Beer Thread 3: Every Day We Stray Further From Buds Light

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SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

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Hello

And welcome to the third Let's talk beer thread on GWS. We sit here and post all day about beer, breweries, beer reviews, beer travel, things to eat with beer, things to do while drinking beer, and how dreamy the beard on that one guy in the Sam Adams commercials is. Somehow this sort of thing has managed to become the biggest thread in GWS. Who knew. A new thread has been posted up at mod request and in order to shake things up a bit.

General GWS rules apply -- keep discussion decently purposeful, don't pick on other people's beer preferences (too much), and try to keep the thread from degenerating into idle chatting.

Don't be afraid to participate, however, especially if you're new and/or curious about beer. We love new people! Beer's at its best when it's shared among other folks, after all.

NOTE: Despite what you may see at bars, you are not actually required to grow an unkempt, scraggly neckbeard in order to be a beer fan. Don't throw out those razors!

A word about beer

Beer -- a drink made chiefly out of water, malted grain (usually barley or wheat), yeast, and hops -- is old. Very old. Arguably the oldest alcoholic beverage ever. As Garrett Oliver writes, the history of beer is "quite literally the history of human civilization." The best estimate we have is that the secret behind brewing beer was stumbled upon around 5000 years ago in Sumeria. It never really caught on in ancient Greece and Rome, but was a hit in western Europe -- by the year 1376, there were 475 breweries in the city of Hamburg alone, pushing out around 113,000 barrels per year. Thirsty serfs.

Beer was brought to America on the Mayflower and local breweries popped up immediately thereafter. The industry boomed worldwide in the 1800s, but two world wars and 13 years of Prohibition changed beer enormously in the Americas. After the war, the business was dominated by mass-market golden lager which, while a technical achievement to make, was low in flavor and generally designed to be cheap and easy for baby-boomers to drink by the case. What's worse, this crap was also being brewed by an increasingly shrinking group of enormous brewing conglomerates. In 1900, there were around 2000 breweries in the US; by 1978, when Jimmy Carter signed a law that legalized homebrewing, there were only 82.

But all wasn't lost. Smaller breweries began to pop up in the UK in the late 1970s, and the trend moved quickly over to the US. Places like New Albion (1976), Boulder Beer (1979) and Sierra Nevada (which pushed out their first batch of Pale Ale in November 1980) set the stage for a revolution in brewing, experimenting with older styles and exercising their creativity with things like IPAs, stouts, amber ales, and flavorings like chocolate and fruit.

Nowadays there are 1927 operating breweries in the US (as of last November), and the craft-beer revolution has taken hold on a massive, worldwide scale. It's an exciting time for beer fans, and if you're still a $2 PBR kind of person, now's the best time ever to start trying a few other things, all right?

Beer terms/background knowledge

IBUs (International Bitterness Units): A measure of bitterness in beer. The higher this is, the more hoppy/bitter-tasting the beer will generally be. The Bud Lights of the world have around 5-10 IBUs, while the extreme imperial IPAs can go up to 100 and higher. It's usually around 60 IBUs or so when you start remarking to yourself how hoppy the beer is.

ABV: Alcohol by volume. The amount of alcohol in the beer you're drinking. Generally speaking, a beer's alcohol level depends on the type of grain used, as well as how much is used in the recipe -- it's the sugars in these grains that get turned into alcohol by the yeast. Most beer is between 3-6% ABV, with stronger stouts and IPAs going up to 8-9% and higher. Depending on where you live in the US and Canada, supermarkets/convenience stores may not be allowed to sell beer higher than a certain value, often 3.2%.

Bomber/growler: A bomber is a 22-oz bottle often used by craft brewers for selling their less common/more alcoholic/nerdier beer varieties. The European version is 750ml, about 25oz. A growler is a half-gallon jar with twist-off cap; mainly used for "take-out beer" from breweries or bars, in states where that's legal.

Glassware: Some people really care about glassware. Serious beer bars will bust out different glasses for each style of beer (or even for individual beers, especially Belgians). Some glasses are mostly traditional in origin, such as the goofy one Pauwel Kwak comes in, but others are shaped to show off color, keep the foam head intact, and allow as much of the beer's aroma to come through to your nose. Here's a guide.

Bottles 'n cans: Most beer comes in bottles that are tinted brown in order to keep UV and visible light from coming in and spoiling the beer (making it "lightstruck") before its time. You will notice that some beer, mostly macro, is put out in green or clear bottles. These offer no protection against UV light, and some breweries take steps to get around this, but either way don't trust the beer inside.

Cans are growing increasingly popular with small breweries. They're lighter, cheaper, more easily recycled, offer the best light protection, and can be taken out to places where glass is prohibited. Don't look down on a craft beer just because it's canned. (Still a good idea to pour it out into another cup first, though.)

Goofy laws: After Prohibition was repealed, different state governments had different ideas about how to regulate alcohol. The result is a dizzying patchwork of laws that make any brewery distributing in multiple states want to kill themselves. Some states do not allow beer sales on Sundays; some require it only be sold in liquor stores; a couple (Alabama and Mississippi, of course) still ban homebrewing. Then there's Pennsylvania, which is its own realm of crazy.

Cask conditioned beer/"real" ale: Unfiltered beer that's stored in a cask for secondary fermentation instead of placed in a pressurized, carbonated keg. This leads to higher alcohol content, as well as aging (which results in different flavors over time). Served off a "beer engine" which the bartender has to manually pump. Big in Britain. The main reason American tourists think that British people like warm beer. Some beer is "bottle conditioned" for a similar effect.

Brettanomyces (Brett): A genus of wild yeast that's generally considered undesirable, but is used in certain beers (Belgian lambics/gueuzes, New Belgium's Lips of Faith series, etc) for a fruity, sour effect. The resulting flavor is often called "barnyard" or "horse blanket" by beeradvocate forum posters trying to look smart. (Do not use these terms in real life, unless you actually brew with Brett or you are actually a horse.)

Dogfish Head: A brewery/microdistillery established in Milton, DE in 1995 by the likable and telegenic Sam Calagione. Largely known in the industry for being intensely experimental, doing stuff like brewing beer with algae, chemically analyzing residue on ancient drinking vessels and making beer based off it, and so forth. The resulting beer is original, if not necessarily good all the time.

3 Floyds: A microbrewery in Munster, IN which beer geeks worldwide have the worst hard-on for. Known for intensely-flavored beers and for Dark Lord, a Russian imperial stout. Dark Lord is released once per year at the brewery, an event called Dark Lord Day that's turned into a massive party/bottle-share. The aftermarket prices on Dark Lord bombers, especially the rarer variations, are a bit nuts.

A few basic beer styles (lightest to darkest)

Pilsner Invented in Pilzen, in today's Czech Republic, in the mid-1840s. Golden in color and bearing a distinct hop aroma. By far the most popular style of beer, with something like 95% of all global beer volume done in pilsner style.
Examples: Pilsner Urquell ("the original"), Warsteiner, Victory Prima Pils, Sam Adams Noble Pils. Nearly every cheap macrobrew is a pilsner in style, although they're very different from the real thing, filled with adjuncts to lighten the color and flavor.

Wheat: Beer brewed with a large proportion of wheat. This is probably how the Sumerians did it 5000 years ago, although it's not so common nowadays. Can be further divided into witbier (popularized by Hoegaarden) and weissbier ("white beer" in German, available in lots of forms). Witbier has a certain haziness and often has a sour, spicy flavor; weissbier can have a range of wheat flavors, from light to dark.
Examples: Hoegaarden, Celis, Paulaner, Franziskaner, Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, Troegs Dreamweaver :holy:

India Pale Ale (IPA): Beer characterized by lots of alcohol and hop bitterness. A lot of restaurant menus will say that this evolved as a beer capable of surviving the ship journey from England to outposts in India in the 18th century. This is actually a myth; the (very small) India market of the time just liked really hoppy ales, and the brewer that supplied most of the ships to India happened to produce really hoppy beer. The style all but died out in the 20th century before getting revived by craft brewers seeking intense flavors in the '80s; it helped that American hops tend to have more powerful flavor and aroma than European plants. Nowadays there are many variants, such as black IPAs, double IPAs or even imperial IPAs, that try to push the bitter flavor envelope ever further. Occasionally people criticize this as resulting in nerdy, expensive crap that no one but utter beer snobs would enjoy.
Examples: Sierra Nevada Celebration, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Dogfish Head 60/75/90/120 Minute IPA, Russian River Pliny The Elder :neckbeard:

, Saint Arnold Endeavor :clint:

(out today!), really every microbrewer ever has an example so check your local one out

Amber: Not a style so much as a term American breweries invented for "beer somewhere between pale and brown in flavor/color". Tends to feature decent bitter flavor mixed with medium-to-dark malt sweetness.
Examples: Bell's Amber Ale, Alaskan Autumn, Anderson Valley Boont Amber

Saison: French for season, originally a low-alcohol pale ale brewed in the French-speaking part of Belgium for farmhands to drink during harvests. A little hard to define, as it can come in all kinds of colors, bodies and sweetnesses, but generally they're very dry, carbonated, and often fruity/sour. Another formerly near-dead style that craft brewers have brought back in quantity.
Examples: Saison Dupont (the standard bearer), Boulevard Tank 7, The Bruery Saison Rue, Ommegang Hennepin. There's a brewery in Colorado that does nothing but saisons.

Brown Ale: Generally British beers with a sweet to bitter and malty flavor. Another very broad term -- included in this is everything from mild ales (a very low-alcohol but still malty and flavorful style) to darker caramel/chocolate-tinged varieties.
Examples: Newcastle Brown Ale (get it in cans, bottles in the US are lightstruck and taste crappier), Samuel Smith Nut Brown, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale, Dogfish Head Indian Brown

Stout/Porter: Stouts are dark/black beers made with roasted malt. They come in a variety of flavors, from the toasty-ish Guinness all the way to the intensely alcoholic Russian imperial stouts. Porters are closely related to stouts and tend to be a little easier on the alcohol. Like IPAs, this style is often home to races between nerdier craft breweries to see how original they can be with it -- stouts have been brewed with coffee, chocolate, oatmal, peanut butter, cookie dough, you name it. Beer nerds love this style and nearly all of the beers on Ratebeer.com's top 50 are imperial stouts.
Examples: Guinness, Young's Double Chocolate Stout, Avery Out of Bounds, Bell's Kalamazoo Stout are all basics. On the extreme side there's Three Floyds Dark Lord, Jester King Black Metal, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Cigar City Hunahpu's, BrewDog Tokyo :barf:

etc.

Sours/Belgians: An entire world of its own. Can be somewhat advanced beer-drinking, but it's totally worth it if you've got a curious palate. Look at the post below this for a full intro.

Further reading

Books:
Michael Jackson (no, not that one), who died in 2007, was an incredible writer/traveler and one of the pioneers of the craft beer renaissance. He wrote a ton of wonderful and approachable books about beer, including The Great Beers of Belgium and Michael Jackson's Great Beer Guide.

Garrett Oliver, owner/brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, wrote The Brewmaster's Table, a fantastic guide to how craft beer is made and how to pair it up with food for great results. More recently he edited The Oxford Companion to Beer, an encyclopedic yet very engaging volume containing everything you'd possibly want to know about the subject.

There are several US magazines/newspapers on the subject, including (in no order) Beer Advocate, DRAFT, All About Beer, Beer, Ale Street News, Celebrator Beer News, and the assorted Brewing News regional newspapers.

Websites:
The two largest beer-rating websites are beeradvocate.com and ratebeer.com. Beeradvocate is larger and a good resource for looking up basic facts/ratings on any beer you can think of, but the forums are full of enraged beer nerds and the user reviews can often go into nonsensical geeky bullshit. Ratebeer offers a much better interface and also makes it a lot easier to look up locations and reviews of breweries/bars.

Untappd is one of a number of beer-related social media sites. It's my favorite because it's fast, bare-bones and does exactly what I want it to do and no more. It has native iPhone and Android apps.

There are tons and tons of beer blogs nowadays, and instead of recommending any particular one I suggest just googling "beer blog [name of city]" and the best local one will probably be up top. In CO, at least, Fermentedly Challenged is by far the best.

_{Old beer thread (9/11 - 3/12?)

Older beer thread (4/07 - 9/11)

This post was brought to you by:

Backcountry Breakfast Stout

Pug Ryan's Funky Monk Belgian Ale

Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA}

One final note

Don't drink and drive.

I feel obliged to write about this a bit more because a friend got popped for DUI a bit ago after drinking a tremendous amount. He's lucky in that the worst he'll likely face is a fine, but DUI most often means probation, interlocking devices on your cars, suspended licenses, and so on -- and that's assuming you don't cause any damage/injury. Some states have mandatory prison terms if you blow over a certain amount. It's never worth it.

If you do drink and drive, don't hit me.

SUPER HASSLER fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Apr 28, 2013

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 20:36

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:51

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Lots of words about sour beers:

quadrophrenic posted:

Hey goons, Certified Cicerone and former brewing industry lackey quadrophrenic here, and I want to make an effortpost about my favorite family of beers, sour beers.

Without going too much into the (really really fascinating) chemistry behind it, I'll lay down a broad definition of sour beer as any beer that derives most of its character from microorganisms other than Saccharomyces, brewer's yeast.*

Some of these bugs are the same bugs that turn milk into yogurt or wine into vinegar. Some of the more nefariously infectious organisms in the "sour bugs" category (namely, the Brettanomyces genus of yeast, the crazy funky cousin of brewers yeast,) are considered unacceptable flaws in winemaking AND brewing.

Sour beers were of course the first beers ever produced - long before we had cultivated Saccharomyces as a baker's yeast, we relied on the divinity of the winds and the sanctity of old brewing relics (the magic family brewing spoon!) to ferment our bowls of leftover porridge, and the results were the first "spontaneously-fermented" or "wild" beers. Since then, the unique character of these beers has been developed through history, mostly in Belgian/French brewing traditions but some notable pre-lager German styles are tart as well. The style has seen a resurgence among craft brewers worldwide, with Italian and Dutch sours gaining recognition, and of course American craft breweries have put their own unique spin on them.

So what do they taste like? Pretty varied. I've had sours that tasted like Jolly Ranchers, I've had sours that tasted like gym socks, I've had sours that tasted like out-of-date Cherry Coke. In a good way. It's a pretty varied family, so let's look at the stylez:

The two most prominent traditions of sour brewing are Lambic and Flemish, both primarily Belgian.

LAMBIC

Lambic beers are EU-certified and can only be made in the Pajottenland near Brussels, with the only exception granted to the Cantillon brewery in the nearby Senne valley. They are unique in the yeast used to make them, Brettanomyces Lambicus, native to the region, but they are also unique in how they are made. All Lambics are made with at least 30% wheat, and they almost all used aged hops, which, in addition to having less antibacterial power than fresh hops, have a lovely "moldy cheese" aroma.

When the Lambic brewers just make a fresh sour ale at the brewery and serve it at the brewery, it's called an Unblended Lambic. I find the taste of most straight Lambics patently offensive; they're undercarbonated, bracingly tart, lacking any sort of body, and they have a raw minerally taste. If you're adventerous, though, I recommend Drie Fonteinen's Lambiek. 3 Font is really less a brewer and more a blender, but they know their stuff when it comes to unblended.

Usually how you'll find Lambics, though, is blended. A blend of 1 year old and 3 year old Lambic is called Gueuze, and it's probably the most "classic" recognized sour style. Gueuzes are spritzly and sour in a more pleasant and refreshing way than their unblended cousins, yet still retain the complexity of the multitudes of microorganisms involved in their brewing. My favorite beer in the entire world is called Girardin Gueuze Unfiltered and it's crisp and refreshing and tastes like bright tart lemongrass and hay and must. It sounds revolting to most people, but it's really wonderful on a hot day.

If you added some kind of fruit to your Lambic at any point (pre-ferm, post-ferm, during blending) then you'd have a fruit Lambic. The two most popular are Framboise (raspberry), and Kriek (Morello cherry), but also common are Peche (peach) and Cassis (blackcurrant), and occasionally Cantillon will throw out some weird grape or blackberry one every few years. Generally, these are offered in a line by the big Lambic breweries (Boon, Hanssens, Beersel, Girardin,) and can more or less be judged by the brewery, since breweries generally use the same methods for all their fruit Lambics.. The best fruit Lambics are made by Cantillon. They're also some of the most expensive. Boon is a lovely, more affordable alternative. I would avoid Lindemans unless you're very very new to sours; adventurous imbibers might be turned off by the cough syrup-like sweetness.

FLEMISH

This is a very different, less diverse, but still very popular small family of sours from Flanders in the north of Belgium. Many of them do use Brett to obtain their primary fermentation, but Flemish sours are more defined by the other bugs used: namely, Pediococcus and Lactobacillus (the friendly lactic acid bacteria that give us wonderful cheese) and Acetobacter, which eats alcohol and gives us acetic acid.

As such, Flemish sours are generally less goaty and more vinegary then Lambics, and often have a delicate, cola-like flavor and sweetness with a underlying tartness and funkiness that serves as a supporting player rather than the main act. Flemish sours have been called "the champagne of beers", and while at least 10 different other beers and styles have laid claim to that title, Flemish sours are certainly more deserving of it than Miller High Life.

Flemish sours can be divided into two very very fuzzy categories, Red and Brown. Red is made with special Belgian red malt, which does actually give the beer a rich red color and prominent caramel flavor. Brown is made with regular ol' caramel malt, and most browns tend to be less about the malt and more about the acrid bacteria farts. Yum! The two big Flemish Reds are Duchesse De Bourgogne and Rodenbach. I prefer the latter because it's more offensive, but it's hard not to feel like a special person when you're drinking the Duchesse.

And don't forget all those wonderful non-Belgian sours as well! American craft brewers, specifically, have been really willing especially in the last 10 years or so to dick around with the style and put their own crazy spin on things. Two notable lines of sours brewed by American brewers are New Belgium's Lips of Faith and Russian River's Belgian-Style Ales series, a.k.a. the -ations. Personally, I love them both. New Belgium's is less interesting to me but ultimately more consistent and appetizing than RR's lineup. But for my money, it doesn't get any better than every beer ever made by Jolly Pumpkin of Michigan. They're an extremely innovative brewery that makes exclusively spontaneously fermented wild ales, following more or less no format or tradition whatsoever. They make quality beers.

Sorry this might have run a little long, but if you've never tried sour beers before, you should go to your nearest cool bottle shop (I bet you have one you don't know about) and try one out. You might be surprised!

_{*note that I said character and not alcohol. many of the bacteria associated with sour beers do not produce alcohol at all (pediococcus, lactobacillus) and many of them in fact consume alcohol produced by the actual fungus (acetobacter). Most sour beers get their alcohol from the Brettanomyces genus of yeast, but not all bretted beer are sours and not all sours are bretted.}

SUPER HASSLER fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Mar 4, 2013

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 20:36

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Totally just heard a dude at the bar say "horse blanket" when explaining Belgian sours to his girlfriend. I'd shake his hand, but it'd be embarrassing for both of us.

ShaneB posted:

cool poo poo post tag

This is the sort of thing that happens when the last post you made on SA was four years ago over on PI.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2012 02:09

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Josh Wow posted:

Had a pint of Left Hand smokejumper imperial porter at lunch and it was awesome. Not as smoky as I was expecting, but had a nice chocolatey roastiness and was balanced for being pretty high alcohol.

Oh snap that's out now?! :jumps in car, drives to Longmont:

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 00:57

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Josh Wow posted:

I suppose so, and did I forget to mention it was a cask.

Just contacted my buds over there and they reckon it had to be a "saved" thing, cos it ain't coming for a little bit this year yet. Whew!

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 04:48

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

The first fruits of Jester King's lawsuit are sprouting -- Alaskan Brewing launches in TX in two days :woop:

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 01:25

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

air- posted:

San Antonio

I went to Freetail like a year ago and judging by its very positive Internet rep I must have just come on an off day -- no interesting beer on offer, lovely food, far-too-drunk frat dudes getting aggressive with me at the bar. I need to come back sometime, maybe during a release. As it was I liked the Blue Star a hell of a lot more -- better beer (especially in the styles I like), better food, and also right by the Riverwalk where you can borrow a bike and work off those beer calories beforehand.

Otherwise I'd agree that if at all possible, spend time in Austin instead if it's beer you are looking for.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 18:06

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

air- posted:

Other big news: Alaskan Brewing is now available in Texas! I do like their Smoked Porter but haven't tried anything else.

That + barleywine is where it's at.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 21:33

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

That or I'm convinced everyone had it and thought "Elder's better anyway"

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 23:47

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Teresa's deserves a lifetime achievemant trophy for its beer menu chalkboards. I went "whoaaa" just looking at that. We should post a "greatest hits" page from past photos.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2012 01:06

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Hey air-, 'cos I know you had it, how is Tweason'ale?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2012 04:18

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

OK it looks like I'll be in the SF bay area in late April/early May. Moylan's/Russian River/21st Amndt are on my list, but where else should I make a point of visiting?

e: ↓ I miss Shiner on tap

SUPER HASSLER fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Mar 8, 2012

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 02:03

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

I'll tell you what's more fun than that

It's visiting this joint and therefore finally hitting every single operational brewery in the Denver metro area! horrah! At times it felt like trying to hit every Starbucks, but.

(Favorites: Strange, Great Divide, Copper Kettle
Least favorite: Ironworks)

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 21:56

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

funkybottoms posted:

the highlight for me was definitely Djaevlebryg Gudelos, which reminded me a bit of Mission's Dark Seas, but with a little bit of a fruit/spice flavor to it.

Ohhhh yeahhh I remembered a guy bought it to a Houston bottle share once and I thought much the same about it.

Maybe now that the laws are relaxed in TX we'll get more crap like this which we (for now) have to goto LA to pick up.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2012 23:30

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

That is a shame. Everyone knows that the most knowledgeable of beer aficionados have to grow out their scraggly beards with as little maintenance done on them as possible. Otherwise they are untrustworthy. I went to the Thirsty Monk in Asheville once and literally every employee had one.

Also echoing the Stone-collab sentiment above.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 16:55

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

running out of space here, and I've still not been to Western CO yet...

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 23:36

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Paul Proteus posted:

Drank a Bourbon County Bramble finally with ShaneB

I demand to know if he's like that in real life.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 01:11

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Hohoho. I'm mean 'cos I love (in the beer thread-y kind of way), of course.

In other news, tonight at the local brewery I had a bourbon barrel aged honey black IPA. Wasn't bad. The whole time I thought "Man 20 years ago there woulda been nothing but Coors here..."

# ¿ Mar 14, 2012 06:11

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

He'Brew and Ballast Point is now available in TX :woop:

...but not in Houston yet :mad:

And yes, I am going to get some Guinness today at the local "please come here tourists" Irish bar.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2012 17:18

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Sure it aint dishwasher liquid residue?

# ¿ Mar 17, 2012 23:27

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

It'd seem a lot of folks in this thread own incontinent cats.

In other news, I walked up and down main street in Breckenridge (the town) earlier and it was about what I expected. The rehab center is gonna be very full overnight. The "come here tourists" Irish pub, it turned out was charging a $20 cover (which came with a glass and a free green Coors), so I declined.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2012 03:16

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

It should be added that Crooked Stave is totally the real deal when it comes to Brett stuff. One of the great things about living in CO. Not that Funkwerks is inferior, but.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2012 06:20

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

air- posted:

Bring some next time you come to TX!

Assuming I can get some before I leave! I have the feeling that in a year's time they'll basically have to do bottle releases like 3F, as opposed to just sticking them in Funkwerks' cooler...

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 21:48

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

air- posted:

SH: Oh yeah, Crooked Stave doesn't bottle? Dammit.

He does (it's basically a 1 man operation); I just meant that I bet they'll be more in demand going on as he becomes more than just a local Ft. Collins thing and it's not like he'll have much more capacity than he does now.

I'll do my bestest to bring some over to TX; though it sounds like JK is really making inroads into similar styles of beer since I left.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 23:16

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

bananasinpajamas posted:

Hey I'm going to be flying out to Denver at the end of April to pilot and finalize all of Cigar City's can artwork so if anyone wants to goon out and drink a beer or two with myself (and the owner of CCB) lemme know. It'll be awkward as hell probably!

I'll be in SF

# ¿ Mar 20, 2012 17:30

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Anyone else had the new Funkwerks bomber, Brett Dream?

I've heard of "horse blanket" and all that, but to me this beer literally smelled like horse poo poo. Super gross. It tasted ok, but definitely the worst beer I've had from 'em.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2012 23:39

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Just found the first bottle of World Wide Stout I ever saw at a shop :neckbeard:

The first time I've been excited about buying something from DFH in a while.

They also had XV, but is that worth $22?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2012 22:19

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Docjowles posted:

Big Beaver Brewing

...is run by a dude with a PhD and that was the theme he came up with for his brewery :psyduck:

I have been there a couple of times and I found it to be pretty OK, a pretty typical new brewery with a few good things and a few bad things. My impression is that their clientele is mostly middle-aged and up locals who used to hang out at whatever cheap PBR joint in Loveland and sort of adopted this place instead. This leads to neat conversations, at least. (I also sort of doubt they're following any sort of purity law in there; maybe it was his intention at first but I don't think they've updated that website much since pre-launch.)

In Loveland I'd muuuuuuuuch rather goto Grimm Brothers though, they are innovative in really fascinating ways and I've never had anything bad from them and what's more their facility is way better.

There's a third meant to open in Loveland soon, too.

(By the way I can't be the only person who goes to brewpubs and just says "I'll have the stout" or "Give me the wheat beer" instead of giving the name of the beer. So many brewpubs give names to beers that are either non-catchy or just embarrassing to say out loud.)

SUPER HASSLER fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Mar 26, 2012

# ¿ Mar 26, 2012 07:51

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

It's true that back in the days before Austin had like 15 breweries (yet another one is having its opening party tonight), I purchased a hell of a lot of Weihen and Ayinger and other German beer. I've laid off the habit now that I'm in CO and I realize that I sort of regret it now.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2012 00:39

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

ShaneB posted:

I recently had to get a roommate for the first time in like 6 years... and it took him just over a week to drink a bunch of my beer cellar without asking. I don't know what the gently caress he was thinking, but things I believe got drank include:

Ah ah ah. Worst roommate ever.

I felt bad enough once about drinking some of my roommies' 1554 to cap off a really drunken evening (thought it was mine, not his) that I bought him a replacement sixer as an apology, but a sixer of 1554 is $9!

# ¿ Mar 28, 2012 17:49

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

"In the case of Shane's '08 WWS, roommate...you ARE the drinker!"

[cue shane hip-hop dancing across the stage]

# ¿ Mar 28, 2012 22:24

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

After having toured through pretty much all of the South, I've come to the conclusion that NC, TN, KY and LA is the "cool" South and alcohol is more than a decent part of that reason.

(OK, urban GA, too.)

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 18:11

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Speaking of Asia, Japan is livid with legitimately good breweries nowadays. The bad part about this is taxes are such that you can have an extended session at the Baird taproom, for example, and it's like 8000 yen at the end of it.

On the other hand, it's fun to go there and bitch about Japan with the hardened old expatriates that hang there, then bitch about the expatriates in Japanese to the barkeep.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2012 21:58

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Arnold of Soissons posted:

I haven't been to either of those places, but one of the unspoken secrets of craft beer is that lots of small breweries are mediocre or outright lovely. Conceptually, more breweries and local breweries are both great ideas, but in practice lots of them really aren't special.

More neighborhood breweries really care now than in the '90s when every local McFunnigan's-type family restaurant got into the game, but what you say is indeed true.

Personally I agree with him on the L.A.B. -- it's a regular restaurant that seemed to tack on the brewery -- but I liked Craggie a lot.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2012 20:00

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Hypnolobster posted:

Or be a cool kid and have a kegerator and a bottle capper and just pour a glass from a bomber, purge it with Co2 and then recap it with a new crown cap.

In my admittedly limited experience this is the only approach that ever achieved some semblance of working for my crowd.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2012 22:43

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

TX may be 3-tier, but at least you can go to a supermarket and buy a bottle of Chimay and enjoy TRUE FREEDOM. :clint:

(Unless it's Sunday morning.)

# ¿ Apr 5, 2012 19:29

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

FreelanceSocialist posted:

Aren't all states 3-tier? Production->Distribution->Retail.

Some states place restrictions of assorted heaviness on how much breweries can sell directly to consumers. In TX for example you can't, period, if you're defined as a "brewery" (as opposed to a "brewpub"). If you're a "brewpub," meanwhile, you can't distribute outside of the brewpub at all.

This has led to things like breweries selling tokens at the door that just happen to be valid in the taproom inside, bars contract brewing out of state, etc. I think it's a testament to the sheer thirstiness of TX people that it works at all.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2012 19:53

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Hopefully someone in Ca'll respond, but in CO, it's pretty much a "I'll give you a couple if I have any and you've been a fine customer to me" thing. Chiefly this is because if they do it any other way, up on eBay it all goes.

It is an all-year beer, however, so while scarce, it's always there.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2012 00:21

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

TenaciousTomato posted:

Also saw a 750ml Vintage 2007 Guldan Draak, is it worth the ~$18?

Crikey, the regular is not much less! I'd impulse buy out of curiosity.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2012 00:44

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:51

SUPER HASSLER: Jan 31, 2005

Ubik posted:

Jester King Black Metal

is something I feel needs to be posted whenever someone mentions a beer from God's own cockroach-ridden blast furnace and it isn't Shiner. (or Lone Star)

Anyway I worked in San Francisco during the first dot-com era and as a result I chiefly went to fancy-pants parties and drank Jack 'n Cokes like a man. Then I moved to Houston where I lived within walking distance of The Richmond Arms Pub, the only British/Irish pub in the city where actual British/Irish expatriates hang around and watch the footy and drink Queen's imperial pints of Bombardier.

There I got introduced to real German lagers, and then Saint Arnold; and then around this time other breweries in TX started to open up and it just sort of snowballed from there.

I still like going to the Richmond even though there are now several much hipper places in Houston to find a drink. It fills up to beyond fire-code limits whenever Man U or Liverpool is playing.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2012 05:52

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > Beer Thread 3: Every Day We Stray Further From Buds Light

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