Beer in the new era

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

yeah i know what al means tho--that's a list from before anyone put a stout in a bourbon barrel and before west coast-style ipas had become the juggernaut they are now.

yea fair enough. my point aside, it sure seemed like a simpler time, didn't it? i remember when my brother first gave me a SN pale ale when i was 19 or so, i was blown away!

also as a teenager i had worked in a grocery store in cleveland during the 1990s and stole sixes of great lakes :(

it turned me on to craft brewing but that really wasn't cool

I first had Bell's at a classmate's high school graduation party in 1996. His father had done some sculpture work for the brewery and he was paid in beer.

I think the first "craft" beer I had that wasn't Anchor was a Bridgeport stout in 1990, I was similarly blown away. Back then in Oregon it was just Red Hook, Sierra Nevada, Bridgeport and Deschutes (maybe Full Sail too).

it sure seemed like a simpler time, didn't it?

oh god yes. i probably started drinking beer around when that list came out. up in mass we didn't have a strong regional craft offering--there was sam adams of course but in my mind growing up sam was like a yuppie cookout beer. i was probably looking around on the web for advice and a lot of my early purchases were belgians. i remember getting arrogant bastard bombers and being amazed at how good they were.

yea stone was on a whole other level

In 2002, I bought a 15 gallon keg of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for a birthday party and it was $115 (after deposit).

12 years later, I think they run $180.

In high school, we would visit our older friends down at IU bloomington when they had a party. Upland Wheat Ale was the only microbrew around and we all thought it was amazing. There are 4 more breweries open there now!

hey I went to IU, represent

in the 80's the best beer there was Christian Moerleim (sp?), lol

I was there in 2008 and I knew the craft beer takeover was complete when one of those bars on South Walnut had Stone IPA on tap.

lol i went to school in firestone-walker territory and had no idea they were such a big deal until i moved away

DBA is everywhere

x-p Parabola in the school cafeteria?

btw, I found another Parabola at Bevmo yesterday, am wondering if it's worth checking the other Bevmo after work today.

I think the first fancy beer I had was when I was 18, backstage at a Phish show (I won some raffle at the show, it was awkward and I only hung out for like ten minutes) at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor in April of 1993. It was either a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or an Anchor Steam, and I remember thinking it was incredibly bitter and dense and I didn't like it at all.

great lakes chillwave is super good this year imo

One of the many things I love about blind tastings:

The 2014 World Beer Cup awards have just been released and the silver medal winner judged out of over 100 of the best Imperial IPAs in the world is:

A) From Ensenada, Mexico
B) Has ZERO beer advocate reviews, just one mention in the forums
C) Has TWO rate beer reviews, **both average**, one in English and one in Spanish

It's called Astillero from Mala Agua Cerveceria (Bad Water Brewing):
http://aguamala.com.mx/?page_id=78&lang=en

^Agua Mala

Hahaha this spike & Jerome's I got in that build your own frenzy is fucked up, if this kills me tonight tell everyone I love them.

Description on the bottle: "2/3 ale 1/3 ale aged in rum oak barrels. Barley Ryne. Ingredients: Swiss mountain water, barley and rye malt, hint of hops, yeast. 2011."

Thing in my glass: zero carbonation, throat burn, tongue itch, horseblanket, oily something, soured somewhere between grand cru and des jacobins, but closer to the jacobins. Pray for me.

It is not, per se, good.

so i finished that SN four-way IPA twelve pack and i felt like i needed a break from IPAs super-hoppy beers. it's also spring now and the weather was super warm this weekend, so i didn't want an imperial stout or anything really heavy and dark. i was pretty much looking for a bock. a good springtime beer. it was surprisingly hard to find anything! i mean like 90% of the shelves were IPAs, double IPAs, black IPAs, hopped-up pilsners, imperial stouts, barrel-aged imperial stouts. oh, i guess wheat beers, too, but as i mentioned upthread i generally think the dry-tasting american wheats are not very good.

i think this is kind of fucked up. i look at that michael jackson list from 2002 and see a lot more diversity in style, despite it being a simpler time:

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

by the way i did find two bocks on the shelves - troegs the cultivator helles bock, which i ended up buying. it's really good and was perfect to have on a warm spring night on my back porch. the other one was berkshire maibock, which i've had before and is also really good. it was so nice to have a different style.

troegs makes great bocks ime

I actually ran out of a beer/food store the other day because their beer guy was so overbearing. I really just wanted to browse and he popped out and asked what kind of beer I wanted and I said "sours" because I hadn't actually decided and he started rattling off the tasting notes on like 15 different sour beers and I finally just whipped out my phone and was like "Oh shit, I have to run out, how late are you open dude I'll be back later"

haha

i always refuse help from the beer store.

"no thanks, i'm good"

Haven't been beer shopping in a couple of weeks due to extreme business but both my usual stops had at least 10 Parabolas apiece on Saturday. Not sure how long they've been around, I only bought one.

Also there seems to be a sudden influx of low-alcohol / session style IPAs and Pale Ales around, like everyone suddenly got fed up with boozy double IPAs and imperial stouts and such.

I really like the SN session IPA, you guys were right. I actually felt like I enjoyed the taste of the hops much more without all the booze

It's also probably due to warmer weather coming.

I had two bottles of the Central Waters Hop Rise session beer on Friday and was very pleased, wasn't actually expecting much and they were great.

Also there seems to be a sudden influx of low-alcohol / session style IPAs and Pale Ales around, like everyone suddenly got fed up with boozy double IPAs and imperial stouts and such.

yea, but i wish it wasn't just like, another IPA on the shelf! i love IPAs but sometimes i feel like brewers don't make anything else

I had a brief dalliance with the new crop of session IPA's, but I think I'm pretty much over them. Problem is so many of them come in 6 packs, and I never want 6 packs. I'd much prefer to get 4 pack cans. By the time I drink six of them, they're a month old and sort of meh.

no beer for me for the next 8 days. instead i have this bottle of fig arak to drink. rip mordy :(

ha, yesterday I had the extremly though: "Hmm, I wonder how you would make Kosher for Pesach beer...oh wait, you wouldn't."

xxp I agree, and furthermore they're still priced the same as regular IPAs for the most part, so it feels like a little bit of a rip-off to pay the same for less bang. Where I love the sessionable stuff is out at the bar, where it typically is priced a little more reasonably and where keeping my wits about me is a little more important.

Passover beer has also proven a boon to another beer-thirsty constituency, long deprived of the ability to quaff a good lager. The protein complex found in wheat, rye, and barley is known as gluten, which becomes part of grain-based beer. Many people cannot tolerate gluten in their diet because they suffer from a condition known as celiac disease or other forms of gluten intolerance, and have therefore long been deprived of the ability to drink conventional beer. Passover beer, however, contains no grain, and is therefore gluten-free. It is perfectly suited for anyone who must avoid gluten, allowing all to enjoy a good brew regardless of their gluten sensitivity.

The confluence of the needs to these two constituencies — Passover observant and gluten free — has served to open a new market for beer, and members of both communities now have the opportunity to partake of a product that had previously been off-limits.

also i'd guess sephardim can drink rice beer.

this might be blasphemy on this thread but my reaction to not wanting something too hoppy or rich or w/e is to just drink a nice dry cider? imo the more of these we get on the market that don't taste like candy, the better our collective hearts, minds, and gastrointestinal systems will fare

i'm with y'all on ambivalence abt session ipas, none of the ones i've tried have been bad but i don't see them fitting into my regular rotation

Def. a cider resurgence in effect, though I'm not sure it's really taken hold, as much as new bottles keep hitting the shelves.

this might be blasphemy on this thread but my reaction to not wanting something too hoppy or rich or w/e is to just drink a nice dry cider? imo the more of these we get on the market that don't taste like candy, the better our collective hearts, minds, and gastrointestinal systems will fare

― hug niceman (psychgawsple), Monday, April 14, 2014 1:34 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tremendous post--there's just not enough regularly available dry cider around here