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.

👍

Did someone say beer

Phase Three, one of the best local breweries, has not only started selling a 5% hard seltzer, not only started doing so in a smoothie style "jammed full" of fruit, not only started selling it for $21.99 a 4-pack, but had the absolutely audacity to actually call the line Lulz.

https://www.phasethreebrewingshop.com/uploads/1/3/3/1/133164180/s743319809657808125_p326_i1_w800.png

I would mail order from Russian River and de Garde if they shipped out of state to WA. Sad face.

Metropolitan

i'm about to have one of their kolsch-ish beers

I dug into my cellar tonight, having kinda forgotten about it for a good long time.

2006 Thomas Hardy’s Ale:
Gone a bit sour, not totally unpleasant but not super desirable either. Mostly tastes like I imagine fermented prune juice would, with a hint of aspirin astringency. Not great. Finished most of the small bottle before dumping the dregs.

2009 Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise
Bit of suspicious mould on the cork as I open it. Smells like .... olives? Wtf. Tastes also like olives, with some lambic flavour back. Fuck that, this one’s to clean the drains with.

2009 Cantillon organic Kriek
Much more like it. Still a difficult customer, very very sour and aggressive. After the initial shock there’s a fun jolly rancher kind of sweet/sour play on the palate and a nice firm bitterness to close off the mouthful. I don’t think anyone was meant to get through a whole 750ml bottle on their own. We’ll see if tomorrow the whole thing has gone funky with the introduction of some oxygen, but tonight the one glass will do me fine.

It's surprisingly hard to find beer that's not past its sell-by date at some local beer stores around where I live. At one store near me, I would say more than 50% of the beers that have a sell-by date that I checked on a recent visit were past the date. That doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence to buy the beers that don't have a sell-by date either. You usually have to look pretty closely to find the sell-by (or "best by" date), it's often stamped faintly on the bottle or can itself, so you have to remove it from the box to check. I guess most people don't know or care enough to check.

― o. nate, Saturday, January 23, 2021 4:55 PM (three weeks ago)

Wish I'd read this earlier because I recently got burned by buying a 6-pack that turned out to be over a month past its "best by" date (>1 year since it was canned). This was completely unexpected since a. I bought it in a grocery that's very beer-oriented where I assumed turnover was rapid, and b. this was a microbrew produced in my own gd borough! In fact I went to another store one block away and found a 6-pack of the same brand that was 11 months fresher.

The brand is Sixpoint Alpen-Flo Lager. It's supposed to be like a German Helles. It's quite all right, though somehow I can still tell it's a microbrew.

yikes, pretend that was a block quote

walked into my local tiny liquor store as they were getting a delivery of Heady and Focal. that would have been unheard of not long ago.

Last week I had a chocolate-banana imperial stout. It was really quite good, exactly as promised, but came in a 16oz. can and it was just *too much.* I mean, I finished it, but the next morning I woke up and immediately thought, ugh, I never want that again. I gave one of my extra cans to a friend, who had the exact same reaction (he thought it might taste good mixed with a dark rum). I'm giving another one (it was a 4-pack) to another friend tonight, I'm curious to hear what he thinks.

I saw on fb that this year's F-W Parabolas are out (three varieties) but my local Total Wine and Whole Foods doesn't have them. I'll be damned if I mail order beer.

there are a few very local, new microbreweries that i want to be enthusiastic about further out in jersey near where i grew up. but their beer is just sadly not as good as the more established microbreweries. don't want to call them out, but what is the deal with that? is it really that hard to make a solid new england-style ipa?

yes?

yeah, i guess it is. makes me appreciate my favorite spots a lot more.

Parabola is in supermarkets in SF, no variants though. They do have that absurdly priced club you can join if you are really ISO lol

how far out in Jersey?

Carton and Kane are both kinda near the Jersey Shore/Asbury Park (and are both super good imho).

there are great breweries along the shore. i'm talking further out, mercer and hunterdon counties.

i don't want to insult them. both are good for the communities, great spots for people to gather outside.

there's a lot of breweries that are well-meaning and good for their communities whose beer i would never buy again. i don't think that's a bad thing per se. and i wouldn't hesitate to name them. they may not work for me but they seem to be working for a lot of other people.

I'm in South Dakota, so I bought some Remedy bc according to the internet it's the best in the state… not bad! About what you'd expect from a run of the mill big city product.

I see the appeal of a local beer garden that sell their own brew but a lot of these beers should not be distributed imo

Speaking of NE IPAs I had the VT IPA from Long Trail recently and thought it was a pretty good example of the style.

long trail always solid

i'm having an ipa called 'sexual jams' now, a collaboration between brix city brewing (from nearby in little ferry -- i live in fort lee, nj) and district 96, which i'd never heard of before. really good but the can is meant to look to a pixelated frame from a pornographic movie and it's kind of grossing me out.

yeah that's an eyeroll

i didn't want to get it. i asked the guy at my local beer shop what was the closest they had to threes' logical conclusion and he said this, which i don't think is that accurate. there is a lingering sweetness to this beer that is really different. it's not bad though.

I see the appeal of a local beer garden that sell their own brew but a lot of these beers should not be distributed imo

This is so otm.

Yeah, I live in the mid-burbs (65 blocks from the edge of what you’d call downtown life here). A brewpub recently opened up within walking distance of my place. I’m bending over backwards to support them; the beer is fine but nobody needs to make this place a destination, nor do they need to can and sell it. It’s just great to have a local that makes local beer for locals.

I think it would be pretty cool if the American beer scene ended up similar to the German/English model where every small city/large town has their own brewery (or two) that doesn't distribute and you drink it because it is good/decent and you can't get that exact beer/scene anywhere else.

My local beer store is now stocking 3 Floyds beers. I decided to try the Gumballhead, which is billed as a hoppy wheat beer, but tbh I couldn't detect much of the wheat aspect, except perhaps in the lighter body. Tasted basically like an IPA to me.

i haven't revisited gumballhead since 3 floyds distro started. maybe when it gets warmer. i remember it having an oddly high abv for a wheat beer.

Gumbahallhead reminds me of an aggressively hoppy wheat beer from Lagunitas called Little Sumpin' Sumpin'. Should mention I've never had super fresh Gumballhead tho.

yeah those beers are pretty similar from what i remember

i have very strong and positive "visting friends in chicago before anyone had kids" associations with gumball head and daisy cutter to the point that I don't know and kind of don't care if they're objectively "good" or not

They're objectively better than, like, Bud or Miller or Coors or any other generic lager, so I am happy to have them everywhere. Like, if Daisy Cutter is your baseline, you're doing pretty good as far as beer goes.

Being one of the friends joygoat visited in chicago, I have to say this is accurate. I remember Gumballhead being sort of low key at first and then it was everywhere. The same thing happened with Zombie Dust, though much more slowly.

i remember getting gumballhead at least once at logan liquors with you, and i also remember walking out of the AC there into hot as shit chicago july with two six packs and feeling like a dirtbag walking by all the dressed up folks outside the spanish language 7th day adventist church on logan blvd

i'm indifferent to zombie dust becuase it was so elusive that I'd never actually had one until maybe two years ago and it was okay enough. i do love that, gumballhead, and daisy cutter are kind of weird outliers for the styles of beer they ostensibly are

Back then 3Floyds and Half Acre were hot shit, now they're some of the more established big players in the market. My beersnobbist friends have all moved on (to some extent) to Off Color and Metropolitan for their beer-stanning activities. It doesn't hurt that one of them got a job at Metro.

Building off my last post, my dude at Metro is at it again. A portion of this beer's sales goes to the Greater Chicago Food Depository:

Tomorrow Tuesday at 2p, we’re tapping a playful take on Heliostat Zwickel Lager, a 3-part blend of:

Early-pull Heliostat repitched with Champagne yeast.

Heliostat blended with Muscat juice concentrate.

The everyday Heliostat we know and love. pic.twitter.com/gWyrnzfPwg

— Metro Brewing (@MetroBrewing) March 15, 2021

The finished beer features bursting aromas of dried apricot, ripe mango, and peach skin; an effervescent yet malty sweet body; and a bone-dry finish with just the slightest touch of residual tannins. The proletariat sips this one between bites of the rich.

— Metro Brewing (@MetroBrewing) March 15, 2021

ISO

Russian River has a similar beer called Intinction and it is one of the best beers they've made in years.

So the only way to have it is to be there tomorrow afternoon and drink on site?

I think you can get growlers/crowlers?

Beer in the old era:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-used-dominate-beer-industry-until-witch-accusations-started-pouring-180977171/#.YEjLeAK6P5J.facebook

No idea why Facebook is in that link, fuck Facebook. Here's a clean link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-used-dominate-beer-industry-until-witch-accusations-started-pouring-180977171/

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/los-angeles/crowns-and-hops-brewing-co-profile

minorities are way under represented in the beer community. This is a nice story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9DK5g8hrls

Seychelles?

If you play that at 2x speed the guitar riff turns into kind of a cool fuzz-punk sound for a while.

lol tbh

https://dragonsmilk.com/dragons-share-cherry/

eww

Clearly Melania's "Be Better" campaign fell on deaf ears.