Beer in the new era

Def. debates about degree of "infection" every year, says a google search. Certainly that would explain why coffee, which is usually not tooooo hard to find, was a no-show lots of places. My local Binnys, the gen manager was complaining to me about the lack of coffee. He had to show up early for the early birds to sell them the Goose Island, and they were all bummed that the good stuff was not in the shipment. I have a few friends who, like me, don't really care for the standard BCBS, but go gaga over the coffee.

Ha, I was able to get one single bottle of BCBCS. I had to choose between it and barleywine. I really want to try the barleywine, but I was drawn to fresh bourbon county coffee, which is one of the best things ever.

OMFG I could drink this forever. Until I pass out with bourbon county rings around my mouth.

my one friend around here who got coffee so far said they killed it this year.

i can enjoy some bourbon county, but can't imagine wanting to drink it year round, or even more than one or two bottles a year.
to each his own.

stouts i have been enjoying:
maine brewing co. 'mean old tom' (v nice stout aged over vanilla beans. yum. vanilla taste is very subtle and pleasant.)
darkhorse brewing co. 'one oatmeal stout'
sierra nevada narwhal.

i want to try evil twin's 'christmas eve in a new york city hotel room' (shitty name) but it's too expensive.

you're not missing anything imo

I kind of dig that name, much better than another pun about hops

I am drinking a BC barleywine, wondering what kind of bourbon barrels they use.

Heaven Hill, I believe.

If that's the case I hope this is Evan Williams Single Barrel barleywine.

Bengali Tiger is def one of my favorite everyday IPAs.

I prob could've picked up some BCBS on Friday, but I'm still not sure I care enough about it...

All this talk of barrel aging made me stop by Bevmo on the way home. Picked up a Boulevard Brewing Co (Kansas City, MO) and Sierra Nevada collab called Terra Incognita. It's an ale that's barrel aged for three months. Haven't opened it yet. Anyone have experience with Boulevard? They had a few other types from them.

I now got at least a bottle of BCBS 09, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Ready to do a vertical tasting.

Vertical tasting? Uh, I believe it's called a "beeramid."

boulevard is pretty hit or miss for me. the terra incognita didnt hit me in the rigth spot, but it certainly wasnt a bad beer - i think they overstated the sour aspect, its def more of the funky banyard vibe wrt wild ales

went home to the midwest for thanksgiving and my brother treated me to some wonderful beers:

bell's expedition stout
epic big bad baptist stout imperial stout
north coast barrel-aged old rasputin -- always one of my favorite stouts, the barrel-aged version was fucking incredible
columbus ipa

and my mom treated me a six of great lakes christmas ale. a little too sweet but it's kind of a tradition to have it this time of year when i go home to cleveland so i enjoyed it.

back in new england i've really been enjoying baxter brewing co. from maine. hayride autumn ale is awesome, full flavored, murky rye ale with lots of oak taste. it's such a good beer, i don't know why they would limit its marketing potential by calling it an autumn ale. baxter's stowaway ipa is really good too.

morning haul

http://i42.tinypic.com/hvz720.jpg

nice work

Not bad! Did it take effort, or were they relatively easy to come by? You're in Philly, right?

yeah I'm in Philly and it was very easy. My local bottle shop got them in and we r buddies so I just dropped by at opening

It seems impossible to really get anything by knowing shop owners here. I buy a ton of beer. But so do all the other beer nerds in this huge city that also know the shop owners. Maybe I'm just not sociable.

I also don't have one shop, I usually go to 5 or 6 different places, depending on where I am in the city. Maybe if I had one shop where I got everything it would be different.

Managed to get two four packs of Bourbon County Stout and one of the Barleywine. Hoping to get a hold of some of the coffee, but that doesn't appear to have hit the area. Yet, anyway.

i go to this particular shop 2-3 times a week and i'm friendly w/ a bunch of the employees. also it's outside the city in the suburbs so it doesn't have the same traffic as a philly bottle shop.

being cool with the owner definitely scored us some extra BCBS coffees.

what are ppl saying about aging these? i know coffee is supposed to be drunk right away, and the regular can be aged - how about the other variants?

The regular and barleywine both say on the pack they can be aged up to 5 years. Don't know what the ideal drinking time would be tho.

It seems impossible to really get anything by knowing shop owners here. I buy a ton of beer. But so do all the other beer nerds in this huge city that also know the shop owners. Maybe I'm just not sociable.

Yeah, I don't know how this actually works around here either. I know that it seems to work well for a friend of mine, but he is super secretive about which shop. All I know is, he is regulary posting pictures on Instagram of his haul before it's supposedly available (i.e. he had pictures of BCBS up on Thanksgiving morning) - which is a whole other thing I don't want to get into now, but it pisses me off how much of this stuff goes on and how little of available stock actually ends up being on sale when its supposed to. Anyway, digression done. This friend of mine makes really good money and I wouldn't be shocked if he regularly drops a couple hundred bucks a week at the shop he uses. I have a kid, so that's not in the cards for me, so I'll just have to rely on what I can scrounge up when I have time and money.

But super nice haul Mordy! I'm jealous that you found some coffee.

Maybe I'm just not sociable.

this is def most of my problem, but all the shops i hit regularly are in the city and ppl who work there aren't gonna be able to bro down with every beer nerd who'd be looking for a favor.

also some places (eg tired hands) are immune to being charmed, no matter how sparkling your personality

I wouldn't be shocked if he regularly drops a couple hundred bucks a week

wow, how much beer can he possibly drink per week?

maybe don't answer that.

Eh, he's actually not the big of a drinker, def more of the hoarder type. He really likes to show off his collection and post pictures of the industrial style beer fridge he installed in his basedment. But, in his defense, he's also super giving and freely shares his great scores, so it's hard to hold too much of a grudge.

have any of you guys seen any of the new terrapin stuff? like White Chocolate Moo-Hoo, or the Cinnamon Roll'd WnB Coffee Oatmeal ImperialStout? nb about 99% of my interest in the WnB bottles is bc 420 4eva

Yeah, if you're spending a couple of hundred a week, you're either hoarding or trading a lot.

but all the shops i hit regularly are in the city and ppl who work there aren't gonna be able to bro down with every beer nerd who'd be looking for a favor.

Yep. You have basically four types of shops here: 1) Binny's, who usually get the biggest stock, but everyone goes too so you get the lines of people hundreds deep. 2) The specialty wine/beer shops where all the nerds try and bro down with. 3) Your corner liquor stores that gouge prices or do some annoying stuff like making you buy a bottle of something else if you also want to get a special release. 4) Grocery stores, mostly Whole Foods and Jewel. Availability varies with them, sometimes they get a lot, sometimes not, nearly impossible to bro down with anyone there, they never communicate when they get stuff.

those modern times cans have the most appealing design - do they taste as good as they look?

Here's how it generally appears to work, btw, for any limited release product (beer and bourbon and whatnot) out in the 'burbs, or at least inner burbs. (I'm focusing on Binny's, because they get the most product, and also out of the city, because the city is where you get 300 crazy people lining up at opening.) I know for a fact the managers of my local Binny's tell their staff that when the stuff comes in, whatever it is, it is absolutely not to be put out on the shelf. It goes straight to either the safe or otherwise stowed away until the manager comes in later that day or the next day. The manager then figures out how much there is, and next may or may not hold tight until regular customers or polite people who have expressed interest stop by to see what's up; they generally get first shot. But after that the stuff they have more of is pretty much up for grabs, though still often stowed away. One of my local stops had both 10 and 12-year Van Winkle and regular BCBS behind the counter; all one had to do was ask.

White Chocolate Cinnamon Roll Coffee Oatmeal...?

ffs you guys are worse than housewives at Starbucks.

Also, long term storage of bottle-capped bottles is not a good idea unless you believe that degradation of flavor/quality is part of the "aging process". Corked beers are your friends for aged beers, I guess you could dip the bottle top in hot wax if you were in a pinch.

yeah, nothing worse than coffee drinking housewives, amirite?

Nothing wrong with that at all, can I get you another salted caramel peppermint candy cane stout?

i'll try anything once that isn't made from some guy's beard yeast, or called chocolate peanut butter bacon donut stout

lol i had to search this thread to remind myself of this longstanding and bizarre strawman you have re: other folks' taste xp

Yep, that's me, the Chris Ott of the new-era beer thread.

let me know when i can expect your ranked list of each enjoy by release of 2013.

lolz all round

It's Miller time.

One of my local stops had both 10 and 12-year Van Winkle and regular BCBS behind the counter; all one had to do was ask.

Binnys in Lakeview had a sign on the door "WE DO NOT HAVE ANY PAPPY".

on friday i called one store and said "heyyyy..." and the dude said "yeah, we got it, come on down."