Beer in the new era

Made a very satisfying beer run to the border yesterday and stocked up on New Glarus. Pile of Moon Man, pile of Spotted Cow, some of their Belgian Red cherry beer and their Nectar Ale, which they described as a cross between beer and wine but which to me more or less tasted like one of their (delicious) fruit beers/lambics/sours. But I am not sophisticated.

The New Glarus fruit beers are some of my favorites of any beers. The cherry and raspberry.

I've had a bottle of Surly Darkness in my fridge since right after my wife and I moved to the twin cities. Date stamp is 10/24/2016. Drinking it tonight because I officially finished grad school and it is very, very good.

congrats!!

well deserved.

I'm trying to figure out this new "nectar" trend, or at least what seems to be a trend. I picked up some New Glarus Nectar Ale the other day, and I'm picking up some Phase Three "nectar" on Saturday. Is it just a goofier name for a sour? Is it meant to mean "fruit beer?" It seems like both of those things.

the new glarus one sounds like an approximation of fruited lambic? the phase three ones sound like the fruited berliners that are getting really popular.

Yeah, both sound like odd little hybrids. I don't know enough about beer to distinguish their various lineages and characteristics, though. All I know is that my wife loved the Nectar Ale from New Glarus, which she said did not even taste like beer.

I just saw the referred to as "smoothie sours."

aka "beer for people who don't like beer"

also should mention that New Glarus has been spontaneously fermenting beer in a coolship for 6 years (and outside of a coolship for way longer, when were b1 VSP & VSB released?) so they already have a brand (R&D) focused on that concept.

Wow, the Phase Three Straweberry-Lemon "nectar" was nuts. Not really recognizable as beer. Thick, viscous and practically pulpy. This is how they pour:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/e35/s1080x1080/108162061_357859465615902_4184306544832833492_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent.cdninstagram.com&_nc_cat=106&_nc_ohc=UsUOtTt-xFYAX9W2_Io&oh=9ba9f32b8300ae0a7129be85d78d47c3&oe=5F3C4C3A

if you're not, please keep them very cold. those guys are bombs waiting to go off.

this alcoholic fruit puree shit is insane

Everything is hot here right now, but at least they're in the basement closet. I've never had a can of anything blow up.

But yeah, it's like a cross between a sour and juice, more the latter but definitely super tart (at least the strawberry-lemon one was). it's as if a craft brewer saw someone drinking White Claw or Mike's Hard Lemonade or something and said, er, hold my beer.

5.4% fwiw

i would really, really encourage you to refrigerate them

I wish, no room.

Yeah, I've kept them in my partially submerged basement and had a few blow.

You're talking these beers, specifically? Is it the fruit? And do you mean ... blow up, like pop their top? Or just foam out of control when you pop the tab?

they blow up. the fruit puree is unfermented sugar. in warm conditions the yeast will reactivate and the cans will explode.

i've had infected stouts made by idiot local brewers blow up in my unfinished basement. it isn't fun, i don't recommend it.

this is from three days ago--brewery in question is very highly regarded and still this is happening with these fruit puree beers: https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/craft-beer/exploding-beer-cans-trillium-450-north-fruit/

Huh. Sounds like (from what little I've just read) that this is really on the brewers, as really no one should be selling any cans at risk of popping. Regardless, while these are not the sort of beers I would want in my fridge at all times, I found room for most of the cans, which will encourage me to go through them faster. The remainder I nestled in a bag in case they explode. Most likely none of them will blow up, but at least I'm prepared. At the least sounds like they should be checked on occasionally. Though again, I've never had any beer explode, and there are some cans and bottles I've had in the basement for ... far too long.

you probably haven't had anything stored that contains fermentable sugar because up until recently brewers wouldn't release this stuff

Yeah, probably. Thanks for the heads up. I was reading some debate on the Beer Advocate Trillium thread, and people were defending them by saying the cans do say "keep cold, drink fresh," and people were responding that yeah, of course they say that, beer cans/brewers always say that, but it's never even implied " ... or the cans might explode." At least my wife likes these beers, so it won't all be on me. Unless they explode, of course.

Once the mainstream UK market became adjuncts instead of hops (I mean, why spend an eternity balancing a Vermont IPA when you can just chuck in lactose and fruit puree, right?), can swell and the risk of explosion be some a real issue.

Temperatures here rarely get above 30/85 degrees so the risk is lessened but I've still had cans that have been - allegedly - refrigerated through the whole supply chain that don't sit properly because the bottom of the can is bowed.

Apparently - and this is beer trade gossip only - one of the big supermarkets here had a mass explosion of a Brewdog delivery thanks to their thinner cans (to save money) on mass-market product. I'm skeptical but have seen it repeated.

I've been in a beer phase for the last couple of months, drinking a lot of IPAs, DIPAs, NEIPAs etc. in particular, usually bookended by some more sour stuff to start and darker beers to finish up on nights that I'm drinking. I've latched on to a few breweries...

Overtone (Glasgow) - especially for their seemingly endless selection of NEIPAs, DIPAs etc, though their Big Joe is also one of the best imperial stouts I've had.

Vault City (Edinburgh) - really great sour beers; balanced and complex with interesting flavours (had a Yuzu one last night and a Honeyberry last week) and way beyond all the disappointingly simplistic fruit juice-esque stuff one gets.

Pilot (Edinburgh) - everything I've had has been good, but I'm especially loving their North Sea Stout lately, which is made with liquorice and a bit of the North Sea in the recipe.

Full Circle (Newcastle) - had a few excellent hoppy beers from these folks, plus their recent imperial brown ale, Kodiak.

Verdant (Cornwall) - loads of really great hoppy beers. Where Does The Time Go? was a particular stand out for me.

Plus I still buy everything I can find from Basqueland (Basque Country, naturally), who I've been a big fan of for years. Their Coco Chango coconut porter is amazing.

I had a few Basqueland beers (IPAs) when we were in Bilbao a few years ago and thought they were very good.

I have bought from far too many breweries during lockdown.

Of your above:

Vault City are amazing but far too difficult to get hold of. Their new drop today sold out completely just off the pre-sale so they broke up some boxes for long enough for 5 minutes of general sale. SIPA V2 (the hop-only one) was incredible.

Pilot are great but their Twitter presence is better than their beer (by a nose). Taproom is on my list for next month (assuming they're open).

Been on the Verdant (and Deya) bus for several years now, nobody better when you want a neipa but (both) a bit single-minded and similarly single-hour sellouts for new brew drops during lockdown.

Basquland very good and cosign on CocoChango which is probably their best.

Never pulled the trigger on Overtone but intend to rectify that when in Glasgow next month.

Full Circle are new to me, will check them out.

I've been on a lager kick and Donzoko (Hartlepool), Braybrooke (East Mids) and Utopian (Devon) have knocked it out of the park (although Donzoko have the same stock issues I complain about above).

6°North from Laurencekirk make some amazing Belgian style beers, and the Flemish Black is simply incredible.

Meanwhile, in my little corner of the world... West Coast IPAs... are now a thing again? What a bizarre last decade.

I'm visiting my family in Michigan's UP and scored some of this at the store. It was a nice beer but also the long distance between here and Sonoma makes it a little strange for me, conceptually.

Dry Kriek is our second collaboration with our winemaking friends in Sonoma County, and our first to be bottled for limited distribution.

This multidimensional beer began as a rustic red sour, laid down to age in French oak barrels previously filled with some of California’s.... pic.twitter.com/P5fFsv9QRc

— Upper Hand Brewery (@UpperHandBeer) April 17, 2020

Also to Al Broccoli's point, Upper Hand's basic green can IPA is very west coast and I like it.

xpost I think Michigan's wine country is not bad, and perhaps prettier than Sonoma, which was also a strange surprise to me.

Sonoma County esp. Dry Creek (nice pun Bells) produces some of the best wine in the world imho so that's a concept that I can get behind, esp. in conjunction with UP neighbor Door County, WI that produces the very best tart cherries in the Western Hemisphere.

Oh yeah it was a very good flavor for sure, just as an expat yooper the inclusion of California wine with a local brew is… surprising? Nothing that I would have expected to see as recently as five or ten years ago. The cherries make sense, as do the UP oats they're using for their hazebro beer.

I'm not a fan of the fruited IPAs generally. Fruited berliner-style sours can be good if they say away from smoothy territory. I've loved some of the co-fermentation "beers" that care a combination of beer, wine, and cider. I had some stuff from Jester King outside Austin that were incredible, like a spontaneously-fermented sour refermented with merlot grape juice/must that was just lovely.

care=are

I was so impressed by the novelty of getting beer delivered that I ordered a bunch of cans from tired hands today

Jealous. I've been thinking about having some delivered to my parents in PA and picking them up on a socially distanced visit (but it's a three hour drive each way).

I've just been buying and picking up from breweries, as things that I want become available, but Binny's here has been OK and my favorite local beer shop and my favorite more far afield shop have been great about curbside. I find it encouraging that none of the millions of breweries here seem to have slowed a bit, but I really need to watch my wallet.

i think i might be a hazebro

I have no shame, I love NEIPAs. But one of the things I like best is that when you have something different after a steady diet of them, even a regular IPA, let alone something lighter like a lager or pilsner, it's so dramatic.

I drink a lot of Other Half, which is ground zero for hazebros. I love their stuff, but lately been preferring their single IPAs instead of the doubles and triples they pump out in droves.

i get almost all beer direct from tree house, but yesterday i went to the big liquor store to pick up a couple things and spent an inordinate amount of timing staring at the beer case....i wanted to try a new IPA, but they're all $16-20 for a 4-pack, most of them are from breweries i've never heard of, and BA and untappd are useless for figuring out if something is actually good. it's just not worth it.

i was thinking i'd love a good, fresh, west coast ipa but they're almost impossible to come by now outside a couple of obvious heavy hitters.

We have some WCIPA standards here, like Ninja Vs Unicorn or Anti Hero (are those west coast IPAs?). But for a lot of breweries it seems like a style that they only sometimes brew, whereas everyone has several NEIPAs, it seems.

I want to say 4-packs I've been seeing going for everywhere from $12 to $18 or so at the typical high end, barring something high concept or labor intensive. I still think even $20 for four 16oz beers is not bad, by the standards of bars or sporting events or concerts or whatever, but it is a lot to take a risk on. I have seen a few breweries that have started selling 2-packs of 16oz cans, or 4-packs of little stumpy cans. But the shelves are indeed spilling over with options. It's bad enough here, but I was up in Wisconsin the other week and the shelves were stocked with so many brands I was unfamiliar with I didn't know where to start, especially since, like you said, online reviews are almost always positive, even at their most critical.

the worst price offender imo is singlecut, who regularly have $22 4-packs that don't even offer a basic description of the beer.

When I see the $20/4-pack I try to compare the price with wine, $10 a bottle for wine isn't much, and is about the same amount as 2 12 oz beers. I spent $20 on 4 12 oz Oskar Blues BA version of their Ten Fiddy, and it was well worth it. Can't find it at the big box store now.

Seasonal, iirc?

Sure, but I was hoping to get a second crack at it.