Beer in the new era

Have to say that the Stillwater "Stereo" IPA is really good. I am not generally a stillwater fan, but I am an IPA drinker and felt compelled to know my product. Really good beer, some southern hemisphre tasting hops, not too far off Pliny IMO

have gotten to try grapefruit sculpin and i hope to heck it's around in the summer, so crushable. otoh i did not dig the sierra nevada hop hunter, had no idea what it was trying to be.

Got a couple of the grapefruit bottles I'm hoping to down this weekend.

A couple of pleasant surprises on the shelf:

Brickstone's Dark Secret, Russian Imperial Stout brewed with local coffee roaster beans. This won an award a bit back and I thought it was a one-off, but a few more cases were I guess released.
New Holland's Dragon's Milk with raspberry: the chili variety was relatively easy to find, but I thought this came and went months ago.
Revolution's Very Mad Cow: one of the weaker of their BA beers, this one is an aged milk stout. Barrel comes through at a lower temp, but as it warmed up the milk stout characteristics really came through.
Off Color Dino S'Mores: Often hard to find, but they must be making more. It was OK. Sort of subtle.

Learned that barely any of the Central Waters reserve brews made it down here, for some reason. May take a quick trip up to WI. Or maybe down to Gary to try 18th Street Brewery, which is apparently killing it but not available outside of northern IN yet.

love:

http://winedinewith.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Spencer-Trappist-Ale-Bottle-e1390272040107-768x1024.jpg

never thought i'd see the day when i had a local trappist ale to drink!

lovely beer at an appalling price point.

I should be getting some Pliny the Younger tomorrow.

First trip to Surly taproom tomorrow for my birthday tomorrow, I will destroy all these beers.

happy birthday

speaking of first trips to taprooms, I went to Half Acre's tonight

wait sorry lol I meant Revolution, honestly officer I'm really not drunk

There's a Surly tap takeover here this week.

I may drink a beer today.

praying for u Jeff

solo'ed a bomber of Sump. Wish all coffee tasted like this.

I am having a beer. Off Color Bare Bear.

I am having a beer, too. Bell's Expedition Stout.

Had the PtY, and also a Russian River Supplication, a sour, wine barrel aged beer, which I liked even better.

new holland/night tripper imperial stout - boooooooze. this is fantastic tbh, i like bitter boozey ashy imperial stouts and this one also nails the right mouthfeel.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, April 23, 2014 10:01 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a delightful byproduct of new holland distributing here is that 4-packs of this beer just showed up. best non-ba imperial stout i've had.

2014 New Holland Blue Sunday Sour? Fucking amazing.

Dark Lord? Prepare for blasphemy. Ehhh.

Supplication mmmmm

I tried that Hop Hunter, it was OK? I feel like I could at least taste the "fresh distilled hop oil" flavor.

picked up a 6-pack of Racer 5 in NorCal over the weekend, what a solid and drinkable supermarket IPA. I don't see it around on tap so much anymore.

I love racer 5 but it's totally vanished from my area, haven't seen it in at least two years. The beer guy at my hippie co-op said they had some distribution problems but I don't know if that was everywhere or just here.

xps Ooooh 4 packs? I'm going to have to keep an eye peeled for those. I love that stuff and it'd be nice to have it in smaller than bomber volume. I recently drank a bottle of Night Tripper that I had in my beer closet for almost a year; I'm still a little unconvinced about aging beer but it was damn good either way.

Also there was apparently a one-off BA version of it, too: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/335/77438/

cad where are you seeing new holland? my local stores don't have it :(

haven't had racer 5 in a while but i do remember it being pretty good

new holland six packs popped up at most of my normal places in camb/somerville (downtown, pemberton, etc.) but night tripper i've only seen at ball sq. fine wine.

yea i need a better beer store. west rox isn't great for liquor stores, though i guess there is a blanchard's but it seems far from where i live and consistently charges $1-2 more whatever it is i'm buying. JP has a very small but cool store (http://streetcarwines.com/) but it is also a little pricier

streetcar is one of the stores that gets trillium bottles i think so pick those up if you haven't

oh yea will do, i didn't know that

people are loving the cigar city/sam black church collaboration beer "captain of the world" but i COULD NOT HANG. it could have been my pre-knowledge of the brewing secret ingredient (not listed on the can) but all i could taste was rosemary. other ppl love it tho, so wtf do i know.

I don't like herby beers. DFH saison du buff is one of the worst liquids I've ever tasted.

i think i agree with that general statement. i am not a fan of stillwater's "cellar door" which has white sage... thought it was groosssss

I've had Epic's sage beer and like it, but it's rare that I'm in the mood for that.

New Glarus Enigma lived up to the name.

Surly is back in Chicago, with Abrasive and Doomtree in tow

Wait, hasn't Surly been back for a couple of years now?

I heard they temporarily stopped selling here because they couldnt keep up with sales in MN.

Hmm, that answers some questions!

A song of beer and weed: How Lagunitas dodged a drug bust to become a craft beer powerhouse, by Sam Laird
http://mashable.com/2015/03/08/lagunitas-beer-st-patricks-day-massacre/

grimm's tesseract double IPA... goddamn. don't think they are bottlign this one (yet?)

wonder whose palms they greased to get out of that one xp

btw is lagunitas night time any good? saw it the other day and considered

Had it the other night and enjoyed it.

Night Time is an excellent beer and I'm glad to see it in 6 packs over bombers. Deeply malty and hoppy CDA, one of my favorites in the style.

I made it down to Engine House No. 9 in Tacoma for their bottle release; expect to start hearing a lot about their wild ale/sour program. The Raspberry AWA fell just short of Supplication, but not by much.

engine house no 9 has been pretty decent in my experience, wld like to try more

so i've unfortunately had to move far far away from the amazing prices and quality pnw beer has to offer, been struggling to transition to the far far more expensive if still fairly robust brooklyn beer scene. there is definitely good stuff out here, but holy shit @ $10 / beer at certain bars!

Well, I only managed to snag one ticket, but I'll be getting even closer to my 5-year vertical for Dark Lord.

Night time is indeed awesome, restored my faith in that style after getting burned a few times

Is Parabola around yet (or have I already missed it)? Supposed to have a March release.

I think ... March 23th? So sometime around then.

made my way to the newly opened threes brewing in gowanus last night, super impressive! unreliable narrator is some seriously top notch east-coast style hop goodness, incredibly fresh with a great balance of bitter to sweet for a single ipa. also the voluntary exile was one of the best baltic porters i've tasted in quite a while, not overly malty and has a pleasant roastiness you usually don't find with that style