Beer in the new era

Also wrt oyster stouts, the 21st amendment marooned on hog island is stellar

Porterhouse oyster stout is great.

based on memory the worst beers i've ever had have been the mcmenamins ruby ale (raspberry grossness), bridgeport hop czar (flirting with the grey area between double ipas and malt liquor) and this thing i had tonight from otherwise excellent brewery block 15, love potion #9 (more raspberry grossness, tasted like taking a rip from a hookah)

also had pliny the younger tonight! it was... good! i'm pretty glad i tried it, but it is far from my favorite of its style. it's impressively smooth and balanced, but it didn't really have that bold kick that you get from the more assertive double/triple ipas that can really set them apart if they have the right hop palette. i can see the extreme level of craft that goes into that type of drink, the almost complete lack of a nose is mind boggling considering how many hops went into that thing, and maybe i'm crazy but i kind of missed that awesome intense smell. i can see why something like that would impress a lot of people though, it really is pretty refined

21st Amendment (now that you mention it) watermelon beer was the worst for me (Magic Hat #9 a close second). When you buy a maple donut, mint chocolate, etc, type beer you know what you're getting into, so you only have yourself to blame.

Yeah 21st amendment hell or high watermelon made me avoid them for years, but that is super unrepresentative of the rest of their beers. But it is stunningly awful.

There was discussion of Ballast Point Calico a ways back. I tried it last weekend and i echo the rave reviews. An excellent pale ale. Not sure that BP can do any wrong.

multiple xposts southern tier is generally pretty excellent, though i tend to stick to styles i know i'm going to like (christmas ales generally not being a style i like, with a couple exceptions). 2xone (brewed with one type of malt, one type of hop, etc) is in my fridge right now and is pretty great. their old man winter ale is fucking awesome, probably one of the best winter ale/strong ale types i've had in a long time.

worst beer i had in recent memory was a milk stout at some newish brewpub in brattleboro, VT, (not mcneill's, that place is amazing), it was flat and dull and fucking terrible.

milk stouts in general are not my thing

i'd rather have an oatmeal or imperial stout

I'm not a huge milk stout fan but recently had 4 Hands Brewing Chocolate Milk Stout. It was fantastic. Really roasty/chocolatey, but not overly sweet.

Lancaster Brewing put out a double chocolate stout recently that I thought was delicious.

Wisconsin, you're getting Solomon Oath http://www.brewbound.com/news/2014/solemn-oath-brewery-to-expand-distribution-to-wisconsin

oh WAIT i forgot all about drinking dark horse uber boober (a cream ale made using baby formula instead of lactose, served via breast pump) at some beeradvocate fest a couple years ago. jesus christ.

^ terrible name, terrible concept, terrible way to serve a beer... really covering all the bases there

o_O

pro tip btw: do NOT gis "uber boober" at work

Served via breast pump seems like it would be impossible to forget!

hahahaha

that sounds terrible

I should clarify that I did NOT buy a bottle of bacon maple lager, but I did have the misfortune of tasting it at a pub flight night like the example above, wtf was I thinking

^ lol. multiple times people (usually visitors who don't know any better) have shown up to dinner parties with one of those things and everyone tries to be polite, "oh, cool... thanks", someone inevitably opens the thing and pours one glass, and the rest of the bottle sits untouched for the rest of the night

KBS tickets on sale in 5 minutes. I've got a beer mule in grand rapids that will get me the allotment, assuming I can get a ticket. Which will probably sell out in less than a minute.

When does it go on sale here, again?

10 AM

Oh, you mean the bottles actually here? It varies. Stores get them at different days/times.

March 18th at Founders though.

Got my ticket. Nice that I won't have to hunt one down this year.

Picked up a bottle of Surly/3floyds/Real Ale BLAKKR. One of the better black IPAs I've had but I still don't particularly understand the style, I don't think.

I have one in the fridge. Black IPA is just a hoppy dark beer to me. That sometimes tastes a little roasty. Not a particularly exciting style, but there have been several I've liked a lot. Really liked the Begyle/Dry Hop collab Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts. Wooky Jack too.

Definitely hoping to taste the BLAKKR, there was a thing on the Decibel blog about that and it sounded pretty interesting.

out here we call them Cascadian Dark Ales, Oakshire makes one that is pretty good. My take was always "all the hop flavor along with nice dark notes, without the body of a stout or porter". When I've brewed this style, you use a little bit of very dark-roasted grains to give a disproportionately dark flavor w/o the full grain body.

Thanks to the poster who recommended the Otter Creek Citra Mantra. Awesome citrus-y hops taste in a light-bodied pilsner style. Very quaffable.

xps to j/v/c there were 2-3 cases of it on the floor at the Jefferson/Roosevelt Binny's on Saturday.

Yeah I see tons of "cascadian dark ales" around, haven't tried the Oakshire one yet but I'm not too huge into this style. I like porters and stouts that have a lot of body and not much hoppiness, so these never really sound great to me.

FWIW from Founders' website regarding non-GR KBS release: "KBS will still be released starting on April 1 in limited quantities throughout our distribution footprint."

for whatever reason the flavor of rye seems to make black ipas/cascadian dark ales pop a bit more, wooky jack is a fine example of this. the balance has to be like sleeve described, mostly hops but with a bit of grains to emphasize certain flavors. a lot of times brewers go overboard with the dark grains and it becomes super bitter

just learned about this site yesterday: http://www.barnivore.com/

i'm not vegan by any stretch, but i'm impressed at how extensive their database is!

BLAKKR seemed to be a good combo of hoppy and roasty. The initial flavor was almost all hops and the finish was almost all roast, like one of those flavor-changing gums/candies of yesteryear. I just don't know if shoving those two flavors together is a thing I like or not.

i was curious abt blakker right up to the point where i saw the almost $20 price for a 4 pack of it

Oh see here it was in 22oz bombers for like $10.

...not that that's any better really :P

I didn't realize GL Alchemy Hour is called Chillwave this year. Chillwave.

Yeah! Saw it at the store and lolled.

http://blog.centralwaters.com/?m=1

rip peruvian morning?

well, good for them for finally owning up i guess

Hope the fix it. Such a good beer when fresh.

Yeah, at least they're being transparent. Bummer. I'll be in Wisconsin this weekend and had that on my radar.

BBBW is still stellar.

That was in the fall, though, right?

Nah, this month. It's been hitting stores, but not sticking around very long.

Actually, last month:

http://centralwaters.com/beers/pdf/2013ProductionSchedule.pdf