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Arnold of Soissons posted:
I lined up for it at Pinocchio's on Leap Day, they started pouring at 10:30am and it kicked in 12 minutes. I lined up for it 'cause I hadn't had it before. Now I've had it, I won't line up for it again. A while ago at Teresa's, this happened:  Look at that list. That poo poo's pretty bonkers. Obviously a line down the sidewalk when they opened their doors. I looked down the bar, and what's everyone drinking? Not the Supplication, Consecration, or Temptation, not the Trappist quad or the Van De Garre Tripel (which is amazing and served at a handful of bars in the world), not the Cantillon Fou'Foune. Everyone's got a CBS in front of them, myself included. Because hardly any of us had had it before. Novelty matters a lot. Then once it's not novel anymore you move on.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:30
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Anyone riding the Craft Beer Express in Philly this saturday?
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Mar 7, 2012 17:37
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Midorka posted:
I would drink it over any other gluten-free beer, every time.
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Mar 8, 2012 03:25
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Midorka posted:It was highly recommended from a friend and I had a good income tax, it's only $40 and money, thankfully, isn't tight right now. I fell in love with Allagash's Interlude and figured it might be similar, I was wrong. I'm not saying it's a bad beer by any means, I'm just saying I didn't like it and didn't want to struggle with it is all. I see the comparisons to vinegar, but are there people that just drink vinegar? Yep. Friend of mine was visiting from Phoenix. His family's Pennsylvania Mennonites from Lancaster. I took him to Monks, he said he'd never had a lambic, so I got him a Hanssens Experimental Cassis. He liked it, and said "You know who would have loved this? My grandfather, he drank a glass of vinegar every day for his health." quote:Otiose I always wonder how they come up with those figures. What, some time a bit over three years ago, they made a test batch to cellar, sampled it periodically, and then when it turns back into a pumpkin they figure "Three years it is, let's brew it for real"? Sort of like how they proof bridges by driving bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it fails, and then rebuild the bridge and put up weight limit signs based on the last truck that made it over. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Mar 8, 2012 |
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Mar 8, 2012 16:12
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Kraven Moorhed posted:To piggyback on funkybottoms's much more illustrious destination, I am also going on vacation. To, well, Ocean City, MD. Don't ask. Liquid Assets on 94th is a great meal. Not a huge bottle selection, but some decent stuff and the food's fantastic, about one of the best-quality restaurants you'll find down there. It's also a liquor store, so you can get any of the beers in the cooler even if it's not actually listed on the restaurant menu. Bluecoast is another very good restaurant. I'm not mentioning that because of beer, it's just a great place to eat.
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Mar 10, 2012 02:11
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Midorka posted:I'm not huge on scotch's I've had Johnny Blue, Black, and Red, Glenlivet 12, and Laphroaig 10. I think only Johnny Blue is described as peaty and I can't really describe the flavor other than "peaty" if that is indeed the flavor I'm thinking. If so I don't like the flavor of it too much and prefer Johnny Walker Black over blue because of that, then again I'm more of a bourbon drinker. Laphroaig is one of the peatiest of Scotches, it's enormously peaty.
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Mar 10, 2012 07:15
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Arnold of Soissons posted:On the Dogfish reality show, they did an episode where they took a trip to Peru to learn about Chicha. They found the oldest chicha brewers they could, women who traced their methods back 4 or 5 generations and who were themselves in their 80s. Not a single one of those women had ever heard of anyone actually chewing the corn before fermenting it. That's simply not true. I torrented that episode, and the second woman they featured on the episode combines germinated corn with chewed corn in her chicha. DFH has enough things you can legitimately criticize it for without having to make poo poo up.
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Mar 11, 2012 21:41
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CalvinDooglas posted:I don't get why it's highly regarded at all. I gave Midorka a hard time about the same thing with his expensive lambic, but the 120 Min is one of those beers that people will just suck up and finish, even if they know it sucks. Nobody wants to be the guy that doesn't "get" an expensive, hyped beer. Even when it's objectively terrible people will say "hmm yes I can see the appeal" instead of saying what they really think. I know we go through this every few weeks, but this time around seems to be more retarded than usual. My sister used to be a pastry chef, and is a major foodie. She's a wine person, doesn't give a poo poo about beer. She couldn't care less about how hyped or expensive a beer is. And she really doesn't like beers where hops are the principal flavor. She'd loving *hate* Pliny the Younger if she had it. But she likes other beers, she's a big fan of big malty boozebombs; Bourbon-barrel Angel's Share and Gouden Carolous Cuvée Van De Keizer blue are probably her two favorite beers. She *really likes* 120. First time she tried it she said that it was more like a tawny port than a beer. Maybe lay off the "That beer is objectively terrible and people who like it are subhuman CHUDs" for a bit.
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Mar 12, 2012 00:40
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CalvinDooglas posted:I still don't get what in any beer could remind a person of cat piss. I have smelled lots of cat piss, and none of it reminded me of any beer. I know exactly what he's getting at, I don't remember which one it was, but it was a limited brew from Victory, and it smelled exactly like cat piss, that harsh ammoniac tang that you pick up when you walk into the house of an old lady with too many cats (Okay, one is too many). Tasted far, far better than it smelled, but the aroma was offputting.
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Mar 12, 2012 23:52
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Angry Grimace posted:I'm completely shocked if there are any states that allow open containers. Never been to Vegas or New Orleans? As for cars, there are a few states that let passengers in the car drink, but not the driver. In Mississippi, you can drink *while* you're driving, so long as you stay below the DUI blood-alcohol limit.
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Mar 13, 2012 03:45
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air- posted:Vegas is so service oriented that I'm sure they will set that guy's tone correctly over time. I really hope that place survives because the strip is pretty much all about macro beer and they will have to find that right tempo of getting someone to try new things and educating. I might be going for Evo this summer and I'll check it out. Well, there's the Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay, which has a decent selection, and there's the Yard House further north on the boulevard. But any place with that many taps makes me uneasy. Plus, the food kinda blows. At the Yard House, that is. Burger Bar's awesome. At least if you're there on business and not paying for it. bartolimu posted:Yard House is actually farther south than Burger Bar, You're right, I was turned around in my head. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Mar 13, 2012 |
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Mar 13, 2012 18:24
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Kraven Moorhed posted:Holy gently caress. Thank you so much for this recommendation. Not only was the food fantastic (best we've had all week) but the bottle selection is pretty amazing. La Folie is $11 here, and there's a bunch of Sucaba/Abacus just sitting around and waiting to be bought. The lack of taps disappointed me at first, but they let you pick any "big beer" out of the cooler for $12 is crazy as hell. A 750 of Duchess de Bourgogne with dinner for $12? Wow. Gah, sounds like they've upped their beer game since the last time I was there, because they did not have New Belgium or anything like Duchesse.
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Mar 14, 2012 17:38
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cyberpunksurvivor posted:The shift manager tells me that they jacked up the price of Mission since it doesn't sell well. That's a great plan, Walter. That's fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. It's a Swiss fuckin' watch.
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Mar 16, 2012 15:19
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TenaciousTomato posted:The most I have paid is $18.99 for a 4 of Duvel, although it was definitely worth it $150 for a 6-pack of Eclipse (Elijah Craig 18, Elijah Craigh 12, Rittenhouse Rye, Grand Cru, Four Roses, Brandy). Those are 750s, at least. And $50 for a Westvleteren 12 at White Horse in London, but I was there on business and wasn't paying for meals, hotel rooms, or plane tickets. So, sure, what the hell.
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Mar 21, 2012 21:12
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lazerwolf posted:Do yourself a favor and find Saison Dupont. Its a great saison all around. Just get it from a place that cares about beer. It's a pale, hoppy beer in a green bottle, and I have had more than one that was skunked beyond all recognition, and it makes me cry a little to think of someone else buying one from where I did and thinking that's what the reference point for that entire style of beer is supposed to taste like.
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Mar 23, 2012 03:05
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If we're talking about saisons it's once again time to recommend the hell out of Cellar Door. The chardonnay-aged Stateside is pretty awesome, but it's way more expensive and there's not as much of it around. JP's Baudelaire IO is excellent, but I haven't seen any on shelves in over a year so it dawns on me that it might have been a one-off that they're not making any more of. And Anchorage's Love Buzz saison is pretty nice.
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Mar 24, 2012 00:10
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Midorka posted:
I killed the 6 I got within a couple days, and tried one from the can, and you just don't get the aromas you get from sticking your face down into a glass of beer. The can says "The act of pouring it a glass smells nice, but it releases the essential hop aromas that we have worked so hard to retain." I have no idea what that even means. You *want* to release the hop aromas so that you can perceive them so they can contribute to the taste of the beer, not confine them so that you don't pick them up with your nose. Smell is a huge part of what makes things taste like things, I have no idea why you'd want to eliminate it as a factor. It's an awesome beer, I wish I had some to drink right now, but if I did I'd pour it into a glass and inhale deeply every time I take a drink. Also: In the event that Heady Topper is unavailable, Hill Farmstead Abner is a very acceptable substitute. There's no way in hell I'd be able to tell them apart in a blind test. Darth Goku Jr posted:Gueze by definition can't have a vintage since it's a blend of at least two years (pretty sure three) vintages of lambics. Gueze is pretty limited by default because of this. Sure it can, it only goes into the bottle once.
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Mar 24, 2012 21:08
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Angry Grimace posted:Technically speaking, given the contents of bourbon, I think that would qualify under the german purity law. The grain used to make bourbon has to be at least 51% corn.
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Mar 26, 2012 15:28
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Docjowles posted:Somehow this extracts the alpha acids, leaving behind everything else. Liquid CO2 is a great solvent for all sorts of stuff. The alpha acids dissolve into the liquid CO2 under pressure, and then you can draw off that solution from the solid hop remnants. Now you've got liquid CO2 with a bunch of bitterness dissolved into it, you drop the pressure and let the CO2 evaporate, leaving the pure solute behind.
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Mar 27, 2012 17:10
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Retemnav posted:Looks like New Belgium is probably coming to Asheville! Pretty awesome, suck it Philly. What a surprise that they picked Asheville over a city that penalizes you for trying to start a business and employ people and add to the tax base. Go loving figure.
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Apr 5, 2012 00:23
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Midorka posted:
PA liquor laws in a nutshell: Only distributors can sell cases. And they can *only* sell cases, not six-packs or singles (They can sell 12-pack cases of big bottles). Any place that has a license to sell beer for consumption on the premises can sell beer to go. They don't have to, but they can, which means most bars will sell you six-packs or singles to go. But since that's a bar, you're paying bar prices for your bottles. Many of them will give a discount for to-go beer, so you're not paying *quite* as high of a markup (At Teresa's, for instance, it's a 20% discount off the menu price if you get it to-go). That's what the bottle shops are, from an alcohol-license perspective, they're essentially just restaurants. Pinnochio's is a pizza place with pizza and cheesesteaks and a sit-down bar and 24 taps and 850 bottles. Capone's over in Norristown is about the same. Dedicated bottle shops have prices that are a bit better than your average bar, but it's still taxed a lot, so it's not like going into a grocery store in another state and buying a six-pack of something good. Growler fills can be a good deal, though. And the silliest thing is that you're limited to 192 fluid ounces per transaction, which is almost, but not quite, 3 six-packs. They will actually make you purchase two sixers, complete the transaction, take them out to your car, and then return to buy a third.  Booze/wine is state-controlled, you can only buy it from state-run stores (called State Stores, appropriately enough), which generally have weak selections, aren't open on holidays, and most aren't open on Sundays. Yes, this is completely retarded, and we keep trying to change it, but the unions manage to keep it around, every time, making occasionally concessions (Like, it used to be that none of them were open on Sundays. Woooo, progress). This might be arcane, but we're by no means the only state with this three-tier bullshit, and there are other aspects of PA booze laws that really help out smaller brewers. For example, an InBev rep cannot walk into a bar and say "We'll pay you $X/month for Y feet of guaranteed shelf space." However screwed up it is, it has allowed Philly to turn into a monster beer town, and I'd rather put up with all this crap (and pay these prices) than be limited to 8% ABV beer or something really stupid like that. I do not know about good bottle shops or bars in Pittsburgh, and I don't think there are any Wegman's grocery stores out that way. Sorry. SUPER HASSLER posted:TX may be 3-tier, but at least you can go to a supermarket and buy a bottle of Chimay and enjoy TRUE FREEDOM. You can do that here too, now, at least if it's one of the new Wegman's or Whole Foods that has a bar in it. *Even* on Sunday. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 18:58
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(Unless it's Sunday morning.)
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I Dont Like You posted:Pliny isn't sold on the east coast. Sure it is. Just not in bottles. We get Elder on draft in Philly not constantly, but with some regularity, and we get Younger on rare occasions.
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Apr 5, 2012 21:54
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Arnold of Soissons posted:Trying to think of an exceptional US made quad and failing. 3 Philosophers. Allagash Four is pretty good, but I will always, always pick Curieux over it.
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Apr 13, 2012 04:43
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Valencia posted:Had a New Holland Envious on draft tonight. It was listed as a fruit ale and was described as having a nice raspberry flavor, but I couldn't pick up on any fruit flavor at all- it tasted really flat and...I hesitate to say sour because I enjoy a good sour, but acidic maybe? It was definitely unpleasant and that made me sad because I generally enjoy what New Holland has to offer. My question is, does this match up with others' experiences or did I dick myself out of a good beer because of this terrible cold that I'm coming off of? No, it's just not very good. Dragon's Milk is really good, barrel-aged Golden Cap is really good, Envious is just not a good beer.
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Apr 13, 2012 15:23
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Vertigo posted:Elysian made it to PA finally. Elysian's been in PA for years.
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Apr 13, 2012 21:42
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Whisker Biscuit posted:Speaking of "can do no wrong" Jolly Pumpkin Biere de Mars may be my new best beer in Michigan. Seek it out, folks. Is it bottled, or am I SOL?
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Apr 16, 2012 04:22
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Sirotan posted:Has anyone ever had a particularly good and memorable collaboration beer? I'm reading about Founder's first collab, which is with Green Flash, and I'm filled with 'meh'. What few collab beers I can even remember having, none of them were particularly great. I've still got a bottle of a Jolly Pumpkin beer called Collababiere, which was with Nøgne Ø and Stone, and it's probably one of the worst JP beers I've had. The DeProef/Sly Fox collab, Broederlijke Liefde, was awesome. They started out intending to do a brown ale and ended up making a brett saison, I'm not sure what happened but it was great.
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Apr 16, 2012 20:31
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Docjowles posted:Anyone familiar with "blanche de bruxelles"? Had it on draft yesterday at Falling Rock taphouse in Denver, who usually know what they are doing to put it lightly. It was the hugest diacetyl bomb I have had in my life, it was like smelling and drinking a tub of buttered popcorn I've never had that from it, it's always been an acceptable white. Bad or poorly-treated keg. Beergeekery: Blanch de Bruxelles isn't made in Brussels, it's made miles away in Quenast. So Jean Van Roy's zwanze for 2010, which is most definitely made right in the middle of Brussels, was a white beer he named Blanche de Quenast.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:05
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Passed it around the table and everyone agreed, it wasn't just me being a diacetyl-hating sperg. Just nasty. That must have been a bad keg, right? No one would drink that on purpose.
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Midorka posted:As for beer can cooking, no thanks. There's too many chemicals that could cause harm over time thanks to the specially lined cans and such. It just doesn't seem worth it to me. If you're that worried about BPA, you probably shouldn't be drinking what comes out of those cans on a regular basis, then. I'm more concerned about the inks etc. on the outside of the can.
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Apr 19, 2012 14:59
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Midorka posted:I don't think I've ever seen Karmeliet, but I'll look for it! It's way better than Hoegaarden. Hoegaarden used to be really good, back when Pierre Celis was making it. Then his brewery caught fire, and he had to sell 55% of the brewery to InBev (then Stella Artois, which merged with Piedboeuf to become Interbrew), which instantly started cutting costs and the beer started falling off. It's not terrible by any means, but it's not exceptional, not anymore. Better than Blue Moon, but not by a whole lot. Pierre bailed and started making Celis White in Texas, which was awesome, but the investors sold their shares to Miller, which completely hosed up the distribution of Celis White, and eventually sold the brand to Michigan Brewing Company which still makes Celis White, but which is somehow very different than the Celis White produced in Austin. Might be the water, I don't know, but it's also nowhere near as good as it was when Pierre Celis was making it. About the last thing Pierre Celis ever did was to work for St. Bernardus to develop their whitebeer. It's basically what Hoegaarden used to be before Inbev screwed it up, and basically what Celis White was before Miller screwed it up: Really, really loving good.
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Apr 23, 2012 18:42
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FreelanceSocialist posted:HB 212 HB 212 is about nursing. HB 242 is old news, it passed last year. The only new thing in that article is a resolution directing "“the legislative budget and finance committee to conduct an economic impact study of the brewery industry." Whooaaa, doggies, an economic impact study!
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Apr 24, 2012 03:24
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Midorka posted:Whoa, History puts out many quality shows, then again we're not here to talk about the merit of a television channel. I loved the woman who bailed from an executive position at Sam Adams to start her own company producing really lovely contract brew with caffeine in it. You could not find a better example of trying to make a quick buck in the craft beer market and then failing because your product is awful if you just made up a fake one. The scene where she goes back to Jim Koch begging for investment money and he turns her down is sweet joy. It's a shame that she eventually shut down because of the moral panic that arose over Four Loko (Mixing caffeine and alcohol is bad and unsafe! Except if it's an Irish Coffee. Or Kahlua. Or an expensive coffee stout. Then it's fine. You know, as long as it's only white people doing it. If it spreads beyond that, Something! Must! Be! Done!), but even if people hadn't lost their poo poo over a bunch of mindless hysteria, that company wasn't going to last much longer anyway. What about American Beer, anyone seen it?
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Apr 24, 2012 21:46
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Munkaboo posted:mmm, got it for 16 at a whole foods in Laguna beach. Is it really that good? Should I sit on it? It's good, but 20+ dollars for a small bottle good? No, no way. I can get a 750ml of Rodenbach Grand Cru for considerably less than a bottle of Red Poppy, and Cuvee des Jacobins is on tap for $6 or $7. Red Poppy's nowhere near sufficiently better than either of those to justify the additional cost. I know it's a boutique beer and costs a lot to produce, and I know that a lot of the price it goes for in PA is taxes, but no way am I buying it again. mysterious frankie posted:Would it be worth taking a three (six round) hour trip to Madison to score some? I've never been, but yeah, I'd do that. Their apple beer tastes more like apples than almost any cider I've ever had, their fruit beers are ridiculously good. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 15:30
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CalvinDooglas posted:I think I actually prefer beer that's aiming for the bare minimum to beer that's trying too hard. So many fruit beers are just over the top and hard to drink because they've packed in too much unbalanced, sweet flavors. The first year that Cherry Wheat came out, I was living in Phoenix, and it was the best goddamned lawnmower beer ever. Bone-dry, a bit of tart cherry towards the end, ridiculously good when you come inside from 114 loving degrees of hellfire. Then they decided to make it sweeter. Bah.
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May 2, 2012 04:38
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I actually dreamed about drinking Heady Topper last night. I might have a problem.
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May 2, 2012 17:20
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Midorka posted:
What is the difference between these two? I've been sitting on a bottle of Abacus for a while, I can only assume Sucuba is related, but how?
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May 4, 2012 18:05
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Midorka posted:
Dear lord no. Just get a 40 of Olde English, drink down to the top of the label, top off with orange juice. Then put your left leg down, your right leg up, tilt your head back and finish the cup.
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May 4, 2012 19:48
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bartolimu posted:Sam Adams Norse Legend is new, at least to Vegas. It's a sahti, brewed with and aged on juniper berries. From the taste I'd say they used about three berries per fermenter - it's mostly just malty, with honey flavors. There's a slight astringency in the finish that might be from the juniper, but overall this is like every other Sam Adams micro-aping beer: too safe. It's not terrible or anything, just doesn't stand out. Went to an awesome Szechuan BYO tonight. I brought a six of Troegs Scratch 63 (a BIPA), my buddy brought the bottle of Sam Adams 'American Kriek' that he bought at the brewery in Boston last year. It had not improved with age. Seriously the worst beer I've ever had from BBC. I'd previously brought a bottle to Teresa's to share with the staff, none of us could finish our sample. It's in between a Luden's cherry cough drop and canned cherry pie filling, and while the bottle claims it was aged in oak, it might have sat in contact with oak chips for about 30 seconds.
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May 7, 2012 05:29
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funkybottoms posted:anybody ever had a bottle of beer straight-up explode? Yes. Mid 90s, I forget the year, I was living in Phoenix and homebrewing in my apartment. I'd bottle-primed and capped a batch and it was sitting in cardboard cases underneath the kitchen table, and hey, look at that, we just had a city-wide blackout that lasted for a couple days before they got our power back on. And, yeah, it was summer. I had many bottles of beer straight-up explode.
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May 7, 2012 16:50
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RiggenBlaque posted:If you read the homebrewing subreddit, it seems like every week or so someone is posting asking about how to open a small brewery. A couple people have actually done it on scales ranging from almost nothing to nano. This is the sort of stuff that really shows to me how oversaturated it's getting It's not like it'd be the first time it crashed, too. Craft beer went through a bubble and collapse in the 1990s. From '86 to '95 the craft beer market grew at a rate of up to 75% a year, a didn't grow less than 29% a year. Then in '95, '96, '97, the year-over-year growth went like this: 58%, 26%, 2%. Then it stayed pretty flat until '03. There was definitely a big influx of money into the industry because it was seen as a way to make money (75% a year growth! Woo!), and then the bottom fell out and a lot of businesses were shut down, and a lot of businesses that had expanded with the expectation of continued growth in demand are no longer around, even some important pioneers like Yakima Brewing. I mean, Bert Grant basically invented American IPA, but his business didn't survive. How many John Harvard's brewpubs did there used to be? How many are there now? If I look at pictures from my bottle collection back in '92-'93, I'll see a lot of beers that you can't get anymore because those breweries died. It happens. And it's not as simpler as "the good breweries survive, the bad ones fail." The good *businesses* survive, the ones that make the right decisions, but the skillset for "makes the right business decisions" isn't the same as "makes good beer." Note the failure of Pierre Celis in Texas. Awesome beer, still failed. The aforementioned Yakima Brewing, made some of the best beer in the country, still failed. The list of failed breweries that made good beer that went under during the mid-90s crash is probably long and distinguished. This is why I'm fundamentally okay with little breweries not falling over themselves to take on debt to expand, I'd rather they stick around through a contraction, even if it means that I rarely get their beer and when I do it's expensive. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:12 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 16:09
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