Beer in the new era

Going to be in DC next week. Hoping for a few Churchkey visits in which I will spend too much money.

had my first pliny today (the elder) - so good, totally worth the hype

Drinking a Oude Gueuze Tilquin a l'Ancienne now. Since the weather has turned warm I've been craving sours.

mmmm sierra nevada hoptimum 2013

i'm thinking about getting myself a homebrew kit for my b-day -- can anyone recommend a good one?

Too much work. I pay other people to brew beer for me.

Are you looking for something all in one simple, or like a full blown brewing deal?

a simple introductory starter kit

The equipment needed is fairly simple, and I've never seen an all-in-one kit that looked like you'd get good beer from it. A pot that can hold 16 or 20 qts, a food-grade 5 gallon bucket with lid (drilled to accept an air lock), the air lock, a food-grade siphon hose with a filler attachment, a thermometer (and a hydrometer if you want to calculate the alcohol level), some sterilizer (I use something called B-Brite, which seems to work fine), and a capper. The rest is ingredients, bottles, & caps.

Even this may sound complicated, but beer supply stores usually have package deals for getting newbies started.

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/

i went to college with the kids who make these kits. brewing is too much work for me but it was fun to do once.

it makes a gallon of beer which imo is a good way to start and feel out if you'd ever want to do a bigger batch.

Oh yeah, I've seen those kits in Whole Foods, they do look like higher quality than the usual Mr Beer type.

xpost thanks mordy for letting me know there is a beer called pliny the elder. i'm going to try to seek it out, lol.

http://russianriverbrewing.com/where-to-get-our-beers/

thanks! philly it is then

are you in philly treeship? we should ilxfap!

it's craft beer week here, tons of events happening. i splurged on one last glass of goose island 2012 bourbon county stout last night, it was worth it.

philly beer week is the end of May i think - anyone coming in for it???

i live roundabout princeton new jersey and am in philly sometimes. craft beer week sounds awesome and i might go to it. i'll keep you posted if i do.

sweet! i wanna be your first irl ilx meetup!!!

that would be cool, i think we'd have a lot of interesting things to talk about. hopefully it will work out with my schedule.

w/out googling it, one guess which brewery made it:

Doughnut Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Ale

do not want

what separates this from like fluffed marshmallow Smirinoff ffs

About 30% abv?

i had the bacon maple doughnut ale (before you judge me, bought it to fuck with a vegetarian friend on his birthday) and it was O_O level terrible

i was way into the Widmer Bros beers i had on tap last night -- bourbon barrel brrrbon, raspberry russian imperial stout, and kill devil (rum barrel molasses) brown. wish i could find them around here the rest of the (non-beer week) year.

Rogue is horrendous, would avoid nearly all their products tbh

otm

yeah pretty much - they all taste similarly bad to me.

I also never really drink Widmers for some reason, probably because they are so ubiquitous in the NW that it makes me suspicious

Widmer is edging in on 'crafty' territory imo- and their lineup is a bit dull. Same with Pyramid, shit's weak

oh i didn't know they were so big. i've never had their standard beers, but the limited ones i had last night packed some bunch (all around 9.5%, lots of flavor).

Naw, I know some of their more limited stuff is supposed to be pretty good! I've just had some of their average lineup and they were a bit of a snooze

i dug a couple of the pyramid ipas actually, but mainly because they are cheap as shit

friend of ours brought a six pack of Flagship IPA from North Carolina... quite good!

Ballast Point Dorado Double IPA. Tha biznass.

Had BP Sculpin the other night in DC, it was really good.

Finally trying Gulden Draak Ale makes me appreciate just how good Unibroue is at imitating belgian beers

while drinking chimay white today i was thinking about american breweries that specialize in belgian styles - ommegang and allagash came to mind immediately. lost abbey, bruery too. other big ones? most of the time i'd prefer the real thing, tho allagash does make some really nice brews.

allagash is I think I nice example of a brewery that has managed to do an american take on belgians that no longer feels like just an imitation. Unibroue feels like an imitation but it's so good it doesn't matter, especially considering the pricetag. Ommegang is somewhere in between the two, but I like their brews

i fuck w/allagash one-offs and sour/wild stuff, some of it is outstanding

allagash is great bc they aren't so aggressive and they make a really solid beer. it's pretty much whatever i order for my dad when we go out to a bar bc i know he'll dig it and it won't be too heavy

russian river, certainly? jolly pumpkin and stillwater also immediately come to mind

a brewery i completely love that never gets any play whatsoever = selin's grove brewing in selinsgrove PA (about an hour north of harrisburg), who make some of the best american lambics i've ever had

Celis is/was my favorite. Was around for a while last year but it's gone again til idk when

i don't think i've ever had any selin's grove, or even seen their stuff? and i'd think they'd get distro in philly for sure. i'll have to ask around.

yeah selin's grove is a new name to me.

i have this abiding dream that if i ever became fabuously wealthy i'd figure out how to make a gueuze for 12 bucks for a 4-pack.

I've been drinking a lot of sours.

speaking of sours i had this recently and thought it was pretty great

http://res.cloudinary.com/ratebeer/image/upload/w_250,c_limit,q_80,d_beer_def.gif/beer_99436.jpg

I've been drinking a lot of sours.

― Jeff, Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:44 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd be drinking nothing but if they were easy to get