Beer in the new era

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)

My favorite brewery in LA is probably Beachwood.

The recent AB acquisitions are just so mild and unoffensive. Say what you want about Goose Island, but their barrel program is pretty phenomenal and a class or five above anything from Golden Road, 10 Barrel & Elysian.

St Archer (the Miller/Coors acquisition) is pretty average/forgettable.

Lagunitas' deal seems more like a distro deal for Europe/global than any sort of management influence, in fact, the contract language I skimmed said as much: the NA operations are unaffected by this deal.

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

― marcos, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 4:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jack's abbey is.....adequate? i can't remember the last time i picked up their beer when i had other choices, but it's all pretty good.

CAD sent me a BA Framinghammer from Jack's Abbey that was pretty tasty.

yeah that is a nice beer; they do another seasonal called kiwi rising which i like a lot. more their regular lineup that i pass over.

yea agree with that assessment cad

nothing is bad from them, they are v competent but nothing really is really must-buy

mmm drinking a Firestone pilsner, really good - never tried it before.

I've been buying a lot of Two Brothers beers lately, mostly their Dortmunder and Extra Pale. They're the most reliably fresh offerings at my neighborhood grocery store which is pretty much the thing I care most about any more... Although they did have random 4 packs of that New Holland Night Tripper recently.

I did also splurge for a Revolution BA scotch ale, Gravedigger Billy, last week but haven't found a good time to crack it open yet.

Ninkasi to expand into Maryland, DC, VA

http://www.ninkasibrewing.com/news/blogs/press-blog/2015/09/23/ninkasi-brewing-company-expands-east-coast-distribution/?ageVerified=defaultValue

mmm drinking a Firestone pilsner, really good - never tried it before.

Yeah, the Pivo Pils is one of the better American craft pilsners I've tasted. Hits that difficult balance of flavor, body, carbonation and crispness. Nothing really jumps out on first sip, but it goes down very easy.

http://www.gooseisland.com/rareday.html

$60 a bottle.

that...is not going to go over well

2010 Rare was $45-50 iirc... but that was Pappy.

bigger bottle too right?

Weird shaped bottle, I want to say. Like, smaller than a bomber but bigger than the 12oz bottles? At least that's the case for the rest of them. No longer 4-packs? Pretty lame all around, I think. I think the small/regular bottles are great to share.

The $60 is straight from goose too. Can't wait to see the markups the corner liquor stores around here give it.