Beer in the new era

http://www.2beerguys.com/images/forblog/weyerbacher_verboten.jpg

if you see this, buy it. absolutely incredible, starts as a straight belgian and finishes as a sharp pale ale, a total knockout imo

really wanna try stone ruination but i'm... scared

in the mean-time new glarus moon man is working for me, satisfying my hop-tooth

went to local fancy pants organic deli/cafe/grocery and got a 'mix a six'

all 12oz

saranac imperial ipa
fire island red wagon ipa (only one of these i've had, and only on tap)
river horse hop hazard (not sure why i got a third ipa)
lake placid ubu ale (red/brown ale?)
weyerbacher blithering idiot barleywine
river horse tripel horse (inna belgian-stylee)

i will report my findings.
if the saranac is good, it's some nice bang for yer buck as at the cheapest one ($2.15 lol new york) and also like 8.5%

new to these parts is the sierra nevada fall seasonal--it's a very nice brown ale.

Ruination is really good, haven't had one in a while - it's hoppy but I remember it being pretty well balanced and interesting instead of just straight up bitter. But my concept of such might be damaged after four years of PNW IPA excesses.

new glarus moon man tastes kinda like grass, but in a good way

have never liked a single beer produced by stone people. they taste burly and that is all. do not want my beer to taste like sweaty woodman compost.

yeah i had levitation a couple weeks ago and i thought it was "good" but probably wouldn't get it again, and also like 4.5% or something

have really gone off anything over 5% these days... why? i think it's because i like to drink beer. and i have to drink less of it if it's like Yeasty Buck Hammer Strength Hop Town Pot Bangle, 9.2% ABV

yup

Same with "scrumpy" ciders tbh - rough as guts, most of them, bleugh.

Picked up few of the Dogfish Head/Stone/Victory collaboration beer, Saison du BUFF. Not really my cup of beer. I'm not a fan of the Saison style to begin with. Add the contents of my spice drawer and this one was hard to get down at times.

ian, how was that weyerbacher ?

I dig the strong-ass high ABV beers because I like to drink like one beer per evening and don't mind if they're really strong and dense.

I like all the Stone beers I've had but there are breweries out there where I categorically dislike all of their beers because they all taste really similar. Is this due to a particular strain of yeast / variety of hops thing? Like for me all Rogues taste like Rogues and I don't necessarily like that.

Yeah, i think I like 6-7% abv in general -- anything higher than that is a little too alcohol-y for me.
the sierra fall tumbler thing mentioned above is great. i think i bought it in hopes that it would bring fall weather sooner out here. but it's still in the 90s.

beer in the old era:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/03/baltic.sea.beer/index.html

finally found a good place to buy american beers in london, picked up a few yday, maybe these are all quite standard but should be nice nonetheless.

i got

stone ipa
odell brewing company ipa
dogfish head 90 minute ipa
hopdevil ipa
flying dog snakedog ipa

Thinking about going to this event in a couple weeks. Interested, Jeff?

http://www.metropoliscoffee.com/blog/2010/09/kegs-for-kids-a-craft-beer-tasting-party/

Maybe. It would be really cool if you got to drink at the elementary school. With the kids.

if any of you are in the denver area: www.denverbeerfest.com ... ties into the Great American Beer Fest next week.

Been slowly making my way through a 6pck of Dogfish Raison D'Etre. Very satisfying.

Picked up a 6 of the first new Bell's I've tried in a while, Oarsman Ale. Pretty unremarkable, sadly. Fairly light and very drinkable, something that I'm sure could be called a "session" beer. Nice touch of sour taste in place of the hops, and nice label art. But overall kind of boring, sadly.

curious to see the reaction to the london ipa smorgasbord - of the ones you listed, i LOVE the odell and am indifferent to the rest iirc - but not in a bad way (hopdevil can be a little bit of sork tbh.

actually i think there are two odell ipas - which one is it?

yeah the oarsman ale was kind of a miss, like a really boring sour ale. and as a dude who loves sour ale, thats the last thing they should be.

just spent a mixed 12 pack confirming that i think that the flying dog stuff is indeed shit

going to City Beer Store now, psyched

southern tier pumking on draft today = one hell of a beer

followed by ayinger and paulaner oktoberfests. my local is rad right now.

is the pumking strongly pumpkiny or super allspicey? i have yet to find a pumpkin beer i liked

pumking is pumpkin pie in a glass. it's incredibly rich dessert beer stuff.

hmmmmppphh. that prob wont be the one that will sway me then tbh

yeah most pumpkin beers are mediocre at best imo but it sounds like it's just not the flavor for you possibly?

flying dog is sort of okay but a bit sweet or something. i hate the marketing of stuff like that which is offputting enough too!

odell was great, maybe the best. i thought hopdevil was maybe the great too tho, really good aftertaste.

the odell i had was this bottle http://www.freewebs.com/johnnydrunkenirishman/Johnny%27s%20pictures%20024.JPG

flying dog has the absolute worst labels which is saying something

not as bad as the brewdog craft beers in the uk....."PUNK IPA" etc......i have to tear off the labels if i'm drinking with friends as i am scared someone might think i believe in the brand.

the two brands are really similar tho....

http://www.brewdog.com/slideshow/pic3.jpg

http://www.kbsinstitute.org/images/pullo/244_4414.JPG

they do look different but the shared dog name makes me lump them together

yeah the odell stuff is amazing - if you see a bottle of 90 shilling ale, pick it up (although honestly ive liked everything theyve done so far so its hard to go wrong). i was hoping it was the elephant label - thats the one i like better as well. also speaking of label/bottle design, odell is way ahead of the pack on that front.

yeah the label on the bottle is really nicely designed. the craft beer place i went to is actually pretty amazing so hopefully can get more odell stuff, i love a trip there, so good and got a friend into the idea too...

xp yeah i just felt like posting them both--they are equally aesthetically terrible--though flying dog offends me more

And the Odell has a great label! (xpost)

We should do a separate thread on best/worst beer labels.

Meanwhile I've lately resolved to stick to Trader Joe's beers (or the ones they sell at TJ's prices) until I run out of ones to try and get sick of them. I can't really justify $12-14 for a sixpack when these are so perfectly good for $6-7. So far I've done the TJ/Josef's Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen, Bavarian Lager, Vienna Lager and Hofbrau Bock. All of these are good, my favorite is probably the Dunkel, and I need to taste the Vienna and Bavarian side by side because I don't know what the difference is. I've also had Mission St. IPA and Blonde Ale, both of which were fine and as good as some of the premium IPAs and Blondes I've had, if not the best, and now I have a sixpack of Stockyard Stout, which I like very much. Once in a while I'll buy a pint or two of high-end stuff to round this out I guess.

I had a really nice Japanese wheat beer called Ginga Kogen with some yellowtail ceviche the other day.

SOMEone's living the life

Try Mendocino's beers at TJ's, Hurting, if you haven't yet. I like the Eye of the Hawk and White Hawk types (8 and 7% abv, resp) when I'm looking for a stronger beer.

mendocino is good beers.

am drinking a stone 14 "emperial" IPA. bought due to the momentary sense that there was too much dirty ugly money in my pocket. tastes like a stone beer, which is to say excessively hoppy up front and syrupy underneath. not bad, not great.

Went to the Goose Island brewpub last night.

I had Red Felt, a hoppy red ale I liked, and Green Line, which is available on tap throughout Chicago but is quickly becoming a favorite of mine: a wheaty pale ale that's just very well-balanced and refreshing.

My lady friend started with Sai-Shan-Tea, a saison brewed with lemon tea which was one of the more interesting beers I've ever had but also sort of tasted like Lemon Pledge. Then she had Grahampagne, a beer brewed in collaboration with chef Graham Elliott Bowles, which was also pretty unique: it seemed to have no body but just went down smoothly with a light bubbly aftertaste.

Then she had Grahampagne...

Coming after the beer brewed with lemon tea, I was half expecting this sentence to end with "brewed with graham crackers!"

I recently tried Redhook's Big Ballard Imperial IPA, hoping against all odds that being "inspired by" their original Ballard Bitter would actually make me care about a Redhook product again. I used to LOVE that weirdly estery stuff back in the day, and still regularly wear my old logo sweatshirt, but the reformulated Redhook IPA isn't the same, nor is Longhammer IPA, nor is this. Okayish for what it is, and not as pricy as other 22 oz. Imperials, but not enough to win me over.

http://blog.redhook.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/RH_BBIPA-crop460.png

Caledonian Oktoberbest.
Mcewans 80 shilling.

need more oktoberfest recommends plz

my go-to sam adams seems a little off this year