Beer in the new era

even drunk i find that talking about beer while you drink it helps you remember different tastes. i don't remember every single beer there, but i do remember the standouts. i loved: rook & leer, the upland lambic, hunapu (so hot/spicy!) and gga (tasted like sweet potato pie), the peche was a peach bomb, the petit mutant was the alchemist standout (i don't really remember the other can), the feral one was probably the funkiest sourest thing of the night - firestone totally nailed their first sour, the spencer was surprisingly spiced, reminded me of a saison, and also historical!, in general i wasn't in love w/ the barleywines tho other ppl were very enthusiastic. you're right tho, looking over these bottles some of them i can barely remember. but the ones i loved i loved even at the end of the evening (and after we took a vigorous 420 break). oh yeah, the bruery stuff was fantastic as well, tho all very reminiscent of their tart of darkness. all those dark, stouty, barrel aged sours have a similar taste to me. i think my fave of that genre is the pnc elevator.

also i thought for sure by the time i got home that i was gonna spew - everything was pretty spinny. but i put on Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room and laid down on the couch and it lulled me to sleep. no spewing! yay!

lol, yeah i'd imagine that after all that sugary/strong/spicy/sour in a row everything would start to blend together but it seems more than worth it cause how the hell else are you gonna get ahold of that all stuff otherwise

this thread needs more METAL MADMAN content

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6uRUqHKlA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJxraH7HbSw

Costco had an IPA variety case for $28 -- Torpedo, Snow Wit ("White IPA"), a Black IPA whose name I forget, and the Nooner "Session IPA." I've always liked Torpedo and so far the White IPA and Black IPA are very solid, so I feel it was a good deal. The Session IPA I'm guessing is going to be the weak link. The White IPA is especially nice because it's really dry.

the session ipa was pretty good!

yeah, i was gonna say, that's the one i've been hearing the most about from the 3 new ones

Nice, maybe I'll crack one open tonight then.

the white was definitely my favorite

yeah i was talking abt that mixed case upthread, liked all of them, but the wit was outstanding

Yeah I love the wit, would definitely buy it on its own.

i about the 12-pack of that sierra nevada mix. torpedo i've had many times but as for the others i liked all of them except for the wit, really. session was great. the black ipa was awesome

should say "i *bought"

i don't know what it is with wheat beers for me, most of them are terrible, especially american wheats

that SN mix is a great deal, even if i wasn't crazy about the wit.

IPA tasting this Saturday:

Knee Deep - Hopoholic 4IPA
Rip Current - Caught In A Rip 3IPA
Pliny The Elder - 2IPA
Alpine - Nelson IPA
Blind Pig - IPA

Sorry headache guys...

I had a glass of the Bruery Sour in the Rye today at Whole Foods and it was pretty good. And at $7 for a 10 oz pour cheaper than the bottle price. I also overheard they're getting Parabola in bottles tomorrow or Friday. Also heard someone say a couple of Costcos in the LA area had Parabola for $11 each.

nick, buy all the parabolas please!

Sour in the Rye is my favorite Bruery beer out of those that I've tried.

Happened to find a six of Zombie Dust this evening and it was 10% off day w/ college ID at my local store, made the standard slightly too high 3F price tag a little easier to swallow.

Sour in the Rye is great. I'd buy it every time I see a bottle, but it's just about $5 too much for me to do that.

Pliny The Elder - 2IPA

Lucky, lucky man. I've only had a small portion of this at a bottle share, but completely deserving of the hype imho.

Went nuts on the build your own at the beer store - here the list:

Victory dirtwolf
Ommegang glimmerglass spring saison
Stillwater Artisanal Folklore Stout
Stillwater Artisanal why can't IBU
Stillwater Artisanal stateside saison
Brau Brothers Paradox black ipa
Brau Brothers ALTernative imperial ale
Spike and Jerome's Barley Ryne
Mikkeller/Brew Dog I Hardcore you
Mikkeller Black Hole
Mikkeller soriacha ace single hop
Mikkeller Hop Burn

Worked a ridiculous deal on the mikkeller singles because they've been hanging out for a long while getting not bought, so they might be a little past due but whatever, $2 a bottle, which means all 4 cost me less than they usually would per single. Plus the coffee stout is basically a guaranteed win.

Btw, the ommegang glimmerglass is the shit, saison with sweet orange peel and pink peppercorns. It's amazing and you should probably just go buy some right now. I'm not even much of an ommegang fan most of the time but wow.

I just have to say once again that I'm so glad Surly is back in town, just so fucking solid.

sour in the rye is one of my favorite beers! at least one of my favorite commonly-available beers. i was gifted two (!) bottles of it recently, along with two (!) bottles of 2011 bourbonic plague (!!), a bottle of propolis granum (really great herbal sour), a bottle of the upright anniversary saison (made with apricot and aged in wine and gin barrels) and probably something else i'm forgetting

Pipeworks made a saison with pink peppercorns that was pretty damn good, now they've got one out with green peppercorns plus cucumber and celery seed. Haven't had it yet but I sent CAD a bottle in trade.

oh wow, that sounds delicious.

It's so easy to take all the commonly available good beer for granted but man, is there a ton of commonly available good beer! Golden age.

Especially around here. Not just local brews, but the distribution we receive is amazing.

peppercorn saisons are great, the elysian oddland is a nicely affordable option around here. also sasquatch is now making a szechuan peppercorn saison, which i need to try asap

I also overheard they're getting Parabola in bottles tomorrow or Friday. Also heard someone say a couple of Costcos in the LA area had Parabola for $11 each.

― nickn, Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Score! Bought two (their max/customer) at $16/ea. May stop by after work to see if any's left.

Local any-day-now seasonal excitement is Bell's Black Note. I'm intrigued by the deconstructed night at Binny's:

http://www.binnys.com/blog/lincoln-park-tasting-room-presents-bells-black-note-deconstructed/

Black note is going to be a tough one to get. Harder than KBS, for sure.

It may be. But 180 cases shipped to Chicago (apparently) doesn't sound so bad.

Just last year my friend found a few on a shelf. At a Binny's!

I didn't even get a sniff of one last year. I've only had it once, way back at FOBAB in 2011. It was one of the last samples I tried that night and I could barely walk/talk/breath/comprehend what was going on. I think I liked it.

How many bottles in a case? 24? So 4320 bottles for the entire Chicagoland area?

So I went to a beer tasting thing at a friend's house a couple weeks ago, where a bunch of people brought a couple of bombers to share. Not to complain too much, because I definitely had some pretty great stuff, but at least half the beers that people brought were imperial stouts, and it just sort of became tiresome after a while. I don't dislike that style, but I hate how beer-geek culture holds up big, boozy stouts (and to a lesser extent IPAs) as, like, the pinnacle of beer. For instance, 9 of the top 20 beers on BeerAdvocate right now are imperial stouts. And for a tasting, I'd rather try lots of different styles than one rich beer after another. (Btw, I brought Une Annee Sanguinaire and Pipeworks Nagami Equinox, both of them Belgian-style ales brewed with citrus but otherwise fairly distinct.)

Now I'm trying to remember what I've offered you at my place. I know we've done some heavy stouts, Backyard Rye comes to mind. Next time you're just getting Shocktop.

Now that my old man has had a sniff of KBS I'm gonna sic him on the Black Note :D

Xpost We also had a bourbon county coffee. All wasted on JAYMC.

When I get home I'm pulling all the stats on beers I've given to jaymc.

jaymcbeers.xls?

I imagine Imperial Stouts, particularly those that are barrel aged, are so well regarded because they do seem like special occasion beers. You can sit on them for a couple of years, or serve them almost in lieu of dessert. They take more effort to brew, they aren't always widely distributed, they're often seasonal and/or limited. And they often taste very good! But yeah, I can see them getting tiresome. Just as double IPAs can kill your mouth, these heavy stouts get to be a bit like drinking brownies and eating cigars. A little bit (can) go a long way. They're awesome beers to share.

yeah i think a lot of what you said is true about any big/boozy beer tho? i wonder why so many have praised imperial stouts as opposed to quads/strong belgians or barrel-aged barleywines &c

Head start maybe? Barleywine seems to be surging.

i could see that. imperial stouts are pretty accessible to anyone who has tried guiness

OK, I believe I can think of three times when I've shared with beers with jaymc that consisted of more than your normal fridge beers. Most of these were provided by me, but a few were during a bottle share so others may have brought them. They are:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/13767870155_b5de578416_c.jpg

Decent mix, right?

xps it does seem like sessionable beers are now a thing in the beer geekosphere, probably as a reaction to the stranglehold higher abv stuff has on the scene

berliner weisses ftw!