Beer in the new era

hard.

IIRC I had Aass CLASSIC

is norwegian beer readily available in other states?

Minnesota, yo

well figured as much.

Wow, Brewdog Hardcore IPA (Explicit Imperial Ale) REALLY did not work for me. I love Imperial IPA's, double IPA's and the like, but this is much closer to a barleywine IMO, with a very malty sweetness and almost syrupy mouthfeel. (And I like barleywine a lot, too, but I found this unpleasant; it left a really bizarre aroma in my pint glass.)

beers i drank over the holidays
sierra nevada celebration / torpedo
st bernardus trippel
green flash barleywine ale
Alesmith Anvil ESB

Celebration is really a beer where I can only have one though.

i had more than one, but i know what you mean

Oh man, I've been trapped in Philly for two days due to snowshitstorm, but I turned it into a beercation. So many good beers from Monks Cafe that I won't even attempt to spell at this time.

drank a lot of harpoon over the past weekend. Munich Style Dark and Winter Warmers.

yeah i would be happy to get snowed in at monks. philly is about the best beer town ever, as long as you arent stuck buying it in their fucked up liquor stores. try the yards brawler if you get a chance xpost

Kind of curious to see how this bar fares:
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/11/kalamazoo_beer_exchange_main_s.html

"Kalamazoo Beer Exchange allows the prices of beer to fluctuate based on patrons' buying trends."

The prices will change every 15 minutes and there will be, at random, a “stock market crash” — signified by air horns — when all 28 beers are sold at a low rate for five minutes.

Haha, awesome!

For a sec I was thinking that was actually in the wall street area, which led to me doing a near spittake at the "base" price for a beer being three dollars.

ps love this idea

don't know how available it is outside of new england but "our finest regards" by pretty things is the best barleywine i've ever had. that style usually gets kind of sick with malty sweetness to me; this is more like a steroidal brown ale or something.

my norwegian beers were a hit, the Saison was awesome.

Trader Joe's Vintage Ale time again. Still the best deal in beer.

I'm not fond of other New Belgium beers, but for a reasonably priced American IPA I like their new Ranger. Same IBU (70) as some of the double IPAs I love (like Widmer Deadlift) but 6.5 vs. 8.6 alcohol makes it a bit more sessionable. I like the bottle shape, too -- remeinds me of a retro root beer bottle.

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID383/images/NB_RangerIPA.jpg

I got a Harpoon Winter assortment and it was all good, but their UFO unfiltered hefeweitzen was GREAT. I got to find some more of that stuff. I bet it is even better on tap.

come to boston! it is in essentially every bar.

yes, everybody come visit

Kinda bummed out by the Harpoon chocolate stout. Seemed sort of thin? And the chocolate flavor was sorta artificial. I did really like the Sierra Nevada porter I had this week though.

New Belgium's all over the place here, now. I like theirs!

beer: it's still pretty good

Man, North Coast isn't fucking around with this Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, are they?

Deschutes hophenge ipa - pretty aok!

New Glarus dragons milk stout - heavy in a not entirely good way

Old Rasputin is great; I don't like a lot of stouts but that one is something different. It's pretty intense though.

I had a black IPA from 21st Amendment tonight and thought it was fucking vile - something about it was just wrong and unappealing. They're the assholes who made the watermelon wheat beer so I though I'd give one of their real beers a chance but it might have been worse because I wasn't expecting the watermelon one to actually be any good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPtMHSYtPc4&feature=player_embedded

oh, i like the 21st amendment black IPA.. thought it was kind of weird at first but it really grew on me. LOVE old ras too.

i hate everything ive ever had from 21st amendment but holy shit the watermelon is a standout in utter rankness

Bells hopslam tonight. I usually don't hesitate at buying expensive beer, but this was $17.99 a six pack. Kept me from buying 2 of them at least.

21st ammendment's IPA is stellar.
just bought at the specialty shoppe:

Dulle Teve (by De Dolle)- one of my fave Belgians

I Hardcore You (Mikkeler, Denmark) - i really love what i've tried by these guys

't Smisje Kerst (De Regennboog, Belg.)

Organic Pilsner (Lammsbrau, Germany)

Dark Force (Haand Bryggeriet, Norway) - says on bottle: Double Imperial Wheat Stout

Gonna crack open the Half Acre Double Daisy Cutter tonight.

I'd had it on NYE (courtesy of Jeff) but feel like I wasn't really savoring it. Drinking now, this is some p. good stuff!

I like it a lot. Much better than regular daisy cutter. Which I still like a lot.

why does all the beer I want to drink cost so much :(

my friend todd from high school is the head brewer at harpoon.

anyways, its NOBLE PILS times for me.

granted there is 4 feet of snow on the ground, im just thinking spring.

The Mikkeler "Beer Geek Brunch" is fantastic, and how its made is ummm interesting.

Started to find IPAs sort of sickening -- is that weird? Like they actually kind of give me a headache and a bad hangover. Something about the hops?

Totally weird. I think you are not human anymore.

^^^^ this.

I dunno, I had to stop drinking porters for a while cause they started doing the same to me

My wife won't drink anything that describes itself as an "amber" because more often than not she gets hives. I don't know what consistent thing would be in ambers over other beers which she's usually fine with.

Three really good beers last night:

Stone, Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
Goose Island, Dominique
Brouwerij, Bourgogne des Flandres

don't know what gansett's distribution is like these days but grab this if you see it:

http://www.projo.com/photos/20101215/FOOD1215_narragansett_porter_adj_12-15-10_OPLF31Q.jpg

8 bucks for 6 tallboys of a very nice porter. i guess it was their winter seasonal. spring is going to be a bock and i've already heard good stuff about that too.

i'd love to see more brewers working in this space--excellently priced, accessible versions of classic styles.

had an aussie ipa called "little creatures" at the rake, good beer pub in south london, it was incredibly expensive but fucking great.

i have been on a pilsener kick lately--digging victory prima pils and sam adams noble pils in particular

My Antonia. Imperial pilsner. Dfh.