Beer in the new era

I like the av gose. It's been a little difficult to come by though.

i feel v. left out this year b/c i don't really care for goses :/

could definitely see why some aren't stoked on gose as a style, i guess i'm just kinda excited that there is a sour-ish thing being ditributed on that level

but yeah i'm seeing it pretty much everywhere they have other av beers

Went to a talk last night as part of craft beer week. Brewers from Off Color, Penrose, & Perennial talking about the creative process and how they decide how to make beers. It was interesting, especially since those breweries aren't ones that put out a million DIPA's or RIS's. Also did some mixing with tea, extracts, various spices in a berliner weisse and belgian single. I was really bad at it. I'm glad other people make beer and not me.

"Also did some mixing with tea, extracts, various spices in a berliner weisse"

Some Germans (not sure how beer geeky they were, but hell, they were Germans who have drank beer since birth?) I know were curious at the emergence of Berliner Weisse as a style in the US last summer and asked me why we don't squirt the green and blue colored syrups in it like they do.

Yeah, I definitely prefer BW's without anything in them. A lot of times you lose that nice tartness.

I bought a 4pk of Tyranena Hop Whore double IPA last night and in addition to the terrible name, it just really isn't very good. I got through one and a half and dumped the rest of the second bottle. Too thick, seemingly bitter for bitter's sake, very little balance. No idea how that shit got a 90 on BA, although I am formulating a theory that seasonals sold in 4pks score higher based on those two factors alone before the bottle is even opened.

all DIPAs get at least a 90 on Beer Advocate, that's just how it goes.

yes

if you see one with a score in the 80s it is essentially going to be as tasty as lukewarm bathwater.

...and if it's lower than a 98 on rate beer, avoid at all costs.

I didn't pick it based on its BA rating, fwiw, but I've gotten in the habit of googling beers I haven't tried before and the BA rating is almost always at the top of the results. The barrel-aged porter I had from Tyranena was pretty good and it was another of these seasonal 4pk things, so I was hoping for a lot better out of this IPA based on that.

i wasn't going to bother braving the crowds for tired hands 2 year anniversary this year but this taplist is making me very tempted:

SaisonHands
Only Void (Imperial Stout)
St. Twoer (Our 2nd Anniversary Citrus Galaxy/Nelson/Simcoe IPA)
Geodesic Saison (Hoppy Spelt Saison. Half Acre Collaboration)
American Youth (Serious American Pale Ale. Half Acre Collaboration)
HandFarm (Our Chardonnay barrel fermented four-grain Saison. This is Batch 4)*
The Emptiness is Not Eternal (Oak fermented Sorrel & Dandelion Saison)*
Negative Creep (Oak fermented Kiwi Sour Ale)*
So It Goes… (Hearty Pennsylvania Sour Red)*
Enact Positive Change (Mixed Culture Saison)*
BrainHands (Culinary Gose)*
Parageusia1 (Cab Franc Barrel fermented Ale. 6.5% abv)
Parageusia2 (Cab Franc Barrel fermented Ale. 8.2% abv)

Gigantic Firebird Smoked Hefeweizen is the first smoked beer I've ever enjoyed, a cool mix of the typical hefe flavors with a mild smoked finish. It actually tasted like a summer beer instead of (in the words of one of the ppl I shared it with) "drinking a sausage".

if any of you end up in wisconsin or do trades there, do not sleep on the new glarus berliner weisse, its the best of the style i have ever had. it might be the best new beer ive had this year, actually.

just picked up a bottle of the de garde imperial hop bu weisse last weekend, which is another great berliner weisse. all their bu weisse varieties have really impressed me actually. will seek out the new glarus if i get access!

have yet to try that gigantic smoked hef, but it looks interesting. i have also thought many times that drinking smoked beer is like "drinking a sausage", but i'm pretty open to the style regardless (sausage is delicious!). gigantic just put out an imperial ipa - ginormous - that looks interesting too, but it's really hard to separate the high ratings from everyone loving imperial ipas so damn much that i really don't know what to expect.

definitely getting spoiled around here lately. got to try one of the 6 total kegs of peche n brett last weekend, and it tasted very very fresh. also i think boneyard just put out this year's batches of notorious and hop venom and they taste much different than last year, so much less bitterness and more sweetness / hop character in a general sense. again i think this probably has more to do with it being super fresh than any tangible difference in quality from last year, but who knows?

waiting impatiently for 10 Barrel to start making their ISA again, I drank that all last summer

definitely getting spoiled around here lately. got to try one of the 6 total kegs of peche n brett last weekend, and it tasted very very fresh.

jealous. just cracked the seizoen bretta you sent on sunday and it was tasting great.

glad you dug it! it's always less than $10/bottle, available at most grocery stores, and way better than it has to be. those guys sure know their way around some yeast.

guy at the bottle shop told me today that 10 Barrel ISA was discontinued in bottles :(

Everyone needs to trade w/ psychgawsple and get a bottle of Trinity Red Swingline IPA Primitif. So good!

glad you liked it! it really is one of the strangest beers i can remember tasting and enjoying, so much weird funkiness going on. i actually did not send that one to any other ilxors, sorry dudes! you'll have to make do with bourbonic plague ;)

so trinity hasn't showed up yet in chicago? what i can find online seems to indicate that they don't usually even distribute outside of colorado, but for some reason literally every bottle shop i've been to lately in pdx seems to have at least 5 of their beers

I've never seen Trinity in Chicago, but I mostly patronize only two different beer stores.

they might just know people around here? who knows. they seem to be expanding like crazy right now

xps - bummer about the 10 barrel ISA! if i see an old bottle i'll have to pick one up

http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-economy/solutions-bank/would-you-pay-1-000-once-to-get-free-beer-for-life-20140529

I'm guessing jjusten and any other Minneapolitans are familiar with this place, it's right around the corner from my brother-in-law's house. I've been a few times and it's a good neighborhood spot, though a tad pedestrian in their beer offerings. I wasn't aware of the beer for life promo, though.

I would take that deal in a heartbeat.

yea it's a pretty good deal! beer is expensive

wonder what kind of beer costs them 40 cents a serving

Maybe if I lived in a smaller town without many options.

San Diego report:

Ended up not renting a car (not much free time) for the week but was still able to chase some whales.

Tasted:
Mother Earth - Big Mother 3IPA
Modern Times - Black House w/ Bourbon Barrel Aged Coffee oatmeal stout
Oskar Blues/St. Archer - Saint Oskar black IPA
Coronado - Sock Knocker 2IPA
Coronado - Idiot 2IPA
Stone - Stochasticity Project: Quadrotriticale belgian quad
Stone - Enjoy By 07.04.14 2IPA
Stone - Collective Distortion 2IPA
Ballast Point - Habañero Sculpin APA
Ballast Point - Grapefruit Sculpin APA
Mikkeller - Yeast Series 2.0 Brettanomyces Bruxellensis APA
Almanac - Dogpatch Strawberry wild ale
Alpine - Keene Idea 2IPA
Alpine - San Francisco Surprise IPA
Alpine - Hoppy Birthday APA
Rough Draft - Toronado IPA
Almanac - Farmer's Reserve No. 2 wild ale
The Lost Abbey - 2008 Cable Car wild ale
Russian River Brewing Company - Toronado 25th Anniversary wild ale
Societe - The Butcher bourbon barrel aged imperial stout
Societe - The Roustabout 2IPA
Bells - Two Hearted Ale IPA
Goose Island - Bourbon County Brand Stout imperial stout

Purchased:
Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout bourbon barrel aged stout
The Bruery / 3 Floyds - Floyd D'Rue imperial porter aged in rum barrels
Cascade - 2012 Strawberry wild ale
Cascade - 2012 Kriek wild ale
Evil Twin - Imperial Biscotti Break Natale imperial porter with cherries variant
Mikkeller - Beer Geek Brunch Weasel imperial stout made with civet coffee from Vietnam
The Lost Abbey - Framboise de Amorosa wild ale
The Lost Abbey - Track #8 (666 the Number Of The Beast) belgian quad
Brouwerij Fonteinen - Golden Doesjel old lambic aged in oak
Brouwerij Fonteinen - Oude Kriek lambic with sour cherries aged in oak
Belching Beaver - Peanut Butter milk stout
Mother Earth - Boo Koo IPA

The beer shops I hit were pretty amazing (one had BCBS on tap just because?), pretty deep selections and knowledgable staff.
The bars I hit were all pretty amazing and honestly, I passed on a lot of places just due to the fact there were craft beer bars on every damn corner of most neighborhoods near downtown (outer gaslamp, little italy, hillcrest, south park, north park). Even the airport and baseball stadium bars had taplists that many bars in big cities would be excited to tap kegs of.

Probably the biggest disappoint was not being able to find Alpine bottles anywhere in SD proper, was told that as of 7 months ago, the bottles became much harder to come by in SD retail locations. Biggest surprise was finding some Lost Abbey whales and then a beer made from civet poop coffee.

I hit exactly ZERO breweries which is probably the opposite of what I planned, but everything worked out pretty well. Great beer town, the birthplace of the 2IPA and there is certainly no shortage of great ones.

how did you like the new enjoy by? for some reason i didn't like it as much as the may and april versions

all these san diego beer pilgrimage reports are making me consider visiting some friends in the area

xp sounds like a rad trip

I had the Enjoy By at a Stone Brewery location on the day of the release so it was as fresh as possible and had a bit of the southern hemisphere influence so lots of Nelson hops and J-17-63 experimental hop strain flavor. No idea what the bottled off site version tastes like yet but out of a fresh keg I can officially decree the flavor to be rather delicious (I like the southern hemi hop flavors fyi).

cool, i should give it another shot. i usually like those type of hops too, i probably just let it warm up too much beforehand

latest Enjoy By is great! sipping one right now.

like this a lot more than the 4/20

i agree w/al on the new enjoy by, this is one of the best of the series from what i've tried at least

Went down to Philly for beer week festivities this weekend, some serious whale hunting for an east coaster -- Pliny, Blind Pig, BCBS, §ucaba/Abacus, and scored some RR sours in bottles.

Main takeaway: §ucaba is ridiculously good, procure whenever possible

^ picked up a couple sucaba last week! haven't tasted yet though, there's a place in town that will have it on tap this friday but i have to miss it unfortunately

Awesome! You're in for a serious treat.

curious about that stickee monkee stuff too

I found a couple bottles of stickee monkee and bought one in spite of the name.

Ok, zero hyperbole here - the Stillwater Artisanal Gose Gone Wild is literally the sourest beer I have ever had, and it is incredible and amazing. It's the closest thing I've had to the one glass of the cuvée mother lambic I had two years ago.

The Stone Summer Chipotle Pepper Porter I had tonight is making the end of the school year feel realllllll good.

mmm that sounds good!

I just bought one of those! (TJ's on the way home from work.) Glad to hear it's good.

Making a trip to Vermont in a few weeks -- anything I should be keeping an eye out for? We're timed right for a Lawson Finest's Farmers' Market, and may be able to squeeze in a trip to Hill Farmstead, both of which I'm pretty excited about. I hear getting Heady Topper can be a chore, even if you time it right with distribution...

the best method for getting heady is showing up at the hunger mtn coop in montpelier a bit before 3:00 on friday and buying up to a case. anything else is gonna be a crapshoot.

if you do hill farmstead be prepared for a 1-2 hour wait for growlers, it's been real bad on my last couple visits.

The Friday we're there is July 4, and it looks like Hunger Mountain was closed last July 4. Pulling into Burlington on Thurs so may give it a go there, and if we strike out will call the coop to see if they're getting a Saturday shipment (don't have high hopes, though).

Is it easy to get at bars, at least?

Also damn, did not expect such lines -- HF is way out there! Hopefully my partner will still be on board with that, though drive and wait for still more beer may try the patience...