Beer in the new era

Here's everything I've got so far on my to do list:

Euston Tap
Cask Pub & Kitchen
Hawksmoor Guildhall
St. John
The Wenlock Arms
Old Fountain
The Artillery Arms
The Bell
Jamaica Wine House
The Fox and Anchor
The Hoop & Grapes
The Blackfriar
Old Bell Tavern
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
The Lexington

And just for the heck of it, Brussels too:

Délices et Caprices
Beer Mania
't Kelderke
Le Bier Circus
Les Brigittines
Nuetnigenough
Poechenellekelder
Delirium Café
Moeder Lambic
Cantillon Brewery

This is what happens when I travel by myself. The entirety of my tourism is bars.

my friends who have been to belgium recently only talk about the kulminator in antwerp, get thee a bus to antwerp.

Kulminator is one of the most amazing and infusing bars I've ever visited.

I'll have to investigate. Not sure if my work schedule will allow it though.

Is that Cuvee rouge hard to find? I think I see 4 packs of it at binnys all the time.

along w/ the de jacobins i also snagged a 't gaverhopke extra and a robot surf factory pineapple pale ale bomber

hard for me to find? my store said they could only get one box total and they have no idea when/if they'll ever get it again

it's about to be - the demand thx to sours gaining popularity has greatly surpassed the production, so i think theres going to be a 6 month gap, followed by allocated distro

Brussels: there are two Moeder Lambics. The first, which is a super-trad brown bar with a good range of taps and an excellent bottle list, is a fair step out from the middle of town - just off the map of both of the guidebooks I've had to Brussels, but really worth the trip. The second, Moeder Lambic Fontainas, is closer to the centre of town (a short and pleasant walk from the Grand Place) has very few bottles (and all of those are dirty great 75cl jobs) but 40 beer lines! This is, as far as I'm aware, otherwise unheard of in Belgium, and includes some very obscure beer (I had some tremendous Italian stuff last time). I had some Cantillion Rose de Gambrinus on cask (!!!) there and it blew my mind - there's virtually no cask conditioning in Belgium and the zinginess of the Rose was quite amazing. So that one's definitely worth it too.

My other tips in Brussels, like most of my City of London ones, are more about the bar than the rare craft beer. A La Becasse, just a few steps from the Grand Place, is a beautifully-preserved, smallish, late 19th century beer hall, and a glorious place to spend an afternoon half hour. Get a jug of their lambic. (There's an atmospheric little crawl from there along the Grasmarkt taking in Au Bon Vieux Temps and maybe the bar at the Toone puppet theatre, but the Becasse is the really unmissable one. You'll also go past the rather touristy Bier Tempel beer shop which is the most reliable place I've found in the centre of Brussels to buy Westvleteren, if you're interested in shelling out E12 on a little bottle.

Through the Galeries St Hubert to my other unmissable bar, A La Mort Subite, again late C19th, just a beautiful survivor, more or less intact. I love it there, even the sometimes rather shirty service. I tend to have a glass of their gueuze and a plate of cheese. CHEESE!

There are some attractive places near the Bourse which I've never quite got on with - Cirio is another art-nouveauy kind of gaff and Falstaff is more deco-flavoured but I've never really managed to relax in either. Decent collectors record shop by Cirio, fwiw. I prefer Greenwich (I think it's on the rue de Chartreux) which is a chess bar - you have to be quietish in the daytime! - and a bit more scuffed and informal, still lovely though. Next door to that is a bistro called the Fin De Siecle (though you wouldn't know, it has no name or marking on the outside) which is busy and friendly and I had a delicious carbonnade of beef cooked in Chimay Bleu last time I was there.

Most of these places (Moeder Lambic aside) are in the centre of town and are the places I tend to return to having been there a few times; there are plenty of really decent places in Brussels, though, you's need to be making some very duff choices to go far wrong. I'm by no means an expert.

I am going to this at the end of September: http://www.brouwerijdemolen.nl/index.php/en/beerfestival.html

I went last year and it was GREAT. This year I'm taking my wife with me. The list of participating breweries is already tremendous: http://www.brouwerijdemolen.nl/index.php/en/beerfestival/brewers-and-beers.html

Our plan is to take the train from London, stop off for a night in Antwerp to visit Kulminator, then press on and stay in Utrecht which is rather more interesting than Bodegraven itself, and indeed has the greatest Post Office I have ever seen.

Btw if you're up for a beer while you're in London let us know. Not seen Tim in a while either!

For sure, I'm always up for fapping. Dates for London are 7/31 to 8/8. We'll find something that works.

Would it be worth it to visit The Kernel Brewery on Saturday?

But then again, I do have to work on Saturday, so may not make it there before closing.

Depends how much you like looking around modern microbreweries really - ime they're much of a muchness but then I'm more interested in the beer than in the craft.

product over process

Boulevard Sixth Glass Quad. Awesome.

snagged a bottle of this today:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9897/53703

I always want to like Jolly Pumpkin, but I'm consistently underwhelmed. Never had that one though.

Friend just got back from a wedding in Vermont, so I've got a couple of new beers from Hill Farmstead that I haven't had. Also more Heady. I think he bought over $400 worth of beer while there (which was split among myself and 2 others).

Caved and bought the summer variety pack at Costco: Widmer Citra, Widmer Alchemy, a Red Hook Wit made with ginger and something called Kona Brewing Company Wailua brewed with Passion Fruit.

I tried the ones I thought I would like least -- the Kona and the Red Hook, and both were surprisingly drinkable and enjoyable, if slightly sweet. The kind of beers I would enjoy at a barbecue on a hot day.

My band played a bar Saturday with 50+ beers on tap, but the only craft beers my comp tickets would work for were an oatmeal stout (it was 90 degrees out) and a Shiner beer made with ruby red grapefruit which, after the initial lemony detergent taste faded, turned out to be surprisingly okay on a hot stage.

I used to be categorically against fruit beers, but some of them are tasty as long as I put them in a different mental box from my craft beer box.

Yeah, I'm the same. So many brewers do it wrong imo, but then I stumble across the occasional oddity like a well-balanced, not too fruity/sweet mango IPA and... om nom nom.

Plus fruit flavors can add a lot to the kinds of lower alcohol beers I'm more apt to drink on a hot day -- the stuff I like the rest of the year is too heavy, and I'm not a big fan of plain lager-type beers.

Fruit can be great. Stouts and sours in particular.

imo most every "summer" beers i've had are shit. like some watered down fruitified version of an actually good beer makes no sense to me. fuck it i'll drink a RIS on a 95 degree day and love it.

carne i understand your sentiment and previously was in that boat. but the other day i actually did just have a RIS on a 90 degree day and it was gross. it was the same beer i had a few weeks prior when it was low 60s and rainy and then it was delicious. so i've been into drinking seasonally more than ever, low-alcohol summer beers are delicious, though as always, depends on the brewer/beer. some of them are watered-down garbage and some are perfect for a hot summer day just the way a stout or a strong ale are perfect in february.

yeah drinking something like a double IPA in the heat makes me feel massively awful, and the summer beers I'm talking about are still 5%+ so they're hardly "watered down"

idk i guess climate doesn't really enter my thought process so much when i'm deciding on what beer to purchase on a given day. maybe the reason why i'm not invited to bring beer to many pool parties

Anyone have an opinion on Oakham Ales?

I think their Citra is such a winner that it overshadows the others of theirs that I've tried. Not that the others are bad, just that the Citra is lovely.

brooklyn summer ale has been nice so far, esp. in such a hot summer. i appreciate the cans more in summer.

czechvar, an "alias" for the czech budweiser budvar, is good stuff.

yes czechvar is really good

NYC ilxors: One free pint at each of 39 bars in NYC for $30, good until Labor Day -- http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2013/07/craft_beer_passport_deal.php

New beers this past weekend:
Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Imperial IPA
Short's Humalupalicious
Short's Pontius Rd Pilsner
Short's Bellaire Brown

The Leinie's was the best, and I was skeptical of it going in.

i'm way into citrus IPAs, like Potosi's Tangerine IPA and Tyranena's Scurvy.

My taste buds think Tyranena changed the recipe on Scurvy, though! When I first had it in a "Brewers Gone Wild" 4 pack I remember it being a lighter bodied, hop-forward IPA, like Summit Saga. Now it seems heavier and maltier.

i agree! i've never liked it as much as the first time i had it (on tap, a few years ago). i thought maybe it was tap vs bottle, or that it had just been toned down after that first (?) batch.

Dan - we had that Leinie's last night, had the same experience. Also the Brickside Brewery way at the very northernmost point of Michigan has a pretty good saison.

Also as I type this on my phone a bear just ran across the road.

Ok so central waters brewhouse coffee stout is officially the best bomber I have ever bought for $5

reading this thread is harder on my not drinking than keeping a full liquor cabinet. and a six pack of coors light in the fridge.

my sister brought back some New Glarus Spotted Cow for me from Wisconsin!

drinking a coors light with a slice of lime.

it's ok. not that much worse than corona with lime.

Ok so central waters brewhouse coffee stout is officially the best bomber I have ever bought for $5

word, just had that the other night. very coffee-ish even compared to other coffee stouts, i think?

samuel smith organic chocolate stout is still the most chocolatey tasting beer i've ever had

is it good? i've only had one chocolate stout that i've really liked, at triumph brewery.

Leaving for Brussels tomorrow. I've been saving my 1000th unique checkin on untappd for when I get there.