Beer in the new era

bevmo has dozens of bourbon county stouts

might pick one up

Had a Goose Island flight (w/BCS) last night, followed by an 8 oz pour. I think I like Founders Backwoods Bastard more.

my sis came to visit recently for 10 days and we managed to hit 16 breweries, San Diego and AZ. Favorite of the San Diego ones was prob AleSmith. Liked the feel of the place (warehouse-y is always better than "shhh we're actually a restaurant that brews beers, so ha good luck finding a table or spot at the bar if you just came to drink" places), the beers I tried ranged from good to all-time top 5...and it was taco tuesday so there was a taco truck parked by the outdoor patio serving some of the best tacos I've ever had.

AleSmith is good. I've never been to the brewery, though.

xp I will attempt to overpay for CBS today, but I fear that I'll run into the same problem of "this is great, but backwoods is cheaper and better."

if you're in Los Angeles, on the east side specifically, 365 has a ton of bottles of BCS, the Northwoods Stout, and the barleywine (10.99, 22.99, and 13.99 respectively.)

got two 750 ml of CBS at 25 a piece. one is a christmas present, at least :-/

Per 12 oz bottle, omar? I've been buying the backwoods for 14.99 for a 4-pack at WF, so I'll just stick with that.

All BCBS is in 16.9 oz bottles.

i had a sapporo black the other night, i enjoyed it very very much.

#polaris

http://www.citypages.com/restaurants/modist-releases-dilly-dilly-double-ipa-is-immediately-hit-with-hilarious-cease-and-desist-from-anheuser-busch/461346693

Wtf

That piece of marketing ingenuity just blew my friggin mind

Holy mother of god

Our 2018 availability calendar is a doozy so we're going to share the big changes with you over the next week. First up, Breakfast Stout and Backwoods Bastard will be year-round! More here: https://t.co/0o7G4yZmpl pic.twitter.com/ssJKG7XaiY

— Founders Brewing Co. (@foundersbrewing) December 4, 2017

Makes sense, almost feels like they are anyway, they sit on the shelves quite a bit now.

Drank too much good beer yesterday. All kinds of Half Acre Big Hugs variants, bunch of stuff from Side Project, several pours of Vanilla Abraxas. Nightcap of bourbon county.

mikkeler blueberry berliner weisse: A+

Hey mister new jersey, where are you getting your mikkeler? upstate NY or the city? They don't distribute to NJ anymore.

treezy my man

you went to mikkeller? glad you liked it

(I know your name here isn't "new jersey" btw, I was just referencing that in case you implied you got mikkeler somewhere here in NJ where I believe you also reside?)

Don't think I've mentioned before my appreciation for the Founders All-Day Session IPA - packs a lot of flavor into a light-bodied, refreshing beer.

I had this incredible beer last night. It was translucent but called a porter. Hint of vanilla. Googling rn but I can’t find it. #tearsinrain

Ok- never mind I guess!

Anyway, favorite beer right now is Head High from Kane brewery in NJ.

So someone bought $700 worth of canadian breakfast stouts at whole foods

That's like 4+ cases at Costco...
https://i.imgur.com/7h03mtQ.jpg

lol is cbs actually tradebait at this point in time?

Damn should have gone to costco

Probs tradebait

Cbs is sold out everywhere in los angeles

The whole foods fella gave me the bottle he was saving for himself

Found a bottle of CBS in Pasadena yesterday, at the WF. Wasn't even looking, was there for wine and wandered into the beer aisle as is my custom.

Oh I guess I should be on the lookout

lol beer menus has all the places by me charging $40! Fuck that, I'm good

I don't think CBS will ever be as good as the bottle I had back in 2011. Back then, it was one of the best beers I've ever had. When I had it on draft a few years ago, just didn't hit me in the same way. I'll pick up my one bottle of this batch next week to find out.

And after that, I'm done with big beer purchases for the year. November/December are rough on the wallet.

I don't think CBS will ever be as good as the bottle I had back in 2011. Back then, it was one of the best beers I've ever had. When I had it on draft a few years ago, just didn't hit me in the same way. I'll pick up my one bottle of this batch next week to find out.

― Jeff, Wednesday, December 6, 2017 3:20 AM (five hours ago)

I had the opportunity to try 2014 CBS a couple years ago and I was equally non-plussed. And while this new batch is better... the reality is the needle has moved: 6 years ago KBS and CBS were some of the most highest rated (and hyped) beers on the planet. These days, this solid, fine beers sit on shelves in big box stores for weeks if not months.

Similar story: when I stopped by a store on Black Friday to pick up Bourbon County Variants (Coffee, NorthWoods) this year, the purveyor still had 2016 regular BCBS available. I asked him if he put them out specifically for black friday, he replied that he simply hadn't sold through his allocations from last year.

What a time to be alive?

is it that beer nerdism peaked a couple years ago ?

I miss the days when there was less beer hype, or at least it wasn't in my face all the time, and I could drop in somewhere and be offered something new on tap and it'd be really great and unexpected. Then I'd find out a few months later that beer nerds were traveling across the state to hoard bottles or whatever.

My local bar had a couple Toppling Goliath kegs before they started mass producing, might have been the last time that really happened.

imo the nerdism is full bore now, it's just that everyone who likes beer is a casual beer nerd and there's just a lot of good beer

I'm also nostalgic for the days when there were only a couple brewery/restaurant places around, before every place had a "tap room" instead of having to be a restaurant too, and most of them were pretty mediocre to bad. I remember thinking Rock Bottom (lol) was the best beer/restaurant place, but that was a quick couple years

im willing to bet that the guy who bought the entire cbs stock was doing it to resell

diff types of beers ("craft beers") are just way more widely marketed now with so many to choose from that the market for it has increased dramatically

people see an increase in demand and some try to game it to get extra cash (see scalpers)

i rarely see places that sell proper craft beers anymore. theyre mostly big name breweries, unless its something super local and these tend to be really bad to decent for the most part

yeah i think you're right there are just so many good beers out there and the disparity between a good beer and a really great beer is maybe not as wide as it used to be.

in L.A. if i want to find something i haven't seen before i have to go to Southland Beer on Western or maybe (but less so these days) Sunset Beer.

but it's true that a lot of those local craft brewers aren't particularly great

i'm still a bit embarrassed that Golden Road is the brewer that seems to still be the Goose Island of L.A.

ya sunset beer is getting worse every time i go there

also monkish in torrance is always soooo packed/overhyped its not even worth it anymore

zymurgy seems to be trying to do something different by allowing you to brew your own beer

wonder how thatll go

Then I'd find out a few months later that beer nerds were traveling across the state to hoard bottles or whatever.

― mh, Wednesday, December 6, 2017 9:21 AM (eighteen minutes ago)

Yo I was in Decorah last January lol. I met people from Honolulu, Costa Rica, Seoul and Denmark at that release.

beer tourism

jfc gtfo

i once transported a twelve pack of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald across the country after an Xmas drive back to Chitown.

beer tourism is like the #1 thing the state of vermont has going on nowadays

No way I’d want to go back to the way it was. Even with its drawbacks, I prefer today’s world.

re: cbs/bcbs fatigue imo it's a bunch of factors; those beers are def more at parity with others now than they were 5 years ago. also around here ppl care more and more about what is new and local, like without all day idk what kind of shelf presence founders would have and i don't know anyone who considers goose's regular rotation to be even credible. i think i've somewhat lost my taste for barrel aged stouts and i've talked to other people who feel similarly.

the only beer tourism I appreciate is my friend from Dubuque crossing over the Wisconsin to bring me some New Glarus beer when I housesit over the holidays