Beer in the new era

Last night I drank a Widmeyer Hefeweizen, which I found meh, and a Maresdous 8, which was very tasty in the tradition of tasty Belgian strong ales. A bit on the sweeter side of what I like but not over the line.

Oh, I'll keep an eye out for that. I've been meaning to start exploring Belgian beers. I was putting it off till I'd tried every English stout but I should probably start sooner.

It's almost summer! Time to put the stouts away!

Oh yeah, I had something called Sunset Wheat the other night which tasted like orange and was surprisingly good considering that fact.

nooooooooooooooooo!!!

(I'm assuming you're talking about Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat, which I declared a vendetta against because it is the single least-pleasant beer I have ever had)

When I was in Belgium last week I totally was rocking all the kriek. But not the Hoegaarden (because that's utterly disgusting). I also had a Trappist (Chimay Bleu) which was pretty intense at 9% ABV

sundar iirc you are in OTT or MTL? where are you getting these amazing beers from in whichever of those two cities you're in?

if you are from neither of those places i apologize, i just remember you saying it once or something. i may be making it up.

I'm from Ottawa (and lived in Mtl 2001-2002) but I've been living in Buffalo NY for almost 2 years now.

When I was in Belgium last week I totally was rocking all the kriek. But not the Hoegaarden (because that's utterly disgusting). I also had a Trappist (Chimay Bleu) which was pretty intense at 9% ABV

Where exactly?

BTW if near West Flanders: Should have tried the Brugse Zot!

(I would imagine that at least Mtl should have good places for this? I couldn't help you though. I drank Colt 45 from the dep when I lived there. Ah, callow youth.)

To be fair, I haven't really looked past my local deps, but the few bars I've found that have bigger selections were pretty disappointing... one place that was recommended highly as a place with a bunch of beers had that greek beer whose name I forget as the rarest one. mythos?

i'll have to check ch0whound or something.

Let me know if you find (or have had) Dieu du Ciel Aphrodisiaque. The ratebeer.com folks rank it as the best sweet stout on earth but I haven't found any around here.

yes. mythos. it's not bad!

I think I am going to drop by Dieu du Ciel tonight, actually. Everything they have is actually to a pretty high standard... the reason you probably haven't found it is because they aren't actually bottling any of their brews yet. Apparently they're opening another brewery north of the city though, and they're going to start bottling there! I can't remember where I heard that. I read it today after doing a bit of ch0whound research. I will see if I can talk to the owners or something tonight (I'm going early so hopefully the place will be near empty, I'm not much of one for the crowd there). I've not had the aphrodisiaque, don't know if it's "in season" (they only brew most things a couple times a year), but if they have it I'll give you a review!

Where exactly?

Brussels. and Paris, but that's obviously not in Belgium. May I also suggest that if you do go to France and decide to try the local brews, Kronenbourg tastes like piss. stay away.

I've developed a fondness for Zywiec lately - I don't even usually like lagers much but it's so smooth and tasty. Perfect warm weather beer.

it is. and that red-temperature indicator on the back is key!

König Ludwig Weissbier is majorly tasty, if a bit pricey.

I recently tried this weird Belgian beer, "La Chouffe." Unpasteurized, 8% and quite good. (Although the floaty yeast cultures were somewhat of a turn-off)

Oh yeah, I've had La Chouffe - very nice. There are so many good belgian beers it's amazing.

I just remembered I have a beer question:

In Mexico I tried Bohemia (regular, not dark) and it was fantastic - at the moment I thought it was one of the best beers I'd ever tried.

Recently I tried some Bohemia in a U.S. Mexican place and it was meh. Is it possible I was getting a different "export" version, or that the transit did something to the beer?

Man...I have had so much "skunky" imported beer, could that be it?

On a related note, what do you do when your beer is obviously off and you've already drank a couple? Can you take the rest back to the store.?

;)

Oh yeah, I went back to Dieu, but no Aphro... was available. I didn't get a chance to ask when/if it was coming back... next time! Maybe I'll go tonight, I would like to dig into my new book and my house smells like cat piss and I am not currently poor.

Oh man! I didn't see that you guys were talking about Biere D'Achouffe. I thought it was a Quebecois beer for so long! True story. Apparently the first place they started exporting to was Quebec! It is very delicious. I don't remember finding any little floaters, though...

Response from Dieu du Ciel to two questions I asked via e-mail:

Hello Will,

Thanks you for your comments. It is much appreciated.

1-) We brew the Aphrodisiaque only 2 or 3 times a year. The next batch
will probably be avaible something like next september.

2-) Yes, it's true, we are in the process of building up a bottling
plant in St-Jérôme. There will also be a pub there. We hope to be able
to sell our first bottles at the end of July.

Cheers!
[dude's name removed by me]

currently - harviestoun Butter and Twisted is amazinhg, but we've just come back from North East France (ie very near the Belgian border and lots of Flemish beer-making tradition) and have been loving L'angelus which is beer's swankiest bottle I fear, gold foil and everything. Also Maredsous, Amadeus (lemon flavoured, should be wrong but oh so right) and god's own beer - Orval.

erm that's bitter and twisted of course

When alcohol content is shown on U.S. beer, it is often labelled by weight. Since alcohol is lighter than water, this can leave the mistaken impression that U.S. beer has much less alcohol, on average, than Canadian beer. A 3.2% beer in the U.S. (by weight) would be equivalent to a 4% beer in Canada (by volume).

Wikipedia I LOVE YOU. Did anyone know this? It boggles the mind! WHY?!

let's have a sesh

link?

my girl friend brought me a 6 pack of Hitachino Nest White Ale. Pretty good stuff. nice floral aromas ,perfect for a hot summer day. i think it's kind of pricey though

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/409121525_01915ec7ca.jpg

link, sorry: Canadian Beer

Apparently they have Aphrodisiaque in now. And I'm destitute poor and going away for the weekend! NOOOOO!

Recommend some beer. Not too heavy, not too wheaty, crisp and refreshing in the style of Tsing Tsao or similar.

Also recommend some beers like Paulaner or the white Kronenberg with the fruity taste whose name escapes me.

I am in the mood for trying different beers.

Dude, Zywiec

(re: light, crisp, refreshing, not wheaty)

I was at the nashville beer fest and the best thing there was a homebrewed bock that they ran out of by my second go-round. After a while though all you care about is that the beer is cold, because it's nearly august, and you're outdoors in nashville.

I think I might have talked my dad into getting a 30-gallon kit from Boot Lager. (ha ha, "boot lager")

I also finally made myself a michelada with a little kosher salt on top of a can of tecate with a lime in it. not half bad, if you don't mind a bit of foamy foam foam.

Sundar, have you tried Flying Bison? I can't quite remember which bars serve it (I think the Ulrich's, but they have closed, I think). I miss it dearly.

I swore by Aviator Red (which you can get at Wegman's) for a while. I still think it's good but have gone off it a bit. Are there other good FB beers?

I wanted to make it to Dieu du Ciel when I visited Mtl earlier in the month but couldn't make it. Drank a lot of St-Ambroise (and some nice micro wheats) instead.

They have seasonal beers (which I can remember the name of), that friends would bring me in growlers. I never managed to locate the brewery, which apparently is on the West Side (on Niagara, maybe?). Anyway, I remember enjoying the summer and winter ales quite a bit.

Available in Wegmans!? Ahh! This was not so when I lived there! I love you, Wegmans!

"Dude, Zywiec"

One of the benefits of my area of London filling up with large numbers of young eastern Europeans is the availablity in the cornershops of excellent Polish beers at ridiculously cheap prices.

Zywiec is one of the better ones, at about £1 a bottle. The dark lagers especailly are a revelation.

Ronan WTF?? This is truly a new era for you!

Saku from Estonia is pretty good

Saku or Saku Kuld, anyway. The dark variety has that soy saucey aftertaste I can't get with.

Ronan WTF?? This is truly a new era for you!

is this a joke? heh...I don't get it if so. is it that unusual that I ask about trying new beers?

I had a Saku Porter that had a weird aftertaste, that was probably the same one.

Wheats: Last night I was drinking Sprecher Hefe Weiss, which was all right.
Non-Wheats: Last night I was also drinking New Holland Mad Hatter, which was goddamn awesome.

I guess I am in the dark :/ I thought you were still teetotalling because of your stuffed-upedness-in-the-cabesa.

(I always thought French/Alsace riesling was dry & German riesling was sweet?)

This is probably too much info: I think people's perception of that may be because Germany had a super popular brand called Blue Nun (sweet) that was a liebfraumilch that came out of Rheinhessen, ~how people assume zinfandel will be a blush sweet wine out of California when zinfandel is a black grape that gets super alcoholic and deep fruited. And Germany's wine law and labeling are pretty difficult to understand. Like they have a 'late harvest' category called spatlese that is based on grape must weight/potential alcohol but that doesn't mean they can't ferment it to total dryness. Alsace has a similiar late harvest categoory called vendages tardives but that doesn't mean it will be sweet either. And also the Mosel's riesling is usually off dry. It's just the style they like(d) (it was fashionable) especially since before climate change they had the difficulty ripening grapes so riesling retained super high acidity and you would leave some residual sugar to balance that out. But when it's done right, it's really really great. Like, I don't like Ste Michelle's (WA?) rieslings (they seem to be all off dry) but good riesling from the Mosel is super tight, laser focused. And if you have super high acidity you can age those wines forever, like a super tannic fruit concentrated one. Alsace's climate is very dry and gets a ton of daylight hours, grapes are on steep aspects. They typically have no problem ripening grapes.

I'll be in 808 for two months soon!

I literally just wrote out 5 hours of essays to random questions about wine and no alcohol/low alcohol beer/spirits/wine last week. One of the 7 questions was to explain the wine production in Switzerland and their difficulties in exporting. This is the only reason that information is still fresh. I wrote two pages on Switzerland and their high labor costs, trade without being in the EU, blah blah.

I was just reading about lots of this stuff in the book Godforsaken Grapes, which was pretty good. It's actually the second book about wine I've read in the last year or so, including Cork Dork - third book, if you include the excellent book about the scientist of alcohol, Proof - and I've got to admit that 1) I still know nothing about wine and 2) at this point I've learned just to skip white wine entirely.

Back to beer: my wife (who works with some beer companies) insists that 10% of Europe's beer sales (mostly western Europe) are non-alcoholic beers. Really?

Yeah, it's the only rapidly growing alcohol space right now. Non/low alcoholic beverages. People are drinking less, millennials and Gen Z super far less, not at all. Some beer companies are betting that their future sales are going to compose of 20% non-alcoholic beer or like ~7% compound annual growth rate.

Hey, if they can make them taste good ...

I mean it's good to give people options in social settings when they don't want to drink alcohol or they can't. I don't think people should expect it to taste the same way. Alcohol is part of what gives beverages a certain mouthfeel and a longer finish.

What Yerac said: Reisling from the Mosel is one of the great white wines in the world, full stop.

I had a 2003 Reisling last night that was 7% and sweet, but still with a ton of acidity that washed the sweetness away each sip just when you think it will be too much. Like eating the most delicious white peach of your life.

xpost My wife noted that beer and wine pair really well with food, and it's hard to find a non-alcoholic alternative. That I get, I suppose. But when I read about "healthy lifestyle" trends and alternatives to alcoholic beverages, I realize that a lot of people simply drink a lot more than I do. As I told my wife the other day, if my alcohol consumption were such that it was affecting my life - hangovers, weight gain, missed work, whatever - then I'm drinking too much. Though I do concede we live in a society that pushes alcohol pretty hard, so I guess I also do sympathize.

And there are whole countries that don't drink because of religious reasons, pregnant women, people driving, people on meds, people who never drank that beer companies were missing out on. I like it when I go to a restaurant and they do a wine pairing menu but also have an alternative non-alcoholic pairing.

Riesings from Rheingau are generally always dry. But yeah Mosel is generally always off-dry to medium sweet. Or just drink german spatburgunder (pinot noir). I heart riesling so much. It's so versatile. I used to bring finger lakes Hermann Wiemer riesling (ice cold) to the beach.

^^^ The way I wrote that makes it seems like there are whole countries full of people on meds or whole countries of pregnant women.

My wife noted that beer and wine pair really well with food, and it's hard to find a non-alcoholic alternative.

Not to be snarky but I find water usually pairs well with food when I don’t feel like having something alcoholic.

Water sommeliers exist, which I kind of don't have a strong opinion about.

xpost That was my reaction! just drink water.

They just opened an alcohol free bar in Greenpoint (Getaway). There are others around the world. I am all for there being more non-alcohol/non-coffee/non laser tag social settings to meet up.

They should open up a plain tag facility, for those who are trying to lay off the lasers.

Yeah I am hoping to get to Getaway soon

Hudson Valley just canned a Barrel Aged sparkling water:

https://www.instagram.com/p/By8l8a_BRqR/

that.... sounds good?

i wouldn't want to pay a lot for it but i like interesting non-sugary sparkling beverages

I would try this.

Switzerland update: for now, I'm drinking Feldschlösschen

I had some of this (hop water) at a tasting station in WF and it was pretty good, but $7/6-pack just seems like too much to pay for flavored water.

https://h2ops.com/

I feel like Deschutes is hardly a beer anyone covets/drinks/orders, but in this case, may I humbly request to never give them another dime:

A message to our fans: pic.twitter.com/c08YNC5cU8

— Deschutes Brewery (@DeschutesBeer) June 26, 2019

and nothing of value was lost

Hey @MattLaslo why couldn’t you stop this pic.twitter.com/pJRg08jG5d

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 10, 2019

New Glarus is usually pretty solid, even when they're getting weird, but ugh, the Break O’Day Juicy IPA was gross.

xp I noticed similar things at the MN state fair last year… for some reason the fairgoers really love their specially-flavored beers, many of which sounded absolutely disgusting

I've been seeing a lot of rosé-style beers lately, haven't tried any.

And cherry seems to be the current fruit of choice with many breweries. I tried the Almanac cherry beer and didn't like it at all, had hopes that they could do it well because they do great fruit sours, but this seems to be aiming for the wine cooler crowd.

Anybody had any Sybarite sour ales from Pretentious Barrel House in Columbus OH? My daughter and her friends are roadtripping and happen to be there right now, and she asked if I wanted her to bring me anything.

OK I see Sybarite is just one of their cutesy names, along with Truculent, Neophytic, Derisive, Magnanimous, etc

hmmph

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2019/08/bells-brewery-will-release-low-calorie-light-hearted-ale-in-2020.html

tbh I'm still waiting to try the 2x version but I will likely buy the lite at least once

i'd be a lot more encouraged if this was coming in at like 4.2% instead of 3.7%. but most of the time with this style under 5% you just get hop water.

https://oct.co/articles/regular-beer

When everything is outlandish, when rebellious beers become the rule and not the exception, how is it possible to stand out? The answer, increasingly, is for breweries to stop going wild and start embracing their mild side. To cut through the double dry-hopped clutter, breweries are releasing mass-appeal lagers with humdrum names and often humble branding, harking back to the simpler days when beer was just beer—a one-size-inebriates-all lager sold good and cold.

leave it to those guys to write an entire article that doesn't say why this is actually happening (competition for shelf space and skus among craft brands)

I live in the SF bay area. Most of the regular people I know who drink beer drink local (craft?) beer and don't go in for the flavored stuff except maybe at beer tastings or whatever. Fort Point "KSA" (Kölsch Style Ale) and Export seems to be in every cooler these last two years. Their design might be partially to credit for the popularity - I don't know. It's good beer. I feel like I spread it around amongst my friends because it's fairly cheap at Trader Joe's and CostCo. If you get a chance, give some a try.

Speaking of design, I picked up a 4-pack of some random Pilsners and a "cloudy" lager the other day that I'm excited to try. I like the designs, especially the two on the left.

https://i.imgur.com/cPYUOmx.jpg

I enjoyed a Rainier Tallboy a week ago

faction makes tasty beers.

I like the designs of the two on the left too. Designs are getting too cheeseball that I start subconsciously thinking the beer is careless (shitty) and overpriced. I like drinking odd craft beer if it's on draft but when I am in the store I really just want a can of old speckled hen, guinness or boddingtons.

night shift's nite lite is the first local craft beer that really took a shot at macro shelf space and price points. it's done well and i think it's pretty tasty. one of their best labels too:

https://nightshiftfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/nite-lite-o04spp70jx9evyz5qe3qow6eanasbz3lnsm96tbmd8.jpg

Any recommendations for LA breweries or beer centric bars?

Really like that Nite Lite label.

I go to sunset beer company every time I'm in the area. They have a handful of usu interesting things on tap and the entire world in refrigerated goodies that are very nicely priced and they don't charge to open bottles/cans or any such bullshit.
Xpost

Any recommendations for LA breweries or beer centric bars?

― calstars, Tuesday, August 20, 2019 4:11 PM (six minutes ago)

Highland Park Brewery (Chinatown) or The Hermosillo (Highland Park) are my favorites. Beachwood is good but it's pretty far unless you're way out on the west side.

Thanks bros

Trying Double Two hearted. Not as hot/boozy as Hopslam, more like a classic west coaster but still that traditional Midwest Centennial hop thing. Classic Bell's selling 11% abv beer in six pack bottles.

i'll have to find a single of that this weekend

I had two. It's strong shit for sure. Some sips tasted more boozy than others, but you can tell the two hearted is in there.

I'd gotten used to drinking all these DIPA monsters, but they're expensive so I've taken a break from buying big beers. But the great thing about going from big beers to little beers is that little beers go down eeeeeeeeeasy. Very refreshing.

I saw double two hearted in Chicago last weekend and was a little sad I hadn’t actually seen it anywhere in Michigan yet. But I haven’t looked at actual beer stores yet; Binnys selection beats every grocery store everywhere.

Also as an aside I think Chicago might be the best place for buying beer