Beer in the new era

My local beer store regularly stocks speedway stout and its a guilty Friday night pleasure of mine

Old Rasputin is obviously the shit.. Also check out black xantus if you can get it.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17963/53256/

never seen black xantus. definitely enjoy old ras, and i enjoy the brooklyn black chocolate stout a lot as well!

Had a Ska Brewing Molè Stout (cocoa, chili peppers, and other spices). Interesting, but not something I'll buy again. I bought a 6-pack on a whim, so I'll finish it over time.

it's always frustrated me to hear chef-types hate on craft beer.

It's perhaps no coincidence that whenever they're asked for their favorite comfort food or what they eat when they're not working, they always say McDonald's or Chipotle or something.

old rasputin has always been so good, probably the first stout that really blew my mind and i still love it today

both kalamazoo and expedition are fantastic

new holland the poet is also really good mio

thanks for the info psychgawsple! will definitely check that place out in charleston. now i can just wear a hoodie there, lol

GIVE ME SIERRA NEVADA CELEBRATION RIGHT NOW YOU SONS OF BITCHES

oh also tried their new mixed 12, the coffee stout is eh ok, and the other new pale ale (no memory of the name, white label) was pretty good? not as punchy as a torpedo, maybe a little sparkly/citrusy? not worth buying a mixed 12 for unless you really want the occasional porter from those dudes, which i dont.

hey does sierra nevada pale ale still taste good to you guys? my brother and i were talking about how/whether it has changed as a beer, or whether we've changed as beer drinkers. seems like a familiar topic that we've already discussed on this thread but i am wondering specifically about SNPA -- do you think it's changed? i remember LOVING that beer like 10-14 years ago but i haven't been too impressed with it lately. i don't know if it's my tastes, there are still plenty of regular american pale ales i love, and no one who knows me would peg me as someone who only drinks DIPAs or RISs and has had their taste burnt out.

my favorite local IPA (it's super citrus-y) is finally in bottles. the box/bottle artwork is, uh, something: http://https%3A//fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10409756_728274943892246_3533655589782244980_n.jpg%3Foh%3Da87d47c4ce799b32babf5d257d39b52c%26oe%3D54B64423%26__gda__%3D1425579007_7803e3a3ca48f349681b5888b7643bf8

did that not work?

http://www.isthmus.com/media/2014/10/16/144beer101614.jpg

haha that label art is amazing, who brews that?

interesting you would ask that about the standard SNPA, ive had the same feeling! as a big fan of canned beer, i noticed it for the first time when i tried the cans, but the bottles taste different as well. maybe im getting stuff from the NC site instead of the CA one?

SNPA still taste the same to me. Still great.

hey does sierra nevada pale ale still taste good to you guys?

yeah i think i've covered my stance on this already but it's still prob the beer i drink most, just a perfect conception of a pale ale.

the ipa in the winter pack seems to be really good, my assessment is similar to yours john.

haha that label art is amazing, who brews that?

Karben 4, they took over Ale Asylum's old facility after AA outgrew it. really solid.

SNPA is still one of my standbys and probably always will be, but I like middle-of-the-road, balanced beers. I'm a lightweight and I also seem to have a very alcohol-sensitive palate--I find anything over 8% ABV just tastes boozy to me. On that note, can anyone recommend some good fall/winter beers that have deep flavor but low ABV? I'm a fan of SN's Tumbler, bummed that I can only get it in the Fall seasonal 12-pack.

i used to have an antagonistic relationship w/snpa (i blame this on cali bros i encountered during undergrad) and sorta ignored/mocked all the hype at the time (my entry point to craft beer was definitely the belgian stuff). i kinda dig it nowadays, though for some reason a lot of places around here with notso great tap lists will tend to have lagunitas ipa or fat tire or some local option from widmer or ninkasi before they have snpa

It's perhaps no coincidence that whenever they're asked for their favorite comfort food or what they eat when they're not working, they always say McDonald's or Chipotle or something.

a friend who worked at noma and other similar places is suuuuuper into microwave burritos and instant ramen. idk if this is chef-style challops or some statement about affordable food options or just an escape from what he's immersed in at work or what

This might be more appropriate for the Chicago thread, but it fits here too because of the discussion of where craft beer is going. Smallbar was one of the better craft beer bars in town for a long time, it's sort of sad they're closing that location but it's hard to disagree, especially when you see the direction the rest of their neighborhood is going.

http://goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2014/10/21/critical-drinking-with-phil-mcfarland-of-smallbar-division

Yeah, I got a lot of thoughts on that article. Will type when I'm not on mobile.

many xps - hop valley alphadelic is great! think i also prefer alphadelic to the other stuff, is that getting distributed in new england now?

more xps - i have also been craving stouts recently and finding that ft george cavatica is the best affordable way to satiate this

many xps - hop valley alphadelic is great! think i also prefer alphadelic to the other stuff, is that getting distributed in new england now?

it showed up in vermont, which seems to get slightly better distro than the rest of new england.

i haven't had a Sierra Nevada pale ale for a long time, but had their Narwhal imperial stout the other night and it did not mess around.

sierra nevada's finest product is this imo

http://www.beermelodies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/SIERRA-NEVADA-BIGFOOT-BARLEYWINE.jpg

from that goodbeerhunting interview re: smallbar: We started as a place with a wide variety of beers, with maybe 180 placements, 12 handles at the time, so the bulk of the variety was in the bottle list. And at the time, the bottle list had a lot of turn. That’s where people were playing and exploring. And draft was a lot of mainstays — you had your pils, your IPA, your white, your Guinness.

do y'all order bottles at a beer bar? i pretty much never do. highlights how much more money i'm spending on beer than i would be if i stayed home. when it's on draft i feel like i can justify it more, unless it's some really special bottle that i've never seen before. never understood why a huge bottle list is such a draw.

ha, there was this one place in DC that i used to go to often from around 2002-2006 called the brickskeller. they only had taps on the smaller second floor and none in the much bigger basement floor. so if you got seated in the basement (which felt literally like a dungeon, old bricks, claustrophobic, dank and smelly) you had to order from this GIANT bottle list but the thing was that they never had anything on the list in stock. you had to have 3,4,5 choices lined up when your server came by so that you could actually find something in stock. that place sucked majorly in retrospect, but since i was a budding craft beer drinker in college it seemed like paradise until all these other better places started popping up in the city.

i never order off of bottle lists

It’s not attractive to know that someone’s going to have an endless list. That’s not a compelling reason to go to a specific place. Hopeleaf for example has one of the biggest lists in the city, and if I want endless variety that’s great, but that’s almost never the inclination to go out anymore. The inclination now is to go somewhere where they have a specific point of view on beer, they curate, places like Trenchermen, just down the street from the studio here, I often find myself stopping in because they only have six or eight beers, with variety, and it changes a lot. There’s often a couple Off Color beers there, a couple other locals, and a couple special things from farther way. And that’s it! It’s a modest list. I kind of love walking in to a smaller set.

this is OTM, i've felt that way for a while. a list of 10-15 well-selected taps that rotates frequently is far more interesting than 40 or 50 or 60+ taps, probably many of which have been sitting there for a while. i'm only gonna have 3 beers, maybe 4 tops and i don't need 50 selections to choose from. it can be fun but it starts to max out for me at around 20

(btw i'm not in chicago so i don't know either hopleaf or trencherman)

most bars that have giant bottle lists don't have the quality of stuff that justifies a giant bottle list. otoh, draft prices have been inflated in some places to the point where you're choosing between random local draft beer x for 8 bucks or a bottle of trappistes rochefort quad for 9 bucks.

probably many of which have been sitting there for a while

this is the key consideration imo

I order bottles all the time.

I like large draft lists too.

Cannot lie.

i very seldom order bottles, but have never felt overwhelmed by a huge taplist - usually more excited than anything.

i do see a lot of his points about the need for bars and restaurants to have more specialized selections or more fully realized concepts for what they have on tap. with such an expanding market you have to spotlight things somehow for people who aren't already doing bottle shares etc

I think my sweet spot is about 30 drafts (plus nice bottle list). While 6 to 8 curated drafts sounds nice, it would really depend on the quality of curation, which can vary wildly. I'd rather have a larger selection, across a variety of breweries and styles. You can have a larger list and have it thoughtfully selected, there's plenty of beer out there to do it with.

I do taps and bottles, no discrimination. If you prefer aged beer, you're pretty much limited to bottles. I think that bottle conditioning favors sours, wilds and imperial stouts... of which keg versions often taste like a completely different variant.

so i have been completely underwhelmed by firestone walker. they have been getting a lot of good press and attention lately it seems but i just don't get it. everything i've had has been flat and uninteresting. feel like they have a bottling problem, i pour it into a glass and there is zero carbonation

what FW are you drinking, marcos? I've enjoyed fresh double/union/wookey jack quite a bit, and their BA stuff is bomb.

yea i haven't tried everything. velvet merlin, oaktoberfest, union jack, i think maybe i had the pivo pilsner on draft one time but i can't remember. i keep hearing how good they are but i've been burned 3 or 4 times and i'm reluctant to try more

hah of those have only had union jack, and yeah it's a nice IPA but not mind-blowing

would scout out Wookey and Double bc they're great black and imperial IPAs (though east coast bottles are often past their prime), and their BA stuff is on a whole different level -- Sucaba is one of the best beers I've ever had

(though east coast bottles are often past their prime)

yea sometimes i worry about this with a lot of west coast/mountain west beers out here in boston

pretty well stick to draft for my IPAs here in DC, does the job ftmp

my ideal is this place here in Madison called Alchemy, 10 taps that constantly rotate, so the full list is pretty different every week. not too many choices but there's always something new.

I had the most amazing fresh hop IPA last week:

http://www.sunriverbrewingcompany.com/beers/details/dkine

maybe the best I've ever had

some day I'll get to Oregon/Washington for fresh hop season, until then I'll just hope store owners stop putting the few harvest beers we get on the warm shelf

(brew sounds awesome sleeve)

http://i1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa356/fugexlac/Mobile%20Uploads/IMAG0704_zps68f3bf12.jpg

Tap list at my local, for fun. Had the Victory at Sea, Heavy Handed Chinook, and Machine. Wife had Leif and the Gose and a cider that's not on there.

http://i1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa356/fugexlac/Mobile%20Uploads/IMAG0704_zps68f3bf12.jplg

Okay fuck u photobucket

I've want to try the Marz stuff. But hope they don't go like LO and the local/house brews become a third of the menu all the time. Although, I only got to Maria's like twice a year, so I really shouldn't care that much.

Probably doing a ridiculous 10 year vertical of bourbon county at the end of the month. I can't imagine 2005-2008 are going to be any good though. I had 2007 last year and it was not great. 2009 may have fallen off since I last had it too.