Beer in the new era

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...

they only get a shipment on friday. you can check the alchemist site for other stores that get it that might work for you, but you'll run into limits on what you can buy.

both heady and hf stuff are easy to get in bars in waterbury and montpelier, not sure about burlington but i think you'll be able to find something.

Awesome, thanks for the pointers!

Any of you beer geeks live in SC? Or elsewhere in the westbrook distro area?

And as a general proposition to Vermonters on this thread: if there's anything distributed in DC/Phila that's hard for you to locate up there -- Victory, Troegs, Weyerbacher, Stoudt's, Sly Fox, DC Brau -- I'd be glad to bring it along and arrange a swap. I'm not looking for anything in particular (looks like I'll have a shot to try a lot of awesome stuff), and would be down to trade anything from four-packs to cases; just happy to help ease the bummer of beer being out of reach. PM me if you're looking for anything!

xp this lived in here for a while before I hit submit, whoops

No Westbrook here. But someone needs to send me some gose.

Some thoughts on a few beers provided by ilxors Al Broccoli and psychgawsple:

Blend Love - Upright: Very nice fruity wild ale, was afraid it might be too sweet based on color but it wasn't at all. Was good on a humid evening though a full 750 of just about any sour beer is too much for me, luckily my wife had a glass.

Pliny the Elder - Russian River: Very good, but a victim of hype like so many other beers. I mean, GOOD. Good IPA, balanced and tasty and all that. But (and I expected this) the hype takes away from it in the end, I'm afraid. Just as good as Two Hearted, Abrasive, HT, etc. The unobtainability factor must be the thing that puts it over the edge. Still, I'll happily drink more, and I'm looking forward to sharing a second bottle with friends. Got a sweet keyring bottle opener with the bottle design on it, too!

Red Swingline - Trinity: As I said before this was tasty and very interesting. Sour beer with a hoppy IPA finish is about the only way I can describe it. Definitely worth trying if you have a chance because it's so unlike anything else out there, anything I've had at least.

Still have Peche & Brett, some triple IPAs, and a handful of other bottles to get through. I love trading bottles but it might be time for a break, I have an excessive amount of beer in my possession.

Jeff -- next time we get a shipment of Gose in I'll try to get some for you.. it's very popular tho and usually sells out and then we have to wait to get more.

also facebook msged JJUSTEN about westbrook.

That would be awesome.

I think there's something about shipping hopforward double+ ipas across the country without refrigeration that always leaves me tempering my expectations a bit...

which leads me to ask if there are any budget friendly refrigerated shippers?

Yeah, that was part of my line of thinking too. Just gonna have to get them to distribute here! Kinda curious how they send beer to the Philly area but not Chicagoland.

Does anyone have any recommendations for sour type beers? I had my first American Wild Ale (Surly Pentagram) recently and really liked it.

Cuvée des jacobins x 1000000

Agree, and Bruery's Sour in the Rye is good too.

la folie's lips of faith is a good place to start and easy to find.

once you dig deeper, you'll start seeking out
belgian stuff (west flanders red): rodenbach, cuvee des jacobins rouge, duchesse
belgian stuff (flanders oud bruin): monks cafe, petrus, goudenband
belgian stuff (lambic/geuze): cantillon, 3 fonteinen, tilquin
american stuff: any wild ales from russian river, lost abbey, cascade, and the bruery

there's also berliner weisse and gose and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

I'm going to Baltimore next week - any local/regional breweries I should be looking out for? Other general beer tips also welcome.

Baltimore's not really gonna blow your socks off as far as local breweries are concerned, but I would recommend a trip up to the Hampden/Woodberry area to hit up a) Union Brewery b) De Kleine Duivel (Belgian beer bar, amazing if that's your thing) and c) The Wine Source which is a solid (by Baltimore City standards) beer/wine store. All these are within walking distance of each other in a not-bad part of the city.

Brewer’s Art in Mt. Vernon is a good stop too. Max’s Taphouse in Fells Point should probably be mentioned. Huge selection.

re sours, tart of darkness is a pretty unique style (sour stout) and is, afaik, the only widely available beer in that style