Beer in the new era

that SN mix is a great deal, even if i wasn't crazy about the wit.

IPA tasting this Saturday:

Knee Deep - Hopoholic 4IPA
Rip Current - Caught In A Rip 3IPA
Pliny The Elder - 2IPA
Alpine - Nelson IPA
Blind Pig - IPA

Sorry headache guys...

I had a glass of the Bruery Sour in the Rye today at Whole Foods and it was pretty good. And at $7 for a 10 oz pour cheaper than the bottle price. I also overheard they're getting Parabola in bottles tomorrow or Friday. Also heard someone say a couple of Costcos in the LA area had Parabola for $11 each.

nick, buy all the parabolas please!

Sour in the Rye is my favorite Bruery beer out of those that I've tried.

Happened to find a six of Zombie Dust this evening and it was 10% off day w/ college ID at my local store, made the standard slightly too high 3F price tag a little easier to swallow.

Sour in the Rye is great. I'd buy it every time I see a bottle, but it's just about $5 too much for me to do that.

Pliny The Elder - 2IPA

Lucky, lucky man. I've only had a small portion of this at a bottle share, but completely deserving of the hype imho.

Went nuts on the build your own at the beer store - here the list:

Victory dirtwolf
Ommegang glimmerglass spring saison
Stillwater Artisanal Folklore Stout
Stillwater Artisanal why can't IBU
Stillwater Artisanal stateside saison
Brau Brothers Paradox black ipa
Brau Brothers ALTernative imperial ale
Spike and Jerome's Barley Ryne
Mikkeller/Brew Dog I Hardcore you
Mikkeller Black Hole
Mikkeller soriacha ace single hop
Mikkeller Hop Burn

Worked a ridiculous deal on the mikkeller singles because they've been hanging out for a long while getting not bought, so they might be a little past due but whatever, $2 a bottle, which means all 4 cost me less than they usually would per single. Plus the coffee stout is basically a guaranteed win.

Btw, the ommegang glimmerglass is the shit, saison with sweet orange peel and pink peppercorns. It's amazing and you should probably just go buy some right now. I'm not even much of an ommegang fan most of the time but wow.

I just have to say once again that I'm so glad Surly is back in town, just so fucking solid.

sour in the rye is one of my favorite beers! at least one of my favorite commonly-available beers. i was gifted two (!) bottles of it recently, along with two (!) bottles of 2011 bourbonic plague (!!), a bottle of propolis granum (really great herbal sour), a bottle of the upright anniversary saison (made with apricot and aged in wine and gin barrels) and probably something else i'm forgetting

Pipeworks made a saison with pink peppercorns that was pretty damn good, now they've got one out with green peppercorns plus cucumber and celery seed. Haven't had it yet but I sent CAD a bottle in trade.

oh wow, that sounds delicious.

It's so easy to take all the commonly available good beer for granted but man, is there a ton of commonly available good beer! Golden age.

Especially around here. Not just local brews, but the distribution we receive is amazing.

peppercorn saisons are great, the elysian oddland is a nicely affordable option around here. also sasquatch is now making a szechuan peppercorn saison, which i need to try asap

I also overheard they're getting Parabola in bottles tomorrow or Friday. Also heard someone say a couple of Costcos in the LA area had Parabola for $11 each.

― nickn, Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Score! Bought two (their max/customer) at $16/ea. May stop by after work to see if any's left.

Local any-day-now seasonal excitement is Bell's Black Note. I'm intrigued by the deconstructed night at Binny's:

http://www.binnys.com/blog/lincoln-park-tasting-room-presents-bells-black-note-deconstructed/

Black note is going to be a tough one to get. Harder than KBS, for sure.

It may be. But 180 cases shipped to Chicago (apparently) doesn't sound so bad.

Just last year my friend found a few on a shelf. At a Binny's!

I didn't even get a sniff of one last year. I've only had it once, way back at FOBAB in 2011. It was one of the last samples I tried that night and I could barely walk/talk/breath/comprehend what was going on. I think I liked it.

How many bottles in a case? 24? So 4320 bottles for the entire Chicagoland area?

So I went to a beer tasting thing at a friend's house a couple weeks ago, where a bunch of people brought a couple of bombers to share. Not to complain too much, because I definitely had some pretty great stuff, but at least half the beers that people brought were imperial stouts, and it just sort of became tiresome after a while. I don't dislike that style, but I hate how beer-geek culture holds up big, boozy stouts (and to a lesser extent IPAs) as, like, the pinnacle of beer. For instance, 9 of the top 20 beers on BeerAdvocate right now are imperial stouts. And for a tasting, I'd rather try lots of different styles than one rich beer after another. (Btw, I brought Une Annee Sanguinaire and Pipeworks Nagami Equinox, both of them Belgian-style ales brewed with citrus but otherwise fairly distinct.)

Now I'm trying to remember what I've offered you at my place. I know we've done some heavy stouts, Backyard Rye comes to mind. Next time you're just getting Shocktop.

Now that my old man has had a sniff of KBS I'm gonna sic him on the Black Note :D

Xpost We also had a bourbon county coffee. All wasted on JAYMC.

When I get home I'm pulling all the stats on beers I've given to jaymc.

jaymcbeers.xls?

I imagine Imperial Stouts, particularly those that are barrel aged, are so well regarded because they do seem like special occasion beers. You can sit on them for a couple of years, or serve them almost in lieu of dessert. They take more effort to brew, they aren't always widely distributed, they're often seasonal and/or limited. And they often taste very good! But yeah, I can see them getting tiresome. Just as double IPAs can kill your mouth, these heavy stouts get to be a bit like drinking brownies and eating cigars. A little bit (can) go a long way. They're awesome beers to share.

yeah i think a lot of what you said is true about any big/boozy beer tho? i wonder why so many have praised imperial stouts as opposed to quads/strong belgians or barrel-aged barleywines &c

Head start maybe? Barleywine seems to be surging.

i could see that. imperial stouts are pretty accessible to anyone who has tried guiness

OK, I believe I can think of three times when I've shared with beers with jaymc that consisted of more than your normal fridge beers. Most of these were provided by me, but a few were during a bottle share so others may have brought them. They are:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/13767870155_b5de578416_c.jpg

Decent mix, right?

xps it does seem like sessionable beers are now a thing in the beer geekosphere, probably as a reaction to the stranglehold higher abv stuff has on the scene

berliner weisses ftw!

That's a pretty good mix. Although I think I could do like one smoked beer a year though, not my thing.

Back to what PG says: full flavor with sessionable ABV is a definite thing. I remember on 4th of July last year I was dying in triple degree heat and for lunch the server recommended Citra Session by Green Flash. That was a big reveal to me where the market was going, when you can get a 5% to taste like the 7-8%ers... lots of dry-hopping I imagine.

Thought this list was interesting for a pre-"new era" take on USA craft brewing:

Michael Jackson's top 10 American beers (2002)

Tupper's Hop Pocket Pils (Old Dominion, Ashburn, Virginia).
St. Victorious (Victory, Downingtown, Pennsylvania).
Black Chocolate Stout (Brooklyn, New York).
Dortmunder Gold (Great Lakes, Cleveland, Ohio).
Expedition Stout (Kalamazoo, Michigan).
Belgian-style Red, Cherry Beer (New Glarus, Wisconsin).
La Folie (New Belgium, Fort Collins, Colorado).
Anchor Steam Beer (San Francisco, California).
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Chico, California).
BridgePort India Pale Ale (Portland, Oregon).

Be sure to read the full article (it's not long, it's a nifty little time-warp):
http://beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001726.html

Interesting how San Diego's rise to prominence is basically <10 years in the making.

do beerfolk respect stone still?

xp Also this is pretty great+timeless, "The Jackson FIVE" for Playboy:

http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001510.html

Stone makes some of the better IPAs in the USA imho.

Enjoy By, Stone IPA and Ruination are all fantastic, they put out quite a bit of experimental stuff that seems to miss the mark, but their flagship beers are all recommended.

Had no idea la folie was so old!

BTW, remember my trip to Wisconsin, where I bought beer? Well, I did. In my haul was a six-pack of one of the one-off foil-topped New Glarus brews, the spiced ale. It was really gross. I liked the big fruity beers I got, though, though they were barely beer. Can imagine serving them in the summer.

ty. Stone IPA is pretty ubiquitous here and I enjoy it. Love the ballast point stuff I've had on tap as well.

Not to complain too much, because I definitely had some pretty great stuff, but at least half the beers that people brought were imperial stouts, and it just sort of became tiresome after a while. I don't dislike that style, but I hate how beer-geek culture holds up big, boozy stouts (and to a lesser extent IPAs) as, like, the pinnacle of beer.

i've thought about this a lot and i definitely agree with you to an extent. essentially higher abv allows for flavor development--that's how ppl learn to identify hop profiles, barrel aging, the effect of coffee and other flavorings, etc. contrarians can talk all they want about the subtleties present in some random belgian wit or english pale ale but it's totally logical why bigger beers float to the top of ratings--they're going to have more flavor variation.

the more present issue is that imperial stouts and dipas aren't particularly hard to make so every brewery has one. if sours and wilds were easy produce we'd be complaining about fatigue for those, probably.

On the other hand, the barrel aging seem to be really taxing on breweries. Heard the Founders guys say how they basically take one week off to bottle KBS, get as much of it out as they can, they immediately have to move on to their other commitments. Then there's the matter of simply having enough space to store the beers as they age, and all the chances for contamination (looking at you, Central Waters) ...

Off load the brewing of your regular lineup to ab-InBev and you'll have plenty of room for barrels!

Yeah, smooth move, Goose Island. Though ironically I had a harder time finding BCBS this year than last, with this being the second year of upped production. I guess wider distribution helped/hurt.

Thought this list was interesting for a pre-"new era" take on USA craft brewing:

Michael Jackson's top 10 American beers (2002)

Tupper's Hop Pocket Pils (Old Dominion, Ashburn, Virginia).
St. Victorious (Victory, Downingtown, Pennsylvania).
Black Chocolate Stout (Brooklyn, New York).
Dortmunder Gold (Great Lakes, Cleveland, Ohio).
Expedition Stout (Kalamazoo, Michigan).
Belgian-style Red, Cherry Beer (New Glarus, Wisconsin).
La Folie (New Belgium, Fort Collins, Colorado).
Anchor Steam Beer (San Francisco, California).
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Chico, California).
BridgePort India Pale Ale (Portland, Oregon).

Be sure to read the full article (it's not long, it's a nifty little time-warp):
http://beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001726.html

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, April 10, 2014 8:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not to be a pendant but 2002 is definitely "new era" - none of the breweries in the last are older than the 1980s except for anchor. the brewing golden age we have now is because all those breweries in the list 'launched' the new era

*list, not last