Beer in the new era

i know i've said this before but i get kind of bored/irritated by breweries that are like:

ipa
double ipa
imperial ipa
flavored ipa
different flavored ipa
session ipa
belgian ipa
black ipa

there are different styles of beer other than ipas y'all

(and yea i know ballast point has different styles)

do you get irritated by breweries that only make farmhouse ales?

i know i've said this before but i get kind of bored/irritated by breweries that are like:

ipa
double ipa
imperial ipa
flavored ipa
different flavored ipa
session ipa
belgian ipa
black ipa

there are different styles of beer other than ipas y'all

hey cut 3 floyds some slack

also gtfo with this "pussies" bs

xxp cad haha no so i fully admit this is a personal bias, i find farmhouse ales more interesting generally

Yeah, it's not that the beer was spicy, it was just disgusting. I want more than pepper from my beer. Fortunately, I bought it at Trader Joe's so I can return the other 5 bottles!

I'm ok with breweries making all the ipas. Go with what you're good at.

yeah if you can be alpine or knee deep or something that's great, smaller shops that feel the need to touch on a ton of styles usually don't end up succeeding at many of them.

nanobrewery down the street from me opened 2 months ago with a saison and a kolsch and an ipa and a belgian ipa and an english pale ale, guess what none of them are good.

yea i think it is more that ipas are just a ubiquitous style in craft now and many of them are not good, just many unimaginative variations on hops and it gets old

agree though there are many breweries that have a narrow focus and that is a good thing if they know what they are doing

I'm not huge on Habanero Sculpy, the only time I truly loved it was when I had the idea to cut it with clamato... something I'd never do with any other beer. But Ballast Point seems to be a weird target of ire esp compared to Stone & Green Flash. BP's coffee/vanilla porter is a world-class shelf-beer available in 6-packs or bombers. They also made an Indian-spiced beer a couple years ago that I thought was pretty bold.

This is an amazing time to be a beer drinker, particularly if you are a fan of pale ales. There are breweries that churn out line-ups of legendary pale ales by the half-/full-dozens: Alpine, Boneyard, Russian River, Block 15, Treehouse, Maine Beer Company, Cellarmaker, hell even Lagunitas, Surly and Bell's. Even the best barrel-aged saison brewers in the USA also make world-class IPAs (HF: Abner, Double Citra; SARA: Simpleton).

Maybe a nice segue into some hoppy sours which seem to be a good middle ground:

Cantillon Iris: fresh & dry hopped, pale ale malted, then spontaneously fermented like a lambic would be (then fresh-hopped again?)
Cantillon Cuvee St. Gilloise: gueuze blend that undergoes a 3 week cask dry hopping
Prairie Funky Gold Mosaic: bretty/lacto saison that gets dry hopped in copious Mosaic hops
The Rare Barrel Egregious: Oak-aged golden sour dry-hopped with Amarillo
DeGarde Hose: Gose aged in wine barrels with coriander, citrus peel and various hop blends

I really like Habanero Sculpin. Only had it on draft though.
I think pepper beers are likely to get overwhelming in bottles/cans for too long - I like Sonoma Cider's "The Crowbar" as well (on draft) but I'm not buying even a 4-pack of it.

Yesterday I ordered the "Bonfire" cider by Millstone, a super premium cidery in Maryland, they make really good stuff but this was definitely more of an after-dinner drink, 10% ABV and made with clover honey and "fish peppers" - a Mid-Atlantic staple, not normally super hot but pretty close to overpowering in a cider.

xp speaking of which I really like Hop Valley's new pale ale

Speaking of Alpine, had the Hoppy Birthday and Duet, as brewed by Green Flash now. Duet was pretty good, but Hoppy Birthday was like..... this is supposed to be a world class beer? Perhaps not as good as those by Alpine themselves? Too old?

Green Flash brewed Alpine is... not so good and frankly embarrassing for the Alpine folks. Massive quality control issues from what I've heard through the rumor mills. I think the founder of Green Flash recently resigned in fact.

Also Ballast Point filed for IPO yesterday... bucking the trend for micros being taken over by macros!

Otter Creek Overgrown is a good pale ale with lots of complex hops flavor without being too bitter. They tend to taste pretty fresh around here - I guess the distribution is good to the Northeast.

When I returned the Habenero Sculpin to Trader Joe's, the staffer there started laughing and told me they were taking an informal poll of who liked it. So far it was 4 nos and 1 yes. A second later the yes came by, so I asked the yes what she liked about it. "I don't know," she said. "I like spicy stuff." It's not the heat that's the problem, I said, it's that it's gross and barely tastes like beer. "Yeah," she conceded. "It's like pepper water." (Which is how I had described it to her coworker). "But I think it would be good for cooking chili." No argument, I said. But that's like praising a wine for being good to cook with. You don't say that about the best wines, only the stuff not good enough to drink.

She's right, though, it would make a good beer for cooking chili.

habAnero

AAAAAAA

hey gabbers, if you want to go around correcting the spelling of every ILX post you've got a long job ahead of you. better hurry!

otter creek rules still tho i've neglected to get any overgrown this season

The idea of returning beer is very lol to me.

Likewise, though I have to admit if I bought a sixer of the Hab Sculpin I'd be seriously considering it. That, or bringing it to the next party I attend and leaving it in the collective beer bucket while drinking other beers.

Glad I tried it on draft first.

Trader Joe's lets you return anything, which is great. Anywhere else, my only options would be drink it, dump it, or drop it off at some unsuspecting stranger's house. Option one was untenable. Option two was a waste. Option three would be cruel. If ever a beer needed to be draft or bomber only, it's this one. Just looking at the five remaining bottles in the pack made my stomach turn.

I just put it in the alley and usually it's picked up in minutes.

Huh I thought legally it had to be disposed of in one of those far flung bins for compact fluorescent bulbs and other toxic metals.

I bought a 6 of Sierra Nevada Torpedo and some of them tasted skunky but others didn't. For a second I wished I could return them but they came from Cermak Produce, not TJ's. :(

You can probably just take them back to TJs anyway, like a toys-for-guns exchange.

Founders Spectra Trifecta: tasted like shampoo/conditioner from a Sheraton hotel. Ginger, chamomile, lemongrass, gross.

I didn't like it either.

Jeff, how do you think barrel-aged Narwhal compares to regular Narwal? The base beer is pretty good and a pretty good deal, not sure the upgrade is cost effective.

Have any of you locals had any 18th Street Brewery stuff yet?

yeah i didn't care for spectra trifecta but i tried redankulous at the founders tap room last night and am mad i passed on bottles, that beer is delicious.

I loved both narwhals. And for a BA beer, narwhals a bargain.

Haven't had 18th street. You can take metra right there, but haven't had a chance.

BA Narwhal something like $20-22, though. Now Revolution's BA stuff, that's a (relative) bargain.

I think I only paid $16 for BA Narwhal! Maybe I just got a deal. It is a spectrum though.

no offense, but anyone who buys habanero beer should not be allowed to vote or drive

xp it's 19 at WF

I bought some Surly bombers while I was in MN a few weeks ago so last night I drank the 1349 black ale collaboration with Lervig from Norway, and holy shit, that was as much of an imperial stout as anything else, super sweet and super strong. It was all I could do to finish the whole thing without passing out, which was probably impossible because of the amount of coffee in it! Worth trying if you see it around, but I'd suggest sharing it with someone if you get a whole bomber.

I've also got their 9th anniversary ale, but it's a rauchbier so I'm kind of wondering whether I'll like it or not.

So I do like that you can get belgian styles in 12oz bottles and not just 22s and 750s now, but I have a real first world problem on my hands.

I have some awesome spherical 13oz glasses I got at the Oxbow tasting room which are just the best to drink a fancy belgian beer out of. Of course, they don't do so great if you try and pour a real foamy one into 'em. As a result, I frequently go for one of my bigger goblet / snifter / tulip glasses that's probably closer to a pint, and then if there's a big head, there's room, but if there's not a big head, I go "Dammit! This beer would have fit just fine in the Oxbow glass!" And then somehow the entire experience is just not as incredible as it could have been.

Do you guys have any similar issues? It's pretty tough to deal with.

This just happened with the Weyerbacher 20th Anniversary which I'm now nursing from an oversized goblet that used to say Dogfish Head on the side but the printing was done on the cheap so now it just looks like any old fancy glass that I bought from a fancy glass place. The Weyerbacher 20th is still pretty tasty though. Malty with some orange and coriander notes, dark but not oily.

Also, the Victory HopDevil is a good transition if you're going from a big bitter IPA to a maltier beer. Just figured that out.
Victory's Dirt Wolf was one of my favorite nightcap beers for a couple of weekends but then I started feeling like it was a little flat, almost oily; which may just be the batch. I hope it is.

Just stop when the head is close to the edge, then there's more when the glass is done (bonus!).

Yes I know how to pour beer. I just feel stupid using a stopper on a 12oz bottle. OK actually I don't. But still!! Basically I avoid using my favorite beer glasses because I just want to pour the whole bottle in at once. Is that so wrong? Is there something wrong with me?!?

When I drink a bomber I have to use multiple pours. I don't bother re-capping the bottle, it doesn't take that long to finish it.

Do you use a dishwasher? There may be some soap residue in the glass that's contributing to the foam. A quick rinse before pouring might help.

multiple pours in a smaller glass is better than an oversized glass half full of beer imo

So hefeweizen is a health food, yes?