happen soon.

had my first founders imperial stout last night. simply outstanding imo.

i spent too much on beer today - got the firestone 16 anniversary ale, avec les bons voeux brasserie dupont (came w/ a nice glass!), and a dogfish head world wide stout.

i'm feeling a little guilty for splurging

oooh I had that dupont last summer, very very nice

lol I went to a craft beer store in ATL with my sister-in-law and she and her partner spent $180 on various beers.

It can happen.

I think they walked out with... lemme see here, 9 6-packs and 17 big bottles? We got two huge boxes to carry them out in.

Of course two of those sixes were my Duck-Rabbits, which I then brought home

i wasn't a partic fan of the boatswain beer from trader joe's but we LOVE the Mission St. Pale Ale around these parts -- my wife considers it her #1 favorie beer. and it is quite good.

southern tier 2xIPA best southern tier i've had to date and way tastier than the christmas ale imo.

^so good, especially for the price

The 20 most influential beers in the world

or "of all time," whatevs.

uh what has utopias "influenced"

decent list other than that

People making weird-ass, super strong beers and charging a lot for them seems to be a thing now. I have never heard of the Utopias, and don't know when SA started making them, but there does seem to be a small cult of hard-to-get, super-specialized, one-off beers around now. Mikeller and the like. Hardly a big trend, but worth mentioning in this context maybe.

hm could be, i don't know of anything priced in the utopias range (which to me is maybe the most-unique thing abt utopias) but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I looked at Mikeller at one point when they were doing a tasting at a local Whole Foods (ended up not going) and some of what they do is team with other brewers for one-off, very limited quantity beers, which are sometimes auctioned off for charities. They can end up going for quite a bit. A very small part of the beer market, but maybe worth noting since scarcity is a factor in beer production.

Every mikeller I have had has been garbage.

Got hook

Err got hooked up with some troegs scratch beer #83 called impending descent. Best stuff i've ever had from them.

I still haven't tried any Mikeller, even the three that seem to be always available at Bevmo. Not saying they, or Sam Adams, are leading the beer world in a good direction, but I can see the author's point of view in saying it's an influence.

uh what has utopias "influenced"

― an eagle named "small government" (call all destroyer), Saturday, 12 January 2013 04:16 (3 hours ago) Permalink

the beers from other breweries that have reused utopias barrels to age their own beers in