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.

excited to try some 3 Floyds Alpha Klaus my buddy is bring me this weekend

Alpha Klaus is one of my favorite porters ever.

I haven't had any Pyres besides their dry stout, which is nice. Will keep an eye out for the blood orange. If it's on draft at my local, even better.

Lately I've been hooked on Central Waters' brut pilsner, and not only because it's on mega sale at my favorite store for what seems like forever.

Anyone else see that Ballast Point, which literally sold for a billion dollars a few years back, just got bought by a tiny Chicago hobby brewery for what I assume was a pittance?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 11, 2019 5:08 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

supposedly $50-$80M. there's wine money behind it.

Yeah, I read that, and there is bigger money behind it. When I read that Kings and Convicts brewery had an annual output in the hundreds of barrels (iirc), before knowing anything else, I was totally o_O.

https://www.foodandwine.com/news/ballast-point-sold-kings-convicts-wine-group

I bought a bottle of Pliny the Elder; I remember walking miles across San Francisco years ago to the one place that had it on tap, and buying a bottle once in Portland because you were limited to only one at a time. But there was a ton of it at a shitty strip mall liquor store in San Diego today. Also there seem to be a ton of 22s here which for some reason isn’t a thing I ever see in Michigan and I have no idea why.

What’s good in San Diego? I know Stone and whatever Ballast Point is now are here but there seem to be a lot of other brewers around as well.

Modern Times is a good place that does many styles of beer very well.

A guy at my local liquor shop told me Russian River Brewing expanded their distribution this year. I saw a bunch of their beers including Pliny at a popular local (east bay area) grocery store the other day. It's nice to see it around. It's surprisingly inexpensive for the reputation it has and it is a pretty delicious beer imho.

If you ever get up to Windsor (Sonoma County), you can see why/how they've been able to increase their distribution. Good food and great location as well.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-12-12/ballast-point-rise-fall-constellation-kings-convicts

90%+ loss of valuation in 4 years pretty much tells you all you need to know. Insane.

re: San Diego, have been wanting to pilgrimage for Stone and Black Plague, so might check the latter. Always curious re: the most known versus the lesser hidden gems in each region. Like for Seattle, would recommend Holy Mountain, Reubens, Dirty Couch, Urban Family, Cloudburst in addition to the more obvious ones.

i'm very interested in what happens to ballast point from here. the guys who bought it do not seem like idiots but this industry makes smart people dumb and every common-sense bone in my body says this is not the time to try to figure out a national craft beer brand with a fading reputation.

Thread of gold

Stay tuned for this up and coming brewery pic.twitter.com/Pt3x6XKGzG

— Worst Beer Blog (@WorstBeerBlog) December 15, 2019

The logo of this place is perfectly awful

Don't need to click on that to realize that finally, we're get an aggressively right wing, overtly racist brewery. 'Bout time, right? Make beer great again!

So Founders is adjusting their PR take?

Big flight delay --> stuck in SF --> beers at Toronado

I've heard about that place, any good?

Mikkeller in SF is great. So is Cellarmaker if you like IPAs.

Xp yes, cool place with plenty of stuff to try including a crazy rare beer list. Cash only though.

That’s the place I walked miles to get a Pliny at

re Pliny, better distro makes sense, my local pub has it on tap rn and I was initially surprised

'sometimes when i'm drinking narragansett, I feel like it has a little too much flavor'
WHAT DAT?

Someone who'd really rather be drinking Bud?

Toronado was great. Went there when I was in SF specifically to get Pliny on tap since a trip to Russian River wasn't going to be in the cards. Tons of other great stuff to be had and the vibe was nowhere near as tech-broey as some of the other bars we hit up.

Someone who'd really rather be drinking Bud?

"Bud"? Is that one of those new THC infused IPAs?

Is CBS the fastest "white whale" to "clearance aisle at Target" beer we've seen? What a world we live in.

Just back from two-ish weeks in New Zealand (see flight delays post above). Pretty vibrant craft scene there, favorites were Emerson's, Good George and Panhead.

Seeing months old Founders and Lagunitas IPAs on the store shelves there was pretty lol.

i knew a woman who literally followed a delivery truck around cambridge mass c. 2013 so she could buy as much as possible of the annual release of KBS (not even CBS!), a beer that is now available year-round in my whole foods.

Wasn't (and isn't) KBS rarer than CBS?

never was around here....we got KBS once a year (in march iirc) and went years in between seeing CBS outside of a few draft accounts.

Hmm, I thought CBS was just a coffee stout, googling shows it's Canadian whiskey/maple syrup barrel aged. Seems like I've been seeing CBS on the shelves in large quantities for a few years now.

I think they must have upped KBS and CBS production significantly, because they linger. There's also a coffee KBS now, I saw.

Anyone else feel like bourbon barrel stouts do uniquely bad things to them? I drank a sixpoint master blend the other night and felt like shit for two days.

i barely fuck with em anymore, same for a lot of guys i know. not only are they very likely to wreck you, but the flavor profile has become unappealing. there are old bottles of bourbon county in my basement that i look at w/dread.

I like them, but I think the key is to split one with someone and drink them like you might drink, I dunno, bourbon. Share them, and smaller pours, and you (and they) are good.

Just had my first beer with cryo hops. Tasted like beer.

Xp yeah it wrecked me in this unique way that a similar amount of some other 13% alcohol beverage would not. It also does taste a little odd to me, syrupy and sort of somewhere in between cola/dr pepper/very sweet coffee.

https://media.giphy.com/media/JRsY1oIVA7IetTkKVO/giphy.gif

My daughter said "hmm what if" and made a rhubarb shandy yesterday with a gose she didn't care for as-is, and it is the best thing ever drunk.

https://chicago.eater.com/2020/5/19/21264134/jeppsons-malort-revolution-brewing-anti-hero-collaboration-chicago

Surprised it took this long for something like this tbh

rhubarb shandy sounds great

It is Oberon season again, thank god for some liquid sunshine in the age of covid

I’ve also been making beermosas on the weekends as supplies permit. So healthy and refreshing

To avoid this thread turning into a thread about beer for people who don't like beer...

Chicagolanders: Hearing rumblings that Three Floyds is in trouble and may be closing their brewpub?

Friend of mine says it has something to do with Indiana reopening and the ownership not being comfortable with putting people back to work. This way they can get unemployment and the plan is to reopen the pub in a year or two. Apparently their distributor sales are fine and they're still doing beer-to-go from that location.

Yeah, that's what I've been hearing as well. It's the eat-in brewpub that is essentially being put on mothballs for awhile, my understanding is that distribution, brewing and to-go beer sales aren't going anywhere.

In fact I've seen the new(er) Zombie Dust cans popping up more and more frequently, at least around where I live.

Every story I've heard of the brewpub has been one of bad attitude and terrible service, that couldn't possibly have helped.

I'm a big fan of Hop Butcher's NEIPA variants, but they seem to release 2-3 totally new ones a week, and given they can be hard to come by in the best of circumstances I've been beset by a combo of FOMO and sheer acquisitive exhaustion.

My local bar was selling mystery boxes for 12 bottles/$160 so I went in with a buddy...

Among the treasures:
1993 Thomas Hardy
2000 Scaldis Noel
2007 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot

Those old vintages were very unexpected! The rest of the box was pretty intense, but more recent vintages of local hyped stuff.

(also thanks dan, jon & Josh for the Three Floyds info)