Beer in the new era

^^^ Yep, both awesome. Also Rare 15 which is not in the same league as Rare 10 imho but a decent BBA stout with serious upside, I'm not gambling on that though.

i really enjoyed how different they were. regal was thinner and more tart than the earlier fruit variants. i think the salt was doing something really interesting in there.

coffee was not an attempt at a fresh coffee stout at all, more like a thick coffee milkshake. totally decadent and awesome.

Boy the Anchor christmas brew is damn good this year. Last year's was more flowery, this year's is more chocolately and malty.

Bourbon County release handled as well as can be at Costco. Four bottles of regular per customer, I believe $7.99 each, and they wrote down your member ID with purchase and then checked all purchases against that list to thwart double-dippers. And thwart they did.

Dang, that's the cheapest I've seen.

I'm only getting 2 bottles of reg from my place, hope to stumble on a few more. I love having it saved to drink throughout the year.

Whole Foods release is ... 12/4 I think?

today i hit a few different places and got 6 regulars, a coffee, and a barleywine. missed a bottle of regal by one place in line.

session IPAs are useless to me tbh

I kind of felt that way until I tried the Otter Creek Over Easy. It's like a weird cross between a piney, skunky American IPA and a crisp, refreshing pilsner. It shouldn't work but it does.

The funny thing, if you focus for a while on high ABV beers, then suddenly 7% seems reasonable.

haha true

xxp otter creek in general is really good

which is weird bc like 6-8 years ago i do not remember them being very good? idk if the beer was revamped too when they did the whole logo redesign but once they started showcasing the brewmaster series things started getting a lot better, they used to just be a boring VT brewery but somewhere things started getting really good

the attempt to fit in better with the vt scene was not surprising, the fact that mike gerhart turned out to have a really interesting and distinctive take on that scene definitely was.

I think some places just hone their craft (pun intended) and improve their products. When Revolution first opened in Chicago I was totally unimpressed, but over the past few years they have gotten exponentially better across the board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=101&v=V5YO5gOGZlA

Goddammit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5YO5gOGZlA

Revolution Deth's Tar is as good as BCBS regular IMO.

And so much easier to get.

i don't love bcbs regular this year as much as usual but i was not impressed by deth's tar at all

Yeah, it's not their best. I have a bottle from a couple of years ago I should try though.

Found a couple more regulars today. Really miss the 4 packs. At least for reg.

yeah i've stopped looking b/c the new format is really unpleasant for one person to drink ime

i haven't been in my local beer shop v much recently (was finishing off a box of jai alai instead) but i went in today and got some cool stuff - victory java cask, a large bottle of lagunitas sucks, this terrapin/cigar city double IPA collab called vapricot, and free will blood and guts. free will has been putting out some tremendous sours recently. i had another free will sour off the tap that was great too - cuvee aigre was super funky.

Genuinely surprised to hear you say that CAD, I think it gets things right that a lot of the pretenders to the throne like Central Waters and Dragon's Milk never really did, namely the body. To each their own of course!

apparently i have no notes on it but i remember the body being good, think it was more the flavor that was lacking in my mind

Any of you French press stuff into your stouts? Been meaning to try, and Deth's Tar seems like a more than solid enough base for experimentation.

Agree the new BCBS bottles suck. Four packs were ideal. This, less so.

I don't mind drinking 500 ml at a time (but I'm the guy who will finish a bottle of red wine in one sitting if I'm not paying attention), but the price increase kind of angered me: $6.50 for 12 oz last year vs $12 for 17 oz this year. I got one bottle this year, may try for a second tomorrow.

Anyone try the recent Stone barrel aged? I bought a Double Bastard in the Rye (haven't tried it yet) and noticed today at WF that they have 3 more barrel-aged low volume beers.

Found a couple of bottles of Destihl's Dosvendanya, one bourbon barrel aged, the other rye. Did really well at FOBAB and have heard good things.

had the w00tsout 3.0 from stone the other night on tap. 13% abv iirc? really great.

also had the goose island bourbon county barleywine on tap, which was incredible imo.

http://www.foodandwine.com/slideshows/50-amazing-nanobreweries-50-states

Having the BCBS right now on tap at Whole Foods in north Evanston (Green Bay Road). Last week a guy at Plum Market in Old Town offered me $50 to stand in line at Plum Market to help him get double the per-person limit. (Of course would have, and of course was sitting in their cafe working on a last-minute deadline.) So I figured I should try it. Amateur notes: Coming from this as more of a wine nerd and casual beer drinker, it reminds me a lot of wines where the oak is the primary component. So it's like an odd stout/whiskey/wine-oak combo. Glad to have the experience, but don't see myself switching over to barrel-aged beer.

It's pretty much the opposite of a casual beer, that much is true.

Also was served it in a water glass, so that cuts down on any nose. My one other time trying it was at a card game where the host had been given a set as a gift, and I had just a splash, but was able to just keep my nose in it for a good long while before even taking a sip.

I ended up finding Rare at Whole Foods, just sitting on the shelf.

! Recently? Where at?

Oskar Blues' Death By Coconut porter is surprisingly wonderful

BCBS is at my local but it's $14.99 and only one per person.
Should I?

I would.

sure.

+1

That's kinda pricy, my neighborhood Costco still had BCBS for $7.99 each, limit 4 per membership.

have to admit I am baffled by the attention bcbs gets, there are a lot of good barrel aged stouts nowadays and the chatter around goose island seems way out of proportion

as well as the price tbh

xp increasingly agree w/ you on that

What are these easily acquired barrel aged stouts that are on par with Bourbon County? Always felt like this was one of those instances where the hype is warranted.

I cracked open a two year old BCBS the other day and it was legitimately one of the tastiest beers I've ever had.

I'm drinking a local now, barrel aged imperial pajamas by begyle and it's pretty good. Just doesn't quite nail the mouthfeel that BCBS does.

i don't think there are shelf ba stouts as good as bcbs even though i was disappointed with this year's unflavored.

cracked my first 2015 bcbs rn, really not impressed -- whiskey dominating everything, no balance

big bad baptist is a real easy find in my neck of the woods, can get a 22oz for about the same price as these new 17oz bcbs bottles

I wish more people shared your opinion, would make it easier for me to get.

Ha, they ran out overnight.