Beer in the new era

CAD, hire me to stand guard in your cellar. I'll make sure only worth people drink the best beers.

I have yet to try it but I keep laughing at the name of this one when I pass it by in the stores:

http://www.allagash.com/beer/limited-edition/farm-to-face?ao_confirm

i'm drinking it right now, it's good

i got to visit allagash over the weekend, really nice brewery tour if you happen to be in portland me

What did you come home with?

just two of those farm to faces (that was the limit) to go with one i got around here. they had everything you can normally get in stores well-stocked in the retail shop but that's nothing i need to hoard. you can also buy cases of their brewery-only house beer which they gave out on our tour (apparently that's not standard practice and we just lucked out).

the tasting section of the tour happens in their barrel aging space. all the barrels are clearly marked so it was fun to see what might be coming.

my brother just came back from a trip back east and handed me a four-pack of heady topper. best brother!

went to a de garde release party last weekend, pretty amazing stuff. got in on some bottle pours of perennial abraxas, block 15 super nebula, a few side project saisons, some jester king bottles, and of course super limited de garde craziness such as:

Café Samson
A strong dark beer, with nods towards the imperial stout style, but run through our coolship. Aged in American oak barrels, then infused with Bali Blue Moon coffee beans from Sleepy Monk Coffee Roasters. 11.5%abv,

Maple Samson
The same base as Café Samson (minus the coffee). Aged for an extended period in Rye Bourbon barrels, then transferred for secondary aging in Bourbon barrels that previously aged Maple Syrup. 12%abv

Earl Desay
A blended wild farmhouse ale aged in barrel for over a year. We added a large amount of characterful Oregon buckwheat honey to the barrels to induce a secondary fermentation, then conditioned it with Earl Grey tea after blending. 6.2%abv

that maple samson might be the best beer i've tasted all year. very fruity and vinous for a super strong BA dark sour, subtle maple and a whole lot of other stuff going on in there. cafe samson is maybe the only coffee-sour i've tried, really acidic but bright and fruity in keeping with the whole de garde "thing". i am such a fanboy.

farm to face! lol

damn dude

we missed you at the FAP! next time I will bug you via PM

yeah, i totally forgot about that! reminders would def help, hopefully there's another one soon

siren dot gif

http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2014/11/budweiser_abdicates_the_throne.html#incart_hbx#incart_best-of

2 of my local Whole Foods had BCBS out today for $20. Picked up a 4-pack.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/wan/4777143779.html

Thinking about sending this person on a wild goose chase (heh heh) to a scary part of the south side

(Not really but the joke had to be made)

$20 is a great price, well below MSRP. I'd probably buy a case at that price.

Shops are complaining about their allotments around here. Goose is basically making the same amount they did last year. And their are a lot of fingers in the pot with every Walgreens, costco, etc getting some of everything, so everyone gets less. Next year should be better because of the giant new barrel warehouse.

Xpost that guy should just follow this thread http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/places-selling-bcbs-early.230046/

I had been planning to buy some at my local Whole Foods, whose beer guy told me they were expecting a bigger than usual shipment, but where distributing to customers on Saturday, to staunch the rush. But now there is a sign in the beer section saying no BCBS this week, and ETA unknown!

so glad i live in a place where i can easily find abyss, midnight sun berkserker, BA old rasputin, and several other amazing imperial stouts for a reasonable price more or less year round. BCBS is incredible, yes, but so are many many other non ab-inbev brews

I got my bottles of Parabola at Whole Foods by asking if they had any. The clerk went in the back and brought two of them out (2 was the limit). iow, maybe they're in stock but you have to ask the beer guy there.

Was in Cost Plus/World market last night and they have a "20% off when you buy 4" for beer now as well as wine (all beers, .5 liter and up). Got a big Gulden Draak for under $10 and three California beers for less than I'd pay anywhere else.

Is there an ILX beer trader report card or is that too gauche?

Oh well, here's mine:

call all destroyer: A+
dan m: A+
psychgawsple: A+

had the sierra nevada north american wild hop ale tonight. it smelled like melon but tasted pretty peppery. very interesting beer.

I'm getting a bottle of Dark Lord in a trade

Never had it, pretty stoked

the allagash farm to face was fantastic fwiw.

it smelled so peachy, i was into it.

All ILX beer trades I have done have been great! Being in grad school and having no extra cash is kind of cramping my style on that front for the near future.

ILX beer trades rule.

What doesn't rule? The rumblings of huge crowds and small allotments for tomorrow's Goose Island events.

Wake up early!

Lines were pretty bad everywhere. I picked up a regular 4-pack at my local Binny's, which is all that was left but fine with me; the other stuff ran out in the first 25 or so people (I got there at opening). But man, first thing in the morning beer nerds smell terrible. The fragrant old guy behind me was clearly aging something in his stomach. He kept threatening that if all the special brews were gone he was going to go home empty handed, because "I have three years of the stout in my basement." Then we got a little closer to checkout and they said they were out of Proprietors. He declares, "I don't want the regular, I've got four years of the stuff in my basement." Then even closer and they're out of the coffee and barleywine. "I don't want the regular, because I've got two years of the stuff in my basement." Yet mysteriously, he keeps waiting in line! Five minutes later, he gets to the check-out, where all they have left is the regular stuff, and poof, he waves his hand and huffs off.

larger store around here threw a release party, coffee and donuts for first 200 people, etc. etc. didn't really communicate that they only had a single case of vanilla, lol.

Got really lucky today. I was going to get up and wait in the long line at binny's at ass o'clock in the morning, but decided to sleep instead. After running some errands I thought I would go out to Jewel and see if I could at least get some regular. They hadn't gotten anything, so I just went to the liquor store across the street on a whim. Nothing on the shelf, but I saw two bearded dudes in their 30s just standing around while the owner was rooting around in the back. I just looked at them and said, "bourbon county?" Yep, they had just pulled it off the truck and they were waiting for the owner to bring it out. Had no idea what he was going to bring out, but then he trotted out regular, barleywine, vanilla, and proprietors. Bought them all and went home happy. So glad I didn't need to wake up and stand outside in sub-freezing weather to get them.

Still need some more regular though, to last me through the year.

wow good work

barely any vanilla around here, i was able to get two each coffee/bw and four 4-packs of regular with not too much effort. need more variants tho.

At the big Binny's here, that gets more Bourbon County than anywhere else in the universe, people started lining up at 4:30 PM yesterday. By the time they opened up at 9:00 AM, there were over 900 people in line. Sold their last bottle at 11:38 AM.

Enforced same day release both more democratic and more encouraging of lining up 12 hours early. Got a lead on coffee tomorrow, but no harm if not. Did pick up a clown shoes extremely angry beast today that was set aside in the consolation pile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXOmTxLqSD0

Modest line in the local Whole Foods at noon today, so I got a couple of bottles of coffee and barleywine. And they said as much regular as I wanted, so I got two 4-packs. Line smelled much better than local Binny's line.

Just saw a post that people were lining up this morning at the Lake Zurich Binny's as early as 4:30am.

A friend in the Ann Arbor MI area told told a funny story about going to a store and having a shady looking guy with missing teeth offering to sell him bcbs out of his trunk on the parking lot.

I still haven't found any but I'd like to think I wouldn't sink to those depths unless the price was really good.

totally uninterested in chasing beers like this, but I enjoy reading tales of the hunt

drinking Hop Valley Alphadelic atm

10 year vertical tonight. In my drunken opinion, 2012 was the best, 2007 was the worst.

I'm still on my PacNW trip and picked up the Portland Beer Guide that Willamette Week publishes. I could completely ruin my health trying to keep up with just the sour beers in that town. Hope I get the chance.

Don't the BCS labels say up to 5 years on them? Could that be why the 2007 was a letdown? I also figure they've been getting better and better at this. Do you remember how much the ABVs varied?

I did pick up a Revolution Blue Gene recently. Revolution does pretty well with their barrel-aged stuff, but the hype tends to pass it by, imo.

so i opened my bottle of allagash confluence on thanksgiving. it was good, very interesting finish that was a little funky and weird, very dry. it was good but not $24 a bottle good. shared another bottle of the uinta sour farmhouse ale w/ my brother, still think that is one of the best sours i've had recently.

also any of you folks in the midwest try 5 Rabbit Cervecería? my brother had a lot of their stuff, i was really impressed. oaxacan black beer is outstanding, and i really really liked the latin witbier, it was fucking awesome. was almost like a champagne.

Yeah, they're local here. I usually try everything they put out but don't repeat buy very often. Their recent collab with cigar city was really good. El Bizarron, porter brewed with caramelized plantains.

I've never been too impressed with anything of theirs I've tried, but that's limited to what's widely sold in stores and one pint at their taproom. I'm not super into fruit-flavored beers in general, and that seems to be all they make.

I'm convinced their grapefruit beer is just a single six pack that just makes the rounds. Someone gifts it to someone, they regift it, and it just keeps circulating, because no one really likes it.