Beer in the new era

the mean old tom

lunch is great but imo their other hoppy beers (peeper, zoe, and mo) are on par and easier to come by. their dark beers kinda suck by comparison.

tried any ht yet?

not yet! tmmrw i think i'll bring a can to baseball practice

nice!

OK, surprise work trip to Boston next week. Best beer bars? Staying at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

the consensus best beer bar here is called lord hobo, it's in cambridge, not an awful trip from where you're staying. it's in the same neighborhood as cambridge brewing company, which is basically the best brewpub we have.

other places--stoddard's and jm curley's are downtown, a little closer to where you're staying (15 min walk lets say) and have decent stuff at times. green st. is in another part of cambridge and is sort of a personal favorite--small but very well-done tap list. the publick house in brookline is out of your way and has some good stuff (pretty serious belgians, for example), but i'm not a huge fan of the vibe there. the best overall beverage program in town is at eastern standard/the hawthorne in kenmore square, but both places are pricey and watch out for sox fans.

you're staying right near an unbelievable cocktail beer (drink, in fort point). there's also a brand-new brewery down there called trillium but they can only do growler fills on premises right now.

if you have any interest in meeting up for a beer at any of these places shoot me an email.

Definite possibility. Ill let you know.

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=71084

Anyone get any Founders KBS? I was able to luck into 4 bottles. This is actually only the second time I've had it. Last year I overpaid for a 4 year vertical at a bar. I don't think I was able to gain a real appreciate of the beer in that way. This year being able to savor a whole bottle, I like it much more. All the flavors are balanced so well.

nope, getting it was awful this year. every store got one case or less, tweeted about it, and sold them all in the middle of the day.

my store didn't get any

i will console myself with my cellar full of bourbon county stout :(

Top 50 U.S. Craft Brewing Companies
(Based on 2012 beer sales volume)

Rank - Brewing Company / City State
1 - Boston Beer Co. Boston MA
2 - Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA
3 - New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
4 - The Gambrinus Co. San Antonio TX
5 - Deschutes Brewery Bend OR
6 - Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA
7 - Bell's Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI
8 - Matt Brewing Co. Utica NY
9 - Harpoon Brewery Boston MA
10 - Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA
11 - Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY
12 - Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO
13 - Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE
14 - Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA
15 - Shipyard Brewing Co. Portland ME
16 - Alaskan Brewing Co. Juneau AK
17 - New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI
18 - Long Trail Brewing Co. Bridgewater Corners VT
19 - Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH
20 - Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA
21 - Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA
22 - Rogue Ales Newport OR
23 - Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN
t. 24 - Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR
t. 24 - SweetWater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA
26 - Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA
27 - Oskar Blues Brewery Longmont CO
28 - Cold Spring Brewing Co./Third Street Brewhouse Cold Spring MN
29 - Flying Dog Brewery Frederick MD
30 - Founders Brewing Co. Grand Rapids MI
31 - Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR
32 - CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries, Inc. Chattanooga & Louisville TN/CO
33 - Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO
34 - Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA
35 - Stevens Point Brewery Stevens Point WI
36 - Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY
37 - Southern Tier Brewing Co. Lakewood NY
38 - Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe Eureka CA
39 - Karl Strauss Brewing Co. San Diego CA
40 - BJ's Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. Huntington Beach CA
41 - Breckenridge Brewery Denver CO
42 - North Coast Brewing Co. Fort Bragg CA
43 - Left Hand Brewing Co. Longmont CO
44 - St. Louis Brewery, Inc./Schlafly Beers St. Louis MO
45 - Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Houston TX
46 - Ballast Point Brewing Co. San Diego CA
47 - Big Sky Brewing Co. Missoula MT
48 - Allagash Brewing Co. Portland ME
49 - Uinta Brewing Co. Salt Lake City UT
50 - Tröegs Brewing Co. Hershey PA

who the hell is the gambrinus company

also that list is really surprising in a lot of ways, did not expect to see deschutes, lagunitas and stone in the top ten, or new glarus to be bigger than summit. crazy

gambrinus is evidently the umbrella company for shiner bock and some other stuff?

I'm not surprised to see Lagunitas in the top 10 considering that multiple varieties are available in my semi-crappy corner liquor store (ditto Stone, Southern Tier, Left Hand)

Lagunitas is huge and only going to get bigger when they open their Chicago brewery. That facility along is planning to make 1.7 million barrels a year. By comparison, the Petaluma based brewery currently makes about 700k barrels a year and that covers their entire current distribution.

Surprised to see BJ's on there; as far as I know they only sell it at their restaurants.

i heard bad things about Evo Spring: Sprung but the one i drank today was really very good. maybe they finally got the recipe working in 2013?

i'm really loving saisons atm. i had an incredible saison at manayunk brewpub (i grabbed a growler of it for a big lunch - it was very well received) - it was this one: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/695/79257 ; and right now i'm drinking a pretty delicious yards saison. any other recommendations? i wasn't super impressed w/ the starr hill saison, and the goose island sofie was good but not as good as the manayunk or york.

get thee some fantome

http://www.freep.com/article/20130423/NEWS06/304230025

As a Bell's-loving native of Upper Michigan, this makes me very happy.

hmm, wonder if they'll expand their distro

finding lately that 6% alcohol is kind of a magic number for me -- most beers start to taste better in that range all other things being equal. Upper limit of magic range is probably somewhere in the mid 9's -- after that it seems a lot harder to overcome the booziness with flavor.

Stuck in a small village in France that only sells Kronenbourg (their very own's Bud) and going throught that list was a dagger to my heart.

Unless I'm going session, I really want 8+. 6 would probably just piss me off.

france's lack of good beer and good coffee is surprising

picon biere all the way when in france

The word on the street is that Alsace and Le Nord have good microbreweries, I'm checking how to get my hands on them. i'm going to a bigger city this weekend (Toulouse) and try to find anything respectable, at this point I'll settle for London Pride.

I also heard of a good corsican beer that uses chesnut called La Pietra.

Good coffee is now avaible in Paris, but parisians will tell you it's an indie-american-slim-jean-globalised vision of coffee. I miss Montreal.

it is catching on in france and italy i think. a local wine shop sells a french pale ale, can't remember what it's called tho and they've been sold out anytime i've asked. saw somewhere talking about italian beers too recently. not sure if it'd just be weak imitations of better beers though.

Saw this monstrosity in my beer aisle the other day:

http://www.clownshoesbeer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Label_Tramp_450x315.jpg

Didn't locate many amazing bières d'Alsace when we were in Strasbourg recently, though we didn't drink any stinkers either. Generally speaking the French beer I've enjoyed most has been from Flanders, unsurprisingly.

Have had some v good Italian beer, Brew Fist springs to mind, I know there are more.

Good coffee is now avaible in Paris, but parisians will tell you it's an indie-american-slim-jean-globalised vision of coffee. I miss Montreal.

― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, April 23, 2013 1:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, that sounds like such a french thing to say. Enjoy your authentically burnt garbage, parisians.

the sam adams I just opened says "International Award Winner / Denver Gold 1987" on the inside of the cap. Kind of disconcerting.

Lol France, take the TGV to Belgium...

cf: "Why is there no good Mexican food in Canada?"

Ok for those of you who aren't untappd pals with me, the st feuillien saison in a can is crazy crazy fucking good

i liked that too! i had another good saison today - the stillwater artisinal

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2010/08/how-jimmy-carter-saved-craft-beer/19195/

Mordy, the stateside saison? I just ordered that because of you. But them I see I've had it 343 days ago.

i think i mentioned this upthread but two other saisons i've really enjoyed are the manayunk biere de mars and the yards saison - both delicious.

did u like it when u drank it a year ago? :P

Hell if I remember! I was drunk.

Troegs tasting today and my fave beer shop!

hopefully they'll have some of their Scratch brews,the ones i have had were always pretty good. also always love the nugget nectar

Oh, hey I had (or rather my wife did, but I had sips of) a Stillwater Stateside Saison a few days ago.

Well, I think I may have had all my enthusiasm for craft beer crushed this weekend. Friend of a friend managed to somehow "lose" my ticket at Dark Lord Day on Saturday, so I didn't get to buy any, despite spending $30 on a ticket, $40 on a portion of van rental, and spending the entire day in Munster. Worst part is that the dude that lost it a) didn't have the balls to tell me in person, he sent his girlfriend's friend over to tell me and, b) two days on and he still hasn't apologized or made any attempt to contact me or make even a nominal effort to rectify things.

Been struggling through a lot of bitterness this weekend and tempting to just sell what I've got and give up the game of even trying anymore.

the entire day in Munster. Worst part

Did this friend have a ticket? They should at least give you a bottle if they got the full allotment.

He lost his as well. I'm still not sure how, like I said this guy hasn't even offered the tiniest excuse.

Maybe he "lost" it someone else for above face value.