Beer in the new era

possibly good, possibly an abomination?

https://twbrewing.com/beer/salted-nut-roll-ale

If you can't even say what it's called without laughing or barfing in your mouth, I don't think it's even worth trying.

I would definitely taste an ounce or two of it... but def a hard pass on a 4 pack of 16oz cans.

https://cdn.craftbeer.com/wp-content/uploads/NewBelgium_MuralAguaFrescaCerveza.png

i think this is the worst beer ive ever had, it was barely even beer, i did not buy it or choose it, i took one sip

it had little pieces of lemon meat in it

ew

had a can of mirror universe from state fair coop the other day. WOW. hazy ipa nectar. loved the hint of pine/dank going on behind the subdued tropical (pineapple and something else. maybe mango?) backbone. A+

i mean agua fresca yeah cool nice, but beer uhhh, and with hibiscus what why

Gross!

breweries are really eager to use hibiscus for some reason, idk is it always on sale?

I've noticed that some local-ish beers that up until a few years ago were relatively harder to come by, like Zombie Dust and KBS, now just sit in stacks at the store for weeks and months. It's great if you're a fan, but it must be frustrating to be a brewery that boosts production to keep up with demand, but then shoots way past demand and is left with a surplus. I still see stacks of bourbon county!

I was gonna say, hibiscus is quite popular here in Montreal, but I don't know why. I've had ones I've liked but they only make sense if you put them in a separate category from beer

when i went to hillstead farm i had a hibiscus beer that was really good it tasted more like an extremely dry cider than a beer and it was a beautiful color, i got it cause i was talking to a quebecer who was drinking it lol, he told me he was taking $300 of beer back w him

xp it's gonna get pretty choppy out there for bigger craft breweries

classic growth conundrum, safer to stay small, grow slow

Didn't we just have the hibiscus discussion like a month ago?

2 months, not like this thread is very active anymore:

Beer in the new era

haha whoops, that was 2018... lollin'

that brother soigne was prob the last time i had hibiscus anything!

had a can of mirror universe from state fair coop the other day. WOW. hazy ipa nectar. loved the hint of pine/dank going on behind the subdued tropical (pineapple and something else. maybe mango?) backbone. A+

― The immortal Hydra Viridisimma (outdoor_miner), Thursday, May 2, 2019 9:26 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink.

yeah, it's one of the best IPAs they've come up with, after their collab with Modern Times called Spirit Foul

speaking of fair state, one of their more popular offerings is a hibiscus sour

on the surplus product front: my favorite mpls booze store seems to always have leftovers that they put on mad sale—4 packs of Insight and Fair State that are usualy $8-9 marked 2-for-$6 and shit like that, I love it

and there are still bottles of CBS on the shelf there marked down to $22 from $24, I still won't pay that much

hibiscus in sour form sounds like something i'd try! xpost
and holy shit @ 2 for 6. in calif. a $4 can is not unreasonable

The Modern Times monthly special release* cans are $12/4pack which are my usual go-to (so long as they are IPAs notsomuch the other styles), but considering their uh... financing strategy, not sure how much longer that price point will exist.

*scroll down to bottom: http://www.moderntimesbeer.com/beer/release-calendar

Untappd Festival this past weekend seems very Fyre Festival-esque:

12,500 attendees in an outdoor football stadium during the middle of a severe thunder/hail storm.... good read.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article230039404.html

The event proved so popular in advance that organizers tweeted Friday night only 30 tickets remained. All tickets eventually sold, according to the event’s website. Organizers limited the crowd to 12,500.

this is a really strange way of saying "the event sold out"

lol my friends brought some salted nut roll ale to a party last night. I had a sip, it wasn’t awful but I don’t think I could drink much more.

Really into the Bauhaus hazy pale that I tried the other day.

dogfish head is merging with boston beer

#beerintheoldera

can't remember the last time I've had a beer from either brewery, an eternity for sure.

i'm sure i've had a sam summer within the past year. there are still plenty of places around here where sam is the best draft option.

but i haven't seriously considered drinking a DFH beer in years.

I've got to admit, as much as I like all the excellent beer tiny brewers are putting out there, it's super frustrating that their small scale self distro model means you've only got a tiny window of opportunity - from an hour to maybe 24 hours at the absolute max - to snag any of their excellent beers before they disappear. Hop Butcher is a favorite of mine, and they seem to release an excellent new NEIPA weekly. If you are not on the ball and flexible, you've really got no shot at most of them, which the brewery announces over social media. Today, I was able to grab a pack of Blazed Orange, a sweet NEIPA with orange and vanilla, for the first time. But no sooner do I get home when I get a social media alert from *another* small brewer that their delivery just arrived at the same store I was just at.

I think it's cool that these guys are all so active on social media, and generally seem to be making an effort to get as much beer as they can out to as many places as possible, helping people find it as needed. But it's become downright exhausting to even try to keep up.

That's exactly why I stopped any pretense of trying to keep up. Whatever happens to be on the shelves when I hit the store, I'm sure I'll find something already known to be a surefire winner or something that looks interesting to try. Am I missing out on potentially great beers? Of course, but it is so damned exhausting and unless you are someone with a ton of free time, quick access to a vehicle and plenty of patience to pore over social media, well, it's kind of a fool's errand anyway.

Which isn't to knock anyone itt, but it just go to be so stressful. The shelves are packed with great stuff! I'm not going to chase down a truck.

^ That's pretty much my operating principle lately, and I got lucky last weekend and found some Parabola right on the shelves at a Trader Joe's.

Yeah, you can often just stumble on some great stuff too!

Speaking of which, I was really surprised by how much KBS is still sitting in stacks and stacks at the local Binny's. They really cranked that up this year.

The shelves around Chicago are fortunately packed with all sorts of good stuff you can find on any given day, and I am extremely grateful for that. But many of my favorite beers as of late don't hang around very long and require some hustle, in addition to the aforementioned. It's kind of a shame, because I've shared them with friends, from big beer fans to just casual beer fans, and reaction is almost always super positive followed by the question: where can I get this? And I have to tell them, well, you can't. To the casual beer drinker friend that doesn't even compute.

xpost I want to say last year was the first year I saw KBS all over the place. And Hopslam. And BCBS. This year is I think the first time I've seen Zombie Dust just collecting zombie dust.

There's also no real standard to the hustle, even at Binny's. Some locations just put stuff on the shelf, some keep it in back and make you ask for it, some will take your name and hold it until you get there. For folks here, Moreno's in Little Village might be the coolest spot for craft beer releases. Maybe it's because they specialize in tequila and their neighborhood beer clientele favors pretty standard stuff, but their craft beer guys are super awesome and helpful.

we even get heady topper in philly now and you don't want to line up just get to the store within 24 hrs and some cans can be yours

ninjas vs unicorns always in stock - stuff i traded for multiple times bc i liked it so much. really the game changed for me when jai lai was suddenly always in stock now it's all gravy. hill farmstead on tap last week. pliny the elder + younger at my local beershop for their anniversary. i used to have to go monks if i wanted some russian river.

I do have to say that being able to pick up Jai Alai at Jewel when grocery shopping is a nice benefit.

Jai Alai is still being brewed somewhere else right? North Carolina?

Ninja Vs. Unicorn is such a good, strong go-to, but don't you dare look at the Pipeworks website and see all the unique and cool stuff that doesn't get distribution out of their brew house!

Speaking of which, I was able to get a couple of cans of their extremely hard to find Ninja vs Unicorn vs Haze, their version of an NEIPA. And they have a collaboration with Hop Butcher at some places tonight, though I assume I will never get to taste that.

ironically my response to the distro explosion has been to buy beer from fewer breweries than ever. i'm down to like 5 brands i buy regularly.

Every time I get a rhythm going with regulars a bunch of newbies crash the scene and my priorities or tastes shift. I'm just super glad anywhere I go I can get a great beer from Revolution, or Half Acre, or whatever.

my london beers are partizan and kernel. fuck the rest. howling hops sometimes. i got cloudwater a few times but i'm too broke these days. BERMONDSEY BIG UP YRSEL

I've been really diving into Sketchbook lately, they have so much good stuff.

I always see them but have never really tried! See also: Brickstone, Heretic, Une Annee/Hubbard's Cave, Off Color, etc ad infinitum.

I'm partial to Sketchbook because it's walking distance from my house, but even without that their Insufficient Clearance Hazy IPA would be one of my go-tos. A lot of folks like their Orange Door double dry hopped IPA, but I'm partial to the Night Game DIPA with honey.

But their seasonal brews are what I've been dialing in on, been enjoying the Turbulence imperial stout and Ripe Now farmstand porter in particular.

I've never had anything by Corridor, but they and their brew pub on Southport are supposed to be great.

Yeah if anything I'm seeing huge softening in the market and there are TONS of incredible beers sitting on shelves, things that were considered whales even a few years ago just gathering dust at local groceries. We just got Cycle & Fremont barrel aged adjunct stouts in regular distro, the market is insanely saturated.

I guess I'm saying I haven't felt less inspired to "chase" anything as I have in a very long time, yet still having access to amazing beers...