Beer in the new era

gonna pick up aunt sally and give her a little taste today

She was dece

Heard that some BCS dropped at my local store so I went, and of course it was gone.

But I snagged the last bottle of Big Hugs instead so I'll count it as a win.

Smuttynose Single Digit Dubbel aka Winter Ale is kind of nasty. Now I need to figure out what to do with the other 5 bottles in the six pack. I had a very nice Affligem Noel recently and I guess I was thinking this might be like that, but it was just kind of cloying and bland instead.

Beer bread?

Please to Chicago must-drink recommendations, no idea where I'm staying yet either just to be as unhelpful as possible.

So im at hangar24's pugachev bottle release

Please to Chicago must-drink recommendations, no idea where I'm staying yet either just to be as unhelpful as possible.

I'll come back to this.

Must-drink places or drinks?

Drink with me at Maria's!

Are you looking for bar/brewery/with eats/all of the above?

Food is not necessary, brewery is not necessary, just recommendations for somewhere I can drink a good beer or 2 in the city.

Chicago beers I've enjoyed:

Vanilla Rye
Apex Predator
Zombie Dust
BVDL

Duseks
Publican
Bad Apple

Hopleaf!

If I'm recommending one place to have a beer in the city, it's going to be the Hopleaf. Been around for a long time, great selection, great food, and I had my wedding reception there. Other bars that I would put in the top tier Maproom, Local Option, Northdown, Quenchers, Maria's, Sheffields, Fountainhead. Breweries with taprooms, I would hit Half Acre. In fact, you can hit Half Acre, Begyle, and Dovetail all within a mile radius. That's a fun few hours. Dozens of other places, depending on where you are in the city.

Beer bread?

Good idea, thanks!

Thanks y'all. That's quite a lot to digest, but I bookmarked all the recs but now I need to figure out where I'm staying and see what's convenient.

Just got back from buying lemons at the local store, which happened to be selling regular BCBS for $18 a bottle, and prop for $90. I told them selling so high above retail was tacky, and brands them the grocery store willing to overprice things for a quick buck. They were unapologetic and basically said people were willing to pay that, and besides, others were doing it, too. And I told them it doesn't make them any less tacky.

Anyway, does Goose Island have a customer support line where people can report gouging? Or do they not care?

Pretty sure they don't care.

This year's Prop tasted like a smoky hot mess. Never new how spoiled by 13 and 14 versions of that beer we'd be.

so after sipping on different hangar 24 beers heres my opinion

*their sour and orange wit biers suck
*they do stouts better
*the old 2011 barrel pugachevs are not that great and i prefer the new 2016 one, which was a surprise to me

they have really really sweet tasting stouts (latte one and ...don't remember the other one), which is weird but they seem to do well

I'm burned out on sours, back to ipas I guess.

xpost: did you try the maple one?

I think the regular Puga from 2014 was 19+%ABV, glad I opened and shared it with a bunch of people.

is that the cobra one? no i didn't

is that one really sweet?

ya the latte one was like 18.9? and it was super sweet

wasnt my thing but i can see people digging it

Back to the gose. I'll never learn

https://twitter.com/prfl2559/status/813553039806173184

Infected?

Rare was never indicated being infected. But it has been popping up like this in Binnys/jewels/even target.

The NE IPA craze around here is kind of bananas. Seems like it's a new release every week that people are scrambling to get. Enough to hype to fuel a 43 page BA thread: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/chicagoland-ne-ipas-list.445769/

I've had many of them. Many are pretty good, but I'm not going to wait in line or go out of my way for them.

Never heard of NE IPA but it sounds right up my alley

I hadn't either until like 6 months ago! Now it's showing up as it's own section in menus/tap lists.

greetings from ground zero.

wld actually be curious how other parts of the country define neipa and what beers they're looking to as originators.

calstars you're in nyc right? you can just drink singlecut and other half locally.

"ne ipa" is dumb, i thought new england breweries making these beers were trying to approximate west-coast style ipas to begin with? hazy cloudy IPAs have been around for a while everywhere and i dont see anything that warrants a regionally specific label

the alchemist is often seen as the originator of this style and the brewmaster there has even called this (or "vermont-style ipa") a silly label for something that is not altogether different from what other IPA brewers have been doing elsewhere

idk if west coast ipa has been an acceptable thing to say for years that neipa is probably just as acceptable. different hops, different yeast, different flavor profile.

Destroyer yeah, I've seen other half and singlecut around but I think they make a variety of stuff don't they?

so those Sierra Nevada Orange Pale Ale and Tropical IPA sound pretty bad huh

Well the Tropical IPA is apparently a tweaked version of one I liked from a Beer Camp pack but still. I guess this is what they need to do to keep up

idk about other half but the singlecut we get here is like 85% ipas and 15% stouts.

i love a citrus-y IPA, but there's a small brewery here who is selling their NE-style IPA for at least $15 per four pack, fuck that (especially for a 6% beer).

I have never heard this phrase before now, though I live in the NW. I've also had at least a few beers east of the Rockies that have been described as "west coast" but are way closer to regular pale ales than what I'm used to.

i live in the west coast and yes west coast style ipa is a thing but you hardly hear east coast or ne style because theyre not imported here

the popular one from vermont or whatever, i dont recall the name, cannot even be legally brought into california from what ive heard

huh? what kind rule would stop someone from transporting a beer into a state?

http://www.ncsl.org/research/financial-services-and-commerce/direct-shipment-of-alcohol-state-statutes.aspx

Eight states allow the direct shipment of beer and wine as specified: Delaware, Massachusetts, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Virginia. The remaining states only allow direct wine shipments.

it can legally be confiscated. it is rarely enforced so it kind of creates a vague environment where people trade/ship to particular states at their own risk

oh you're talking about shipping i get it

I'm in NE Iowa rn drinking crazy NE IPAs from LA, PDX, NE and Brooklyn.

Everybody's talkin' 'bout a workin' man
Nobody's talkin' 'bout Rolin' Dany

this looks gimmicky but i want to try it

http://www.hoofheartedbrewing.com/beers/konkey-dong.html

At least it's not called Donkey Punch

Or Donkey Sauce.