Beer in the new era

If Narwhal isn't an elite for its category, it's close enough. Probably my most consumed imp stout this year.

Bought an Erdinger Variety Pack 5 beers + a cool glass. Had only had the Weissbeer and Dunkel before, Kristal was a revelation.

xp there are some totally unfounded rumors abt bell's starting to distribute here and i can't help but hope they're true

― call all destroyer, Thursday, December 19, 2013 11:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where do you live? I didnt realize they had limited distribution.

i live in mass, i think they only make it as far as ny

bell's is wonderful, expedition is one of the best strong stouts out there

mordy shared this distribution mapping site, it's kind of interesting/handy

http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

Useful map.

― Jeff, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:44 AM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did too!

I do wonder how current the data is and how often it is updated. Still says only Surly in MN.

OIC, not since October.

I figured it probably would have been posted already, but the thread is v long so I didn't check.

This thread is long. You guys drank a lot in the last 6 years. Are we still in the new era?

oh man. so this local bar realized that they could expand into the space next door and sell singles under the auspices of them already being a bar. unfortunately bc complex PA alcohol laws they can only sell (12) at a time so i go in, buy 12 and then my wife goes and buys 12 more and we're thrilled, bc that means no more buying cases of beer and hoping that it's actually good. got burned on the cases buying that watermelon swill shit which is so disgusting i can't even give it away. but anyway we went today and they have a HUGE selection and i bought a bunch of different stuff. it's in my trunk atm, but when i get home tonight i will list all the cool beers i bought. lots of different stuff.

― Mordy, Tuesday, October 16, 2012 2:37 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

this event changed my life for real ^^

also, looking back, i complained a lot about pa beer laws (and some of them - like that you can't fill a growler from another brewery at a second brewery - are still so dumb) but i got used to it and philly for a bunch of reasons is such an amazing beer city - the bars, the brewpubs, the central location for distribution.

i'm pretty unfamiliar with east coast beer culture - outside of bigger names like dogfish head or southern tier or w/e - and i'm heading out there in a week or so, what local stuff should i seek out? i'll be in philly, dc and nyc

if this has been discussed ad infinitum upthread i apologize. this thread is huge.

http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/the-definitive-top-10-ipas-as-chosen-by-a-hopped-up-panel-of-beer-writers

I've had 7/10 of these and while Two Hearted will always be the best in my opinion, this isn't a bad list.

troegs, tired hands, ithaca, cigar city now distributing to the area, fegley's, lancaster, stoudts, neshaminy creek, yards, terrapin, shmaltz (not sure what their distro is elsewhere)

where in philly are you going to be? if you want to meet up for drinks, let me know. lots of great bars +brewpubs in philly area

Decent list. Good job bunch of white dudes.

staying with some friends in fishtown, i'm definitely hoping to hit up some brewpubs, will be in touch

xxp - how is torpedo on that list? that seems like one of the worst examples of an ipa, the type of thing that makes so many people hate the style. it's so dry and overly resiny and has a whiff of that terrible boozy aftertaste you get from shit like mad dog/4 loko/etc, and it has the price point and alcohol content to compete with that stuff too

lists like that are so weird to me--like isn't alpine barely available outside the brewpub they make it in? but in a random sample enough of those guys had it that it sits alongside huge, nationally available beers.

I like how Heady Topper is on that goofy list at like 25th (not a strict "IPA", clearly one of the better beers in the USA).

Always puzzled how Anchor Liberty is never on these "IPA" lists either, as I'm pretty sure that was the very first aggressively hopped pale ale made --the grandfather of them all so to speak-- but never recognized as an IPA.

yeah i think heady and.....deviant dale's? are the only two on that list that self-identify as doubles

xp
I love Torpedo, it's my #1 reasonably-priced IPA. And I don't think I'm alone in this thread in liking it.

I plowed through some of the comments and it appears that some of the raters "missed the memo" about limiting the choices to single IPAs.

i end of drinking a lot of Union Jack due to it always being marked down to $8.99 at the Whole foods by me. At that price you really can't do any better.

xp
I love Torpedo, it's my #1 reasonably-priced IPA. And I don't think I'm alone in this thread in liking it.

― nickn, Friday, December 20, 2013 2:56 PM (9 minutes ago)

This too! i had a few cases of it for my wedding beer

xp do people here prefer it to celebration? there's such a huge gap in quality between those two imo, celebration is my #1 reasonably priced ipa by a long shot

plenty of that top 10 are nicely priced (ballast point just started distributing far more heavily) AND very very good. there's a huge west coast bias though so maybe torpedo and lagunitas ipa are the only non-seasonals with national distribution, that type of exposure has to help

celebration is way better than torpedo imo

^^^ totally agree, but it had been a long time since I'd had a Torpedo until recently, and it was surprisingly good!

And yes, big ups to Liberty Ale. That's an excellent beer.

I noticed a bottle of Bourbon County Stout at the checkout counter of the beer store today, so I bought it out of curiosity. It was $6.99 for a 12-oz bottle. Not sure if that's typical. Will sample and report back.

like 2 bucks over retail, i've heard of worse

Seen a lot worse. I like playing the game of going to beermenus.com and see how huge of a range bars/stores around town are charging for regular and the variants.

I can't rank beer very well, but here are a few of my favorite IPA's I've had, regardless of double/single/etc.

FSW Union Jack & Double Jack
FFF Permanent Funeral
PW Ninja vs. Unicorn
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid & Sucks
Founders Harvest
Rev Anti-Hero
Half Acre Beer Hates Astronauts
Bells Hopslam

A lot of local stuff, probably because it's the easiest to drink the freshest.

i end of drinking a lot of Union Jack due to it always being marked down to $8.99 at the Whole foods by me. At that price you really can't do any better.

this is good stuff. i tried the wookey jack for the first time recently and it was another example of a stellar black ipa, the rye balanced things really well. i guess people seem to be figuring out the right hop profile or proportions or something but it seems like black ipas and cdas are really improving

i have no idea how widespread it is yet but hop valley alphadelic ipa is often pretty cheap and was recentl;y made available in cans and has some really nice subtle hop flavor

For fresh hop beers, Celebration is well-above average which is a distinction not a lot of the main line of Sierra Nevadas can make.
Torpedo is above-average, I think that it's not nearly as bad as some are suggesting. There's far lesser beers being talked about ITT.

Also Celebration is a 3 month seasonal vs. Torpedo which is year-round.

i end of drinking a lot of Union Jack due to it always being marked down to $8.99 at the Whole foods by me. At that price you really can't do any better

Wow, where do you live? Not trying to be snippy but that's a pretty high-markup for a marked-down beer. I mean there are Whole Foods that sell Pliny for $4.49 so yes you can actually do much much better and at half the price!

$8.99 for a six-pack, at least around these parts

Ah okay, I thought that was bomber price. We don't get union jack or wooley jack 6-ers only bombers (but we do get DBA 6-ers).

The only Firestone beer that blew me away was the aged PNC imperial stout, I tend to intentionally overlook a lot of their beer to be honest. I should probably break that habit.

Which one is PNC?

I looked on their site but couldn't find any info, this is the BA profile:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2210/95028

Oh cool, never heard of that one!

yeah i was gonna say 8.99 is a sick price for a sixer of union jack.

http://beerobsessed.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/port-brewing-fresh-hop-ipa.jpg

reasonably priced + pretty delicious

New beers in the past week:

Petrus aged pale ale, pretty fantastic
Some Mikkeler collaborative double IPA, can't remember or figure out the name, it was great tho
Victory golden monkey tripel
Central Waters brewhouse coffee stout ($4 bomber!)
Clown Shoes muffin top Belgian IPA tripel
Southern tier 2xmas (ugh, no idea why I accepted this)
Summit grand pilsener

I have a Petrus aged red in my fridge, never had it before.

petrus aged pale is prob my fave sour beer.. so good.
2xmas was pretty gross

it's not like i wasn't warned tho. i should have not taken the dare to drink glogg-spiced beer.

Had that Petrus aged red tonight. Not what I expected (though if I had read the label, a couple of discrete cherries on the front and "...with the intrigue of tart cherry" on the back, maybe I would have guessed). It reminded me of a cherry Coke/Dr Pepper, but not in a bad way. More sweet than sour, but thankfully not too sweet. I may buy this again. 8.5% abv, in a 750 ml bottle.

A nice surprise tonight, the little bar in my wife's little hometown on the Minnesota prairie has an extensive offering of Boulevard bottles.

hop ranch is maybe even better than dirt wolf

My wife's uncle gave me a 4 pack of oaked Arrogant Bastard for Christmas. It's not exactly my thing but pretty good for free beer. The oak overwhelms the rest of the beer imho but then again I've only had like a single regular AB before.

habanero sculpin - novelty beer! srs habanero heat in the throat.