Beer in the new era

i think founder's is a little overrated honestly

New Glarus fruit beers rule.

I have family in Grand Rapids that we visited last July 4th. They had tapped KBS at the brewery and CBS at HopCat. I love that city and all of its beer now because of that. I never hate a Founder's beer, which is more than I can say for five or so of the local breweries doing well around here. I felt stupid paying $20 for four Founder's Harvest Ales once, though. The smaller shops def cash in on the hype.

Backwoods has become a shelf beer basically. Still great!

This summer I'm moving to a place that's 10 blocks from the HopCat in East Lansing and I'm quite excited about this - I was there a couple weeks ago and kind of amazed at the sheer number of mostly Michigan beers on tap.

nothing wrong with fresh founders. their core lineup is excellent even if their one-offs have a pretty significant miss ratio.

otm

xp I loved hopcat. The food was also good. I am jelly.

http://i.imgur.com/5RNr1wv.jpg
First cider in an age. Pretty sour and good

My local has a "bartender's choice" beer selection where you typically get a mass-market craft bottle and its $4. Tonight a friend and I each ordered one. He got an All Day IPA, not a bad choice. I got an Odell Mountain Standard Double Black IPA, a 10%+ monstrosity that was actually very good, and quite the bang for the buck comparatively.

I've been looking down my nose at the Tropical IPA trend so far but while sitting in the sun at a rooftop bar with a gentle breeze, Tropicannon from Heavy Seas (fka Clipper City) hit the spot. Anything heavier would have been gross, anything lighter would have been boring.

I lied. There was a Gose on the menu.

For a domestic saison, the Stateside Saison by Stillwater is not bad. I like that it's available in pint cans - my favorite beer format. Maybe slightly less refined than a Belgian rendition, but plenty spicy and quaffable.

Got some of the New Belgium "Hof ten Dormaal" whatever that means - expected something weird on a Dogfish Head level, since it's apparently made with malted sunflower seeds, spelt and wild carrots, but it's just a decent saison, really.

Toured Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. Beer's fine, but the tour was great.

i drank three cans of miller lite at the indians game today

beer in the dad era

Dad in the beer era

came to search thread for sixpoint, which apparently had a big expansion four or five years ago?

idk, I don't remember seeing many of them locally, but the fancy grocery had some variety pack of these skinny tall 12 oz cans, with four varieties, and while they're a little samey I like all of them

I think it was resin/sweet action/bengali/crisp, which seems to be their base lineup

tbh I also drank a sixer of miller lite tall boys over the ol' holiday weekend

sixpoint is my standard grocery store buy, mostly resin and some of the seasonal varieties

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/drink/beer/ct-bourbon-county-beer-lineup-2017-goose-island-20170609-story.html

Bourbon County Brand Stout
Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout
Bourbon County Brand Barleywine
Bourbon County Brand Northwoods Stout (flavors of blueberry and almond)
Proprietor’s Bourbon County Brand Stout (flavors evoking bananas Foster)
Bourbon County Reserve Brand Barleywine (aged two years)
Bourbon County Reserve Brand Stout (aged in 11-year-old Knob Creek bourbon barrels)

Wow okay then

I had some of Singlecut's Weird & Gilly this weekend. It was incredibly good, almost worth the price even.

Lol northwoods almonds

Never heard of the beer or the brewery but I would totally buy a beer named Weird & Gilly without a second thought.

Tried two news ones tonight, Anderson valley briney melon gose and revolution rosa. The gose was very tart and right up my alley. Rosa was rather bland.
Been trying to figure out how to explain sours to non-beer drinkers and maybe it's like a cider but sour instead of sweet.
I would upload pics of the cans but shit, I can't be bothered with image uploading. Wish we had that on ilx.

Rosa is totally boring.

I've been loving exploring new beers lately -- I moved to the Twin Cities a few weeks ago. Insight is probably my favorite new-to-me one of the locals thus far, and it's cool to have access to stuff like Toppling Goliath and Prairie that you can't get in Chicago.

The unfiltered Stone "sell by 7/4/17" is the fucking bomb

dan, check out Forager (down in Rochester) and soon-to-be-opening Barrel Theory in St. Paul!

...also Pulpit Rock (also in Decorah, started by ex-TG guys).

Tried two news ones tonight, Anderson valley briney melon gose

Tried their G&T gose today and liked it, but I can't perceive any difference from their Holy Gose. The name led me to believe it would be a kind of gin & tonic style but I don't taste any juniper. I like the Holy Gose and this one, though at $11.50 per 6-pack it'll be an occasional buy.

I like the briney melon too.

Ranking AV Goses: Blood orange > regular > G&T > briney melon

Dan, you can get TG and Prairie in Chicago. Well with TG, you can get Pseudo Sue, that's all that has hit the market I believe.

Celebrated the solstice with Jester King's Dichotomous sour, replete with lavender, kumquats, spearmint...actually a really lovely, fresh sour, quite understated but perfect for a warm summer dusk. Will certainly check out other beers by them

Or at least, whatever makes it here

kind of surprised toppling goliath isn't around chicago much yet. since they started contracting out some brewing, I've seen at least one variety in cans at costco

i'm definitely in TG central, though

It is, we get pseudo sue. It is the contract brewed though.

Need some Assassin though, send asap.

I don't think I ever saw Prairie that wasn't brought by people who had traveled out of state, and I'm sure I never saw Pseudo Sue, which is weird because of its association with the Field Museum. Then again, for the last three years I basically only went to two stores.

wheat beers have gotten way better in the states, either that or i just started seeking more of them out

I think PseudoSue and Dorothy's are the only two they've really ramped up on, but I've seen a few others in the grocery store.

The contract brewed TG cans from Florida are garbage imho compared to the the Decorah bombers.

so damn hot lately been enjoying the random sour. had a mraz (sacramento area) 3 berry sour other day that kicked ass. beautiful color, sort of like having a sour smoothie it was so fruit forward. last night had a modern times tropical sour that was really nice (def. got some passionfruit, thought maybe there was guava and mango in the mix too?) but didn't blow me away like the 3 berry one did
also had a sierra nevada BFD (beer for drinking), a 7% dry hopped golden ale that was lovely. the dry hop really made it noteworthy

The problem with Prairie around here is the $$$. Single bottle often $10+. But still, Bomb, Birthday Bomb, and Pe-Kan are all fantastic.

praire makes such good beer but yea they are pricey

Lol I just remembered, one store I checked out here in Mpls is selling 2013 Backwoods Bastard for $3.99 a bottle. Who knows how well it has been kept but that seems like a worthwhile gamble.

(That said I haven't bought one.)

Sierra Nevada's new Beer Camp box is out, it's a colab with 12 different brewers like they've done before. $24 at Whole Foods and $25 at Bevmo (for shame!).

it's fun as always, idk why the price comes up every year for something that's intended to be a treat.

Tried a couple of new beers this evening which were both good: Fortunate Islands by Modern Times (a hoppy wheat beer) and Gratitude by Kent Falls (a hoppy lager).

KCBC marble of doom
Sour and red

The contract brewed TG cans from Florida are garbage imho compared to the the Decorah bombers.

Coincidentally my new local shop just stocked Double Dry Hop Pseudo Sue, bought the bomber and it rules. Very very good.