Beer in the new era

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.

yeah i drank 05--13 last year and there was really nothing of value before 09.

I may just make a suicide and mix them all together.

That was by far the most Marz I've seen on the menu since I loved in the neighborhood. Usually there are only 2-3 on at a time.

I loved = I've lived

Between that and the photobucket bullshit I don't know why I bother posting via ipad

Speaking of mixing, I bet Vanilla Rye + Cherry Rye would be good.

i treated myself to a bottle of duchesse de bourgogne this week, it was really fucking good. having that uinta birthday suit sour brown ale w/ my brother a few weeks ago has put me on a quest to find more weird sour beers. folks in the northeast -- what are your favorites?

had my first Grand Cru this past weekend and now I'm ISO all things Rodenbach...there's a 2010 vintage hanging around my local shop that I may finally spring for

another win for the big guys - 10 barrel bought out by anhueser-busch

yeah somebody just told me that, not good. they ruined Red Hook, no reason to expect anything different here.

and to think i was excited for their new brewpub in the pearl. i'd put my money on portlanders not being down with supporting this kind of thing

also fat head's just opened up their first west coast location in the pearl. terrible, terrible marketing and design but i hear amazing things about their ipas. midwest/east coast ppl, should i be excited? not exactly banking on them surviving either tbh but always down for better access to delicious beer

http://www.washingtonbeerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Fat_Heads_brewery-298x300.jpg

I love "Some Fantasy" by DoubleHappys.

my girl friend brought me a 6 pack of Hitachino Nest White Ale. Pretty good stuff. nice floral aromas ,perfect for a hot summer day. i think it's kind of pricey though

― carne asada, Friday, June 22, 2007 7:12 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL, wrong thread, do not fret it's not an obscure barrel aged imperial porter from a cult nanobrewery.

(xp)

Shoot, maybe I should post a list of things I loved from a birthday share last weekend:

Perrenial Barrel Aged Abraxas
The Bruery Roble Blanco
The Bruery Black Tuesday (2011)
Jester King La Vie En Rose
Surly Darkness (2014)
Surly Coffee Bender
Ale Apothecary Sahalie
Sante Adairius West Ashley
Sante Adairius Quality Of Life
deGarde Imperial Strawberry Bu

a-b has been a great steward for goose island you guys, 10 barrel will probably be fine.

if this is just a distro deal, I guess the quality might stay the same. I would rather patronize smaller breweries though, it's not like there's a shortage of quality and this guy does not need my money.

It's Backwoods Bastard time.

^^^

Also Darkness.

I opened a bottle of Sucaba for a Halloween party, strangely I think I liked DDBA better?!?