Beer in the new era

It's the "yeastyness" (I think that's what it would be described as) that can be off-putting to me, when it's the predominant flavor. I don't really care for Duvel, or even Chimay (the two most available Belgians in the US, from what I've seen) for this reason, though there are many Belgians I do like.

IPAs and other ales, lagers, stouts (they're not just for winter, damnit!) keep me well-refreshed all year long.

lol I am an evangelical saison convert but I don't call people out for preferring other stuff. Like, I don't really ever drink hoppy IPAs but I'm a human being too.

Belgian yeasts are a huge turnoff for me, not really into any of that saison/farmhouse/sour stuff, sorry. I got sick off of Pranqster once like 15 years ago and I just don't like any of it, I can taste the yeast instantly.

I don't get these "Not a Saison Fan" people. What are you doing with your lives between May–October?

― fields of salmon, Wednesday, July 30, 2014 4:30 PM

drinking the hoppiest pale ales I can find, looking for decent ISAs other that Hop Valley's Proxima

I like sours (Cuvee de Jacobins, La Folie), I think it's the yeastiness with much else going on that I don't like.

Ones I like: Orval, Gulden Draak, Delirium, and many others that I haven't had enough times to remember the names of.

Saisons. Saison Brett is one of my top 5 beers ever.

At least tonight.

it's not really that crazy to not be into saisons.

this tastes saison-y. guy at the bottle shop marketed it that way but now i see it is technically a "belgian ipa". it's good though.

http://beerpulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/stillwater-IBU.png

Can't believe we drifted off topic from Beer Camp!

Bons Voeux from Dupont is my gold standard saison and a beer I still get excited for its release every year. Spending time in Belgium helped me acquire for taste for the rustic farmhouse styles as all the Abbey ales got old pretty old quick, whereas in South Flanders and Wallonia the brewing style was much more experimental and radical to my younger self.

i am a HUGE fan of saisons but i'm definitely finding that i prefer the less sweet, more intensely yeast-driven stuff. i thought the off color apex predator that dan m sent was a pretty good example of this, it had a nice lemony, grassy funk that came through the lighter body. very surprising that it was over 6%. old favorites like great divide colette and other easily available local stuff has put me off a bit lately for being too thick and too sweet for summer (maybe it's just been a really hot summer)

maybe it's just been a really hot summer

it sure as hell has been hot in the Willamette Valley!

Apex predator has been my summer beer.

that being said i think the higher abv saisons are perfect for summer nights, peche n brett i <3 u

Did a Prairie Bomb! vertical last night: batch 2, batch 3 and current. Surprisingly the coffee holds up with aging and overall really gets silky and nuanced. The batch 3 was a bit of a chocolate bomb and made me check the label to make sure it wasn't barrel aged. Basically sit on these for at least 18 months.

Does anybody need 2014 Parabola? I found a small shop that's sitting on a few boxes...

Related, somewhat: my local shop has a few DBAs left that have sat on the shelf for more than a week.

Er, DDBAs I suppose.

hey cad, what's your experience (if any) with Night Shift Brewing? Just had their Viva Habanero over the weekend and it was kind of life-changing

xp Al, where in Jersey is that Parabola shop, I'm interested

xp in general i think it would be nice if they had figured out what they were good at by now but given their comically large new brewery/tasting room i guess their current formula is working.

their fruited berlinerweisse series is outstanding, and apparently some of their one-off experiments have worked really well. but their hoppy beers are essentially just sort of bad, and i've had things like a "stout" aged in wine barrels that were drainworthy.

i guess that sounds more negative than i mean, they seem like good guys and i could see them turning out a bunch of really good stuff, without the bad stuff in between, sometime soon.

Had Allagash Saison over the weekend. Goddamn was that good. Then again i had it after a round of golf, and every beer tastes good in that situation.

Thought this article about wild american hops was really interesting. Can't wait to try one of these beers when they finally get some wider availability.

www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/search-great-american-beer-180951966/

looks like the sierra nevada neomexicanus will be available in bottles in december.

new bar Fools Gold in NYC (E Houston St.) is having its grand opening tonight and has Pliny on tap:

https://twitter.com/FoolsGoldNYC/status/496767665919496192

I am obsessed with Allagash Saison, so fukkin good

also cad I strongly recommend making a Kappy's run and grabbing a bottle of Viva Habanero before I go back and buy all of it because it was just great

lotsa love for allagash stuff, i'll keep an eye out for the saison.

there are SO MANY great breweries in the new angland area, i was very very impressed with a lot of the stuff that CAD sent my way, particularly treehouse and trillium but obv alchemist/heady topper too

that hops article was fascinating, i am definitely going to keep an eye out for the sierra nevada release.

someone likes a saison finally. i was stsrting to think this thread was full of subpar

hey now

saison is the best

I've always professed saison love.

I can't believe anybody could dislike the allagash saison, it's such an awesome beer

I will look for it and try it! I do appreciate good beer of many types. although the belgian yeast is not my fave, I have had farmhouse styles that I really liked

all I want to drink these days is that Fort George oatmeal pale, love it

my wife is exclusively a NW IPA hophead, with the exception of some reds or pales when nothing w/a higher IBU is around

psychgawsple, have you tried Hop Valley's Citrus Mistress?

also w/r/t Hop Valley, I though this was an interesting look into the fucked up and archaic laws around distribution:

http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/31811264-75/bigfoot-hop-valley-beer-contract.html.csp

I keep meaning to pick up one of those oatmeal pales but those words together always cause me some slight cognitive dissonance.

All of a sudden I'm starting to see Breakside around here; none of the sours yet but I've run into the IPA at a couple places.

breakside ipa is really good, i slept on it until recently but it's legit. the pilsner too actually! i think they're starting to can it too?

xps - jfc how the hell can distributors ask for more than a payout of 3.5x yearly profit when a brewery drops a contract? just seems over the top greedy, though i'm sure there is a lot i do not know about beer distribution.

i like citrus mistress a lot... i drank a ton of it earlier in the year, seldom let down by hop valley. i haven't really purchased more than one six pack of anything lately, save for maybe the av gose and four packs of 3-way, but i definitely went through a phase there

speaking of NW IPAs, i have been sampling quite a few lately b/c i was assigned to bring something in that style to a beer and cheese tasting thing. really enjoying barley brown's pallet jack - seems to be poised to be the next rpm? in that it's amazing and not hard to find and exclusively on tap. also stopped along the WA side of the gorge and was able to find a six pack of bale breaker topcutter, super fresh yakima hop goodness in a can - definitely try it if you find it (though i think it's only distributed in WA)

yep Barley Brown is making inroads, I see it around now

also had a good pale from this Veneta (!) nano-brewery that grows all its own hops

http://ploughmonday.com/

the barley browns armored fist is probably the best cda i've ever tasted. i guess it's an imperial cda actually? has a balance of subtle hop flavors that you find in a lot of the top-tier DIPAs, but with a sweet/smoky/high abv character you get from a nice imperial stout or old ale. really incredible stuff, maybe i'll take a trip all the way out to effing baker city someday

plough monday looks awesome... i can't believe how few breweries are growing their own hops.

also really really want to try some neomexicanus or american wild hops after reading that smithsonian article

I see bale breaker a lot, in WA and in Idaho as well.

And of course I hit my beer store today and they're out of the oatmeal pale. But I did pick up a breakside passion fruit sour.

really wanna try more bale breaker beers, i think they could work wonders with a stronger IPA

pasisonfruit sour definitely in the running for summer beer 2k14 for me, ymmv

I am in an airport bar in Seattle and they basically only have Alaskan Brewing beers. I guess that's what I get for going to the Alaskan pub.

how long until we see a 'brown' ipa

i suppose india brown ales are basically that

oats do good in a big IPA, they round out the body a bit and make 'em viscous. Surly Abrasive has a decent amount of oats in the bill if i remember correctly.

also can't wait to drink gallons of Bell's Best Brown this fall

Fort George 3-Way is the beer of the summer for me. Just an unbelievably good IPA; like Boneyard RPM but less boozy and more fruity.

Balebreaker is alright but I'm a little miffed about how old the cans are I find are. Like, you're advertising your product as "FRESH OFF THE FARM" and it's often times a month+ old by the time it hits Seattle. I've had fresh kegs and it's far ahead of the canned offering.

oh man I gotta try that, I think psychgawsple was raving abt it upthread. I don't like their Vortex as much as other NWIPAs/

Apparently it's National IPA Day.

Great Taste of the Midwest is this weekend, wish me luck.

http://greattaste.org/program/

glad to see more love for 3-way! i wouldn't say it's very much like vortex, i like vortex but it is definitely one of those headache-inducing IPAs that i have to be in the right mood/situation to enjoy. describing IPAs kinda sucks because nearly every single damn one - especially the good ones - can be described as citrusy or piney, but 3-way has a really bright and clean fruit/citrus character that reminds me of other nw ipas like rpm or laurelwood but with less malt/other flavors in the way. they have been canning it constantly throughout the summer, like once every 1-2 weeks, and the inventory seems to be turning over enough that you can usually find something that was canned within the last week or so

i will definitely be celebrating national ipa day btw, hopefully with some block 15 sticky hands after work :)