Beer in the new era

Really digging this Sam Smith Yorkshire Stingo.

Working my way through more American craft beer renditions of Mitteleuropa style pilsners:

Firestone Walker Pivo - This one is very nice. Complex hops flavor, crisp, well balanced. Will buy again.

Neshaminy Creek Traguer Pilsner - Disappointing. Not much hops flavor other than bitterness. Will finish the six-pack but would not buy again.

I'm drinking some Green Flash Cellar 3 -- a sour ale with plum and aged in red wine barrels. It's very tasty, but it kind of just tastes like a cocktail or wine spritzer or something, and probably not worth the relatively high pricetag.

Was out west for a bit and had some Snake River Brewery stuff. Mostly just OK, but some solid IPAs. Really enjoyed the Old Greg.

Why am I not surprised someone named a beer after that bit

Please tell me it tastes like baileys

I drank a bourbon county the other day, on a 90 degree day. Still enjoyable.

It was either drink it or use it to repair the cracks in the street.

Tonight I drank some Berkshire Brewing Co. Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I like pale ales more than IPAs.

I'm enjoying the Otter Creek Over Easy. I guess it's what they call a "session ale". A nice alternative to a pilsner for something drinkable and refreshing with a lot of flavor.

i've had some good light sours lately

lost nation gose (VT), quite salty, a little funky too in very pleasant way
rising tide gose (ME), tasted like the ocean man this was awesome
white birch berliner weisse (NH), super tart, very cloudy, one of the best american berlinner weisses i've had

anyone try any grimm beers? i have "psychokinesis" a dry hopped sour, wild ale, in my fridge, excited to try it

I had the Party Guy from Hermit Thrush (VT) by accident. The cans are not labeled, they just write the name of the beer on it but don't indicate the style. This was quite a surprise. I enjoyed these in a "I can drink lots of them and they're kind of refreshing on a hot day, but still taste gross" kind of way.

I'm going to be in VT Friday-Monday... Writing these down, any others I should try besides Heady and Hill Farmstead stuff? We're also planning on hitting up Citizen Cider in Burlington, been saving up for a drunk weekend.

Lawson's is another one worth hitting (I think Sip of Sunshine is better than Heady).

PS: There is a Sante Adairius/Hill Farmstead collab ($30/2pp) that goes on sale tomorrow at HF and should be there throughout the weekend.

Google says HF is about an hour and 15 minute drive from where we're staying, I'm going to try and make it there if I can find the time.

marcos - i am a big fan of grimm, would highly recommend their light sours and enjoyed psychokinesis a lot. we were talking about rainbow in curved air a bit upthread... look out for rainbow dome (the newest one), i think that one is their best yet. also don't sleep on their non-sours, both tesseract and lambo door placed in the top 5 in the recent paste magazine DIPA blind tasting (lambo door got #1 actually!)

here's a link to the paste article btw. i think i need to try sip of sunshine, sounds like my ideal DIPA.

(i still think heady is better than lambo door, though i enjoyed LD thoroughly when it was around)

awwwwwwwwwwesome thanks psych! i am excited. beer stores in my immediate (~1 mile) vicinity arent that great (all those goses i got during a trip to VT last week) but they did have pyschokinesis so i should pick up a few more soon

other vt: lost nation gose, 14th star maple breakfast stout, sip of sunshine, prohibition pig brewpub stuff, fiddlehead...

psychokinesis is incredible!! I was a little skeptical about the hops + sourness before trying but it works perfectly. Much more of a delicious grapefruit vibe than say Grapefruit Sculpin I thought

(I am pretty anti-sculpin in all its variations fwiw)

But yea psych what a great beer, glad I went out and bought a second bottle, I'm excited to try more Grimm stuff

We're about 2 miles from Prohibition Pig xp

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/lagunitas-brewing-company-creates-a-joint-venture-with-heineken.332950/

interesting, not sure what to think there

hypocrites

A friend called this "absolute mouth diarrhea" on twitter and I agree http://lagunitast.tumblr.com/

That's Tony in a nutshell.

Went to Surly over the weekend, that's a pretty crazy operation they have going on there. They had Darkness on tap, which worked out well because it was a long wait for a table and that shit takes a long time to drink (the food was worth the wait btw).

i really dislike tony's whole self-presentation but i hope no one is actually bothered by this. 1st-gen craft brewers are getting old, unless they have a family member to pass control to these kinds of decisions are going to need to happen.

Yeah, I could really care less. But love watching everyone lose their shit over everything.

yeah i can't wait for the store here that adheres strictly to brewers association guidelines to pull lagunitas from their shelves (as they did with goose a few years back)

Bell's turns 30

http://swmichigan.secondwavemedia.com/features/Remembering-30-years-of-growing-Bell-s-to-the-brewery-it-is-today-0910.aspx

Way more hippie jam band involvement than I would have been comfortable with, but oh well.

This was mostly weird

https://instagram.com/p/6_cARGMqAv/

Rainbow Dome (dry hopped apricot sour) by Grimm was better than Rainbow In Curved Air... Who is this gal with her 70s exp-music refs?

Recapping my VT drinking a little:

The experience of lining up for HT is a little like buying BCBS in Chicago except it happens daily and nearly everyone is from out of state.

I had HT and Sip of Sunshine side-by-side and I think Sip is a little better, but people said that HT "holds up better" whatever that means.

Lost Nation Gose is really good cold but don't let it get warm. My cousin described it as tasting "like vomit, but in a good way."

My dad liked 14th Star Maple Breakfast Stout a lot but I wasn't too impressed.

Lawson's Super Session shits all over All Day IPA.

Citizen Cidery in Burlington is fantastic and was much less crowded than I expected at lunchtime Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Prohibition Pig is also a great hangout.

My non-beer-fanatic VT family are proud of their state's prominence but don't really understand it. My uncle especially likes to rant about the people fucking shit up for him at the beer store when he just wants to go buy Bud or Labatt.

Didn't get to visit or even drink any Hill Farmstead ;_;

glad you dug the telekinesis, marcos! they put out similarly-excellent things about twice a month, and some of the sours get distro through shelton brothers so you may see more soon

lost nation gose is nice, closer to the malt profile of av gose than the cleaner westbrook version. new favorite gose is perennial suburban beverage, though the price point is pretty high. very clean lime and meyer lemon, everything perennial does is so dialed-in flavor-wise

had a few seasonal things yesterday from dirck the norseman / greenpoint beer and ale co ... i had zero expectations but was super impressed! acidifus rex is probably the best heavily hopped sour beer i've ever tasted (tho i haven't tasted many to compare... red swingline is the closest that comes to mind). not sure if their stuff ever gets out of nyc but definitely worth your time if you see it around

Anheuser-Busch InBev are going to acquire Golden Road Brewing in L.A., which is the largest craft brewery in town but also one of the worst imo.

i don't get angry or anything when AB-InBev acquires a name, i don't really protest or care that much, but i kind of lose interest in that name? it is wrong i guess but idk. like i hear great shit about goose island but i've never bought anything from them, perhaps this makes me a shitty beer drinker idk

goose island makes some great beer and afaik their quality control is still high. i'm interested in this story because i'm curious to see how they're critically received once (and if) their reach expands. right now lots of people in l.a. seem to love their product but i think it has to be a strictly "local brewery makes good" kinda thing because while the golden road empire is responsible for some pretty good pubs (which are still mostly flash over substance), their beer is just no good.

I find GR beer acceptable though nothing to get excited over. Similar for Eagle Rock brewery besides their Red Velvet, which I never see anywhere.

eagle rock brewery is a shade better than GR imo. current local fave is macleod.

Read a think-piece or two about the end of the craft era. Not the end of good beer, by all means, but the end of this particular era, or maybe just West Coast craft, what with the sale of Firestone Walker, Lagunitas, the CEO of Stone stepping down. I say, if this means the ubiquitous baseline beer that you can find anywhere becomes stuff as good as Firestone or Lagunitas, good for everyone. Unless they become as complacent and boring as Sam Adams or, imo, Goose Island, whose specialty beers are pretty great but whose find-everywhere beers are really nothing special.

I'll try to find the link to the piece, which held particular animus toward Lagunitas for ... I'm not sure, pretending that selling out to Heineken was somehow not selling out?

i went to the lagunitas brewery in chicago a month ago, a buddy of mine was playing a show there. an insane place. i like the beer. i prefer goose island but mainly for their specialty brews, which i agree are a lot better than their regular ones. i'm a fan of their winter ale though.

This is what I saw: http://thefullpint.com/dans-blog/dans-reaction-to-firestone-lagunitas-saint-archer-stone-news/

Anyway, easier to get good beer is a win for everyone. Though we are so spoiled here there's very little that doesn't hit our shelves.

What didn’t jive well for me was the IPA scandal earlier this year, in which they tried blocking Sierra Nevada Hop Hunter IPA from hitting the market due to the IPA mark on the Sierra Nevada label. Their approach was puzzling for being ‘craft beer’ as it seemed greedy and huge corporation like. Their street cred took a big hit from that and I’m not sure they ever completely bounced back from that.

what the hell, did not know this

Lagunitas brewery in Chicago is insane but they serve beer in jars so fuck them all to hell.

i had never heard of golden road but am reading some reaction and lol @ how nobody likes their beer very much

Thought the Lagunitas/Sierra Nevada spat was mentioned upthread here.

I figure if these guys end up making crappy beer it'll just open the way for more craft brewers. Good beer is not going away.

A local brewery to me (Craftsman in Pasadena) makes a lager that re-engaged me with that style, and I find Golden Road's 329 lager a pretty good version, and GR's seasonal IPAs can be pretty good too, though I can never remember which one(s) I like (20/20? Better Weather? Heal the Bay?).

cad what do u think of jack's abbey (speaking of lagers)