Beer in the new era

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.

jealous!

Went to Cantillon, Moeder Lambic, and A La Becasse. Exhausted.

Jealous!

I'm so tired for being up like 30 hours that I don't even feel like I've been drinking.

Amazed at the cheapness of cantillon. I paid $40 for 5 big bottles. On the rare chance they would show up at a Chicago bar, they would be $40 each.

A local boring fish/steak/iceberg lettuce salad type restaurant with a great view of Lake Superior wiped the slate a couple years ago and now serve really good food and have a pretty ridiculous beer list. Last night I had a flight of interesting beers and a cardamom apricot mead, and my wife had a ginger kombucha beer that was really surprisingly good as I can't stand kombucha.

I also finally had a bourbon county stout and kind of get the hype. I didn't want to spend for the 22oz coffee one so I only had the standard in a 12oz. I had no idea it would be 15% abv or that it would be so great with raspberry pie.

how much were the BBC beers?

tri-state area heads be on the lookout for Carton brewery. i think they've only been around for like a year but they are turning out some of the most exciting stuff in NJ right now.

cosign - carton of milk is one of the best milk stouts i've ever had

http://beerlabelsinmotion.tumblr.com

Kind of neat: http://beerlabelsinmotion.tumblr.com/

― Jeff, Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:53 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
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oops!

Do you guys ever experiment with blends?

Not so much over the counter stuff like Three Philosophers but like things you've experimented with at home or at your local.

My local turned me onto a summertime quencher they deemed a "rojo"/"rohoe":

4-5 parts Hoegaarden topped off with whichever framboise lambic they are pouring.

After a long day in the sun it tastes pretty epic but struck me as kind of unique for a craft beer place to serve, although it's not on the menu.

there is this bar in providence called the duck and bunny that has a drink that combines guiness with other stuff, including soda and another kind of beer. it's the best.

this is what i'm talking about:

• {LAVALAMBP} ~ 8 •
Magners hard cider, floated by Guinness, refloated with Lindemans Lambic Framboise. Looks trippy. Tastes amazing.

xxp very rarely, only with black and tans featuring various combinations of dark beer and light beer, none of which have ever really surpassed classic b & t combinations, e.g. guiness and bass, etc.

i think i tried a combination of sierra nevada and some russian imperial stout, it wasn't very good and it hid the better qualities of both beers

oh shit, totally brain farted on black and tans, yikes.

Why I feel these could be interesting, I would worry too much about how I'm going to log it on untappd.

^^^shows you the last time I ordered one.

yea i haven't had a black and tan in years

apart from bottled ones like this: http://www.berkshirebrewingcompany.com/graphics/beer_labels_lg/shabadooNEW.jpg which is really good imo

I did mix that 120 min ipa and world wide stout that time.

whoa what was that like, even drinkable?

i've heard about that combo before. i've got a bottle of each aging and waiting to be mixed together

Don't know where else to mention this, but I saw the new Joe Swanberg movie Drinking Buddies last night (on Amazon Instant, though it'll be in theaters next month). It's a mostly improvised relationship drama about two couples (Olivia Wilde and Ron Livingston; Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson), with lots of inter-couple sexual tension. Pretty good, I thought, though I'm generally keen on that kind of thing. (And I haven't seen any of Swanberg's previous work.)

Anyway, mentioning here because Wilde and Johnson's characters work at Chicago's Revolution Brewing (she plans events, he brews the beer), and it's filmed on location at the actual facility. They drink plenty throughout the movie; I spotted bottles of Founders and Half Acre in various scenes, and Jason Sudeikis (who plays another brewery employee) mentions Three Floyds at one point. As someone who gets excited when Walter White drinks Fat Tire rather than Budweiser or fake TV beer, I was interested to see how this backdrop was handled, and it seemed pretty well-informed. I guess Swanberg is friends with some local brewers, who consulted on the film.