Beer in the new era

(i would actually consider BBC for the wedding but the reception venue will only do bottles, for some reason, and bbc only does the 22 oz bombers. i'd defintely prefer kegs in any case but no big deal)

i've been returning this week to the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. Much more drinkable than the Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, in which you can really taste the alcohol.

hay dudes just went to a bar on 4th ave full of horrible micro brews you wouldve loved it - did u know theres a type of beer served warm and flat on purpose - btw max they had settlers of catan there

http://www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com

Thursday, April 2nd @ 8 PM in the Pub Room

An Evening With North Coast Brewing

Featuring Barrel-Aged Old Rasputin XI on Draught!

This is going to be awesome. This is like the only positive thing about living in the Chicago suburbs.

aw icey thank u 4 thinkin of me

i think warm flat beer is called british beer?

warm flat beer is great u guys are crazy

i live in london btw

i dig the occasional warm flat beer; better than the endless succession of IPGayz that they probably run through that place.

i think warm flat beer is called british beer?

no it's called British ale. don't besmirch beer by relating it to that vile shit.

Southern British Ale please, up North we have heads on our beers.

the whole pump that evokes the milking of a cow would put anyone off ale.

mind you Guinness is best room temp and flat

the warm flat beer is called cask beer and i was unaware that i was ordering from that section of the menu - i mean i didnt see that it said cask beer but also i wouldnt have known what that meant - it shouldve said "cask beer (warm flat beer)"

people should really deal w/their personal issues before ordering a beer imo

horrible beer is more of a public health issue really

cask ales are pretty dope, there are a few bars in l.a. that always have one on tap.

icey what is yr favorite beer then?

cask ales are pretty dope, there are a few bars in l.a. that always have one on tap.

I had a good local craft beer (don't remember what it was) at El Prado in Echo Park a couple weeks ago -- have you been to that place?

some brewery around there in east LA produces them--i cant remember the name of it but they always had one at the york.

i like tons beers im really into the pinkus pils right now - old reliables paulaner pacifico - i buy pilsner urquel as far as beers that can be found anywhere xp

Ha, I had some people over the other night and someone brought Pilsner Urquell and there was a discussion about whether it was skunked, and I took a sip and was like, "No, that's just how it tastes."

i think it's craftsman that is always on cask at the york? yeah el prado is pretty dope, vv good bar. probably my favorite beer bar in town, despite having a comparatively small selection and virtually no food.

xp yeah i kinda stopped drinking urquell for that reason but i'll still cave and buy stella every once in a while.

ever drink jever its like urquell but more

no i haven't--don't recognize the bottle actually. but i feel like drinking some pils today so i'm gonna try to track it down.

cask ales are great! ur crazy ice cr?m

not all are great, i should say. but a traditional stout, porter or strong ale or something on cask is delicious

i went to delaney's tap room, in new haven CT, two times this weekend. they had an IPA on cask and it really didn't seem very appealing.

plz explain to me what the desirable qualities of cask beer are - i mean it just seemed flat and warm

well, if it was actually WARM, then the pub you went to isn't serving it totally right. should ideally be around 50 degrees, though anywhere from 45-60 is okay.

but in any case, the beer's flavor profile will be a lot more pronounced if tasted around 50 degrees. you'll get more the of subtleties and layers of flavours than you would from an ice-cold beer.

also, re: it tasting "flat" -- carbonation even in microbrews isn't a totally natural occurence -- towards the end of the brewing process a lot of breweries stick this rod-thing into a tank that emits carbon into the beer

but yea if you really are into pilsners and similar beers, cask-conditioned ales will seem pretty off.

are you into stouts or strong ales at all?

yah mean it wasnt completely room temperature it was slightly cool - but are there any particular qualities of cask beer that dont have to do w/it being naturally carbonated and served not that cold

im not really into stouts or strong ales particularly - tho maybe on occasion - def not any of this double ipa concentrated beer noise

xp - one quality of cask ales is that they tend to be fresher -- they're not filtered, still contain yeast, and fermentation is still going on in the cask

all that contributes to a more pronounced flavors

tbh though i'm no brewer and i could be fucking up everything i'm saying

to me the most decent thing a cask ale can do is be a good mild UK-style bitter with really low carbonation (i drink beer in spite of the carb and avoid soda like the plague tbh).

the original (UK) concept of an IPA is not that fucked, and normal-tasting UK ales are not really big in the USA--where somehow we twisted them into ridic double IPAs which make you want to pass out about 3/4 way through glass #1.

cask is an old school style right

yea

double IPAs either seem to get a ton of shit or else dorks claim they're the ONLY REAL BEER & all else is for pussies

my feeling is they're just one style & in the right circumstance they can be pretty tasty. they're are so many awesome and delicious styles of beer though and i don't want to limit myself to just one of them

^^^ great attitude

joe you could learn something from mark--i bet he doesnt even care if people went to space

(i was once one of those dorks tbf)

see the thing that kinda gets my goat abt the micro brew culture is so much of it seems to be abt the miutea of the process over the more subjective qualities of flavor and style. add the extreme double bock gracious! crazy ingredients n strong flavors at the expense of subtlety aspect and thats why imo it appeals to dudes so much. also their bottle labels are why so universally awful.

but maybe i care too much... my heart is too big and judgmental

my greatest beer experience recently was enjoying copious amounts of barleywine in SF in february. excellent, A+.

shut up and drink xp

will not

do a cask ale keg stand

i'm not sure it's so much "loss of subtlety" as much as like, we know lagers in general have a simpler palette than these super-heavy ales, but it's totally valid for beer to be cold and refreshing and something that you want to drink multiple bottles of. like those beer rating sites are a joke because certain styles start with a massive built-in advantage.

i think a lot of people go through a beer dork phase, i did a bit in lol college. but then i started to think why would i ever want beer to be like fucking wine and bought a case of red stripe. don't get me wrong i still love trying new/weird beers but it's more of an occasional treat than a life directive.

in general i think there's only a few american IPAs worth a damn. the new sierra nevada torpedo is pretty good if you only have one.

sry that got really long cause you guys kept writing good stuff. icey you are like 100000x OTM re: label designs. there are several brands i won't even try cause the design is so bad.