KafkaX
Mr. Self Destruct
^ My buddy just got that the other week. Love Sierra Nevada's beer. My favorite from them is their Hoptimum Seasonal.
Beer
- Thread starter King Richard
- Start date
Dak
mentat
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
Hoptimum is the fuckin' shiznit!
I've been seeing that SN Hoppy Lager everywhere lately, might just give it a shot. Is that the same as the Ballast Point collaboration they had a while back?
Baroque
Active Member
I love Sierra Nevada IPAs. About half of those I haven't tried, looks like a good time. Another good one they didn't include in that pack is the Harvest Single Hop IPA. Torpedo Extra is one of the best though. I had like 4 of those and jumped in the mosh pit at Fueled by Fire/Exmortus a few months ago... good times.
Lately I've been switching more to red wine for health. Is there a wine topic? Still love a good IPA but I'll save it for concerts and such.
Lately I've been switching more to red wine for health. Is there a wine topic? Still love a good IPA but I'll save it for concerts and such.
MasterOLightning
Optimator
I find wine hard to discuss. I can tolerate $4-6 bottles of reds, and I can tell that $6-10 bottles are better, but not better enough for me to care. With beer the flavor differences are so extremely apparent when you cross over from macro to craft, and again from the middle of the pack to the elite beers. Maybe I'm not buying expensive enough wines. I haven't been willing to take the plunge to see if a $11-15 bottle of wine is as good an experience as a fine Belgian beer at that rate.
Had a couple nice beers tonight.
Schlafly arrived in Chicago recently from STL, and I liked their Dry-Hopped APA.
Local Latin-American-themed brewer 5 Rabbit made a barleywine called Ponche, modeled after sangria. The fruit and spice notes were potent and made for an 11% beer unlike any I've had before.
Penrose, an outpost of former Goose Island brewers, put out an imperial stout with Belgian yeast and chai tea spices. It was dry and not too sludgy for 9.5%. Chai spices work well in a dry stout without sweeter malty notes to undermine them. Felt more Belgian in spirit while not as yeast-dominated as some Belgian stouts can be.
Lastly, I had a DeKoninck, a Belgian pale reported to be leaving the American market. I can't say I'm surprised. It's a blonde/single with a dry/chalky yeast profile, and more hoppiness and less sweetness than something like Leffe Blonde. Maybe it's it for sessions and meals? I tend to find Belgian yeast to be too much to session almost any of their beers.
Had a couple nice beers tonight.
Schlafly arrived in Chicago recently from STL, and I liked their Dry-Hopped APA.
Local Latin-American-themed brewer 5 Rabbit made a barleywine called Ponche, modeled after sangria. The fruit and spice notes were potent and made for an 11% beer unlike any I've had before.
Penrose, an outpost of former Goose Island brewers, put out an imperial stout with Belgian yeast and chai tea spices. It was dry and not too sludgy for 9.5%. Chai spices work well in a dry stout without sweeter malty notes to undermine them. Felt more Belgian in spirit while not as yeast-dominated as some Belgian stouts can be.
Lastly, I had a DeKoninck, a Belgian pale reported to be leaving the American market. I can't say I'm surprised. It's a blonde/single with a dry/chalky yeast profile, and more hoppiness and less sweetness than something like Leffe Blonde. Maybe it's it for sessions and meals? I tend to find Belgian yeast to be too much to session almost any of their beers.
Krow
Garbage Connoisseur
Just grabbed a 4 of that Bigfoot myself last night. Never had that style and not what i expected at all. Good though.
You can get 12-packs of it here for a little under $7 after tax, which given the high ABV, ends up being close to 20 standard drinks. I also recently discovered Icehouse Edge, an 8.0% version of Icehouse that costs the same amount as regular Icehouse, around $3 for a 4-pack of pints. I'm not sure if it's sold in a larger quantity, but that shit is pretty much socially irresponsible to sell.
I really wish I wasn't such a hopeless drunk or smoker. I haven't been able to afford craft beer in a while. I've usually had about an entire case of Bourbon County and 4-5 variants of it by this time of the year, but I felt like I was treating myself when I got a single bottle of fucking Rochefort 10 a couple of weeks ago, even though I've had it a million times.
MasterOLightning
Optimator
Bigfoot is closer to being an IIPA than a barleywine. It's incredibly overhopped and bitter for the style.
dwellerINTHEdark
Curator of the mausoleum
Really liking New Belgium's Le Terroir. Finally a sour beer that doesn't only taste like a champagne version of Welch's grape juice. Good stuff.
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
It mellows down quite a bit if you give it a few months. I usually pick up a few packs every January and let them marinate in my fridge for a while.
unknown
fuck ftagn
I can see what he means, but I'm more a fan of English style barleywines anyway. Seems I didn't post my beer notes from my trip to the bay area, so here we go.
Bay Area
Cellarmaker brewery. Easily one of my top breweries in the bay area and a favorite overall. Everything we had by them was ridiculous. Triple IPA? Amazing. Bourbon barrel stout with coconut? Amazing. English bitters? Crushable. Saison? Funky and delicious. Would blow copious amounts of money there if I lived nearby
Russian River. Been there before, but it's beer mecca. Everything is delicious. They had a session IPA on, Dribble Belt, which was out-fucking-standing. The pizza is ridiculous good too
The Rare Barrel. East bay sour brewery. Good stuff. I was more interested in their guest list which featured Perennial's Abraxas. Tasted like a cinnamon raisin bagel. I dug it. Also had some Sante Adairius. Their Silver Lies was goddamn amazing.
Ale Arsenal. This is the beer bar I would open. Heavy metal playing. 20-ish taps of fantastic craft beer. When Breaking Bad or Walking Dead is on, they're playing it. Great bottle list with really good prices (usually beer bars mark up their bottles to hell, but not this place). I would also be broke if I lived near one.
Seattle
Brouwer's Cafe. Easily one of the highlights of the trip and an absolute must-do. Fucking amazing food and huge beer list. I had their belgian stew, which is belgian stew served on fries. Unbelievable. Beer list was heavily PNW focused, understandable. Would go there again and again
Bottleworks. Disappointing.
Chuck's Hop Shop. Outstanding bottle shop. HUGE selection of good beer. Hardly any shit. Great tap list of about 28 beers. Chill atmosphere. They allow dogs, which was good because we had our buddy and his dog with us. Loved it.
There were a couple of other really good bottleshops in Seattle, especially at Pike Place market. That was what I noticed...Seattle doesn't have many breweries, but it has a lot of really good beer bars and bottleshops. Works for me
tl;dr drank a stupid amount of beer
Bay Area
Cellarmaker brewery. Easily one of my top breweries in the bay area and a favorite overall. Everything we had by them was ridiculous. Triple IPA? Amazing. Bourbon barrel stout with coconut? Amazing. English bitters? Crushable. Saison? Funky and delicious. Would blow copious amounts of money there if I lived nearby
Russian River. Been there before, but it's beer mecca. Everything is delicious. They had a session IPA on, Dribble Belt, which was out-fucking-standing. The pizza is ridiculous good too
The Rare Barrel. East bay sour brewery. Good stuff. I was more interested in their guest list which featured Perennial's Abraxas. Tasted like a cinnamon raisin bagel. I dug it. Also had some Sante Adairius. Their Silver Lies was goddamn amazing.
Ale Arsenal. This is the beer bar I would open. Heavy metal playing. 20-ish taps of fantastic craft beer. When Breaking Bad or Walking Dead is on, they're playing it. Great bottle list with really good prices (usually beer bars mark up their bottles to hell, but not this place). I would also be broke if I lived near one.
Seattle
Brouwer's Cafe. Easily one of the highlights of the trip and an absolute must-do. Fucking amazing food and huge beer list. I had their belgian stew, which is belgian stew served on fries. Unbelievable. Beer list was heavily PNW focused, understandable. Would go there again and again
Bottleworks. Disappointing.
Chuck's Hop Shop. Outstanding bottle shop. HUGE selection of good beer. Hardly any shit. Great tap list of about 28 beers. Chill atmosphere. They allow dogs, which was good because we had our buddy and his dog with us. Loved it.
There were a couple of other really good bottleshops in Seattle, especially at Pike Place market. That was what I noticed...Seattle doesn't have many breweries, but it has a lot of really good beer bars and bottleshops. Works for me
tl;dr drank a stupid amount of beer
Baroque
Active Member
Dak
mentat
Got a "Battalion" sampler 12 pack from Natty Greene's brewery. So far tried the "Southern Dry Hopped Pale Ale". Definitely a distinct flavor.
dwellerINTHEdark
Curator of the mausoleum
Unknown, you know how to conquer the beer world. Keep that shit up!
Went to New Smyrna Brewing Company last night and had their barleywine. I don't have too much experience with those, but it was very good though it tasted nothing like Old Guardian.
Later I had a Left Hand Sawtooth Nitro ESB. It sucked. Remedied with a Chimay Red on draft.
Went to New Smyrna Brewing Company last night and had their barleywine. I don't have too much experience with those, but it was very good though it tasted nothing like Old Guardian.
Later I had a Left Hand Sawtooth Nitro ESB. It sucked. Remedied with a Chimay Red on draft.
dwellerINTHEdark
Curator of the mausoleum
Had my first Magic Hat #9 tonight. Not bad. Definitely picking up on that apricot flavor. Was expecting much worse.
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
So i stopped by Whole Foods today and it looks like they're having some sort of beer sale till sunday. Picked up variety packs from Victory and Ballast Point for $16 each.
Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
Got a sixer of Revolution Anti-Hero IPA. Fuck, this is a great IPA. Chicago has an almost over abundance of tiny craft breweries these days so it's hard to actually find something that is actually "good" but Revolution never seems to fail.
Krow
Garbage Connoisseur
Dak
mentat
Got one of these. So good. (Slightly different selection in the one I bought. Had "Selfrighteous" Black IPA rather than the Levitation.
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
They're actually discontinuing both SSR and Levitation soon, which is lame but I understand you can't always brew everything and those do worse than many of their other year-rounds... gotta take some hits. Luckily I heard they're doing "Enjoy By Black IPA" probably rotating with regular Enjoy By IPA soon, likely in bomber/22 oz format so that's good. I trust them enough to grab it. The Green Tea DIPA recently was amazing in my opinion. Super balanced*, refreshing and tasty. You have to like sencha though.
Went to Waterbury area Vermont from Friday night to Sunday night with my girlfriend and picked up this epic haul (disclaimer: she probably technically "owns" more than half of the pictured beers/containers... it pays to have a girlfriend who loves beer too!)
For posterity, that's (top left to bottom right):
Foley Brothers "Citrennial" (22 oz)
Rock Art "Holidays In Vermont" (22 oz)
Anchorage "The Tides And Its Takers" (750 mL)
Rock Art/Hunger Mtn. Co-op "Black Moon" (22 oz)
Rock Art "Wine Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout (22 oz)
Hill Farmstead "Edward" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Society and Solitude #5" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Earl" (2 L)
Hill Farmstead "Galaxy Single-Hop Pale Ale" (64 oz)
Hill Farmstead "Excursions #1" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Harlan" (750 mL)
Lost Nation "Gose" (750 mL)
Sierra Nevada "Barrel-Aged Narwhal) (750 mL)
Evil Twin "Aún Más Café Jesús" (12 oz)
Grassroots "Brother Soigné" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Dorothy" (750 mL)
Finch's "Sobek & Set" (16 oz)
Mystic "Hazy Jane" (32 oz)
Anchorage/Jolly Pumpkin "Calabaza Boreal" (750 mL)
Brewfist "Spaghetti Western" (12 oz)
Fiddlehead "Second Fiddle" (64 oz)
Off Color "Dinos'mores" (12 oz)
Queen City "Rauchbier" (32 oz)
The Alchemist "Heady Topper" (4x16 oz)
Rock Art "Bourbon Barrel Aged RIS w/ cinnamon & maple" (32 oz)
Finch's "Hardcore Chimera" (4x16 oz) (drinking now; not bad at all!)
Mikkeller "Spontanbeetroot" (12.7 oz)
Mikkeller "Spontanseabuckthorn" (12.7 oz)
Mikkeller "Spontanredcurrant" (12.7 oz)
Hanssens "Oude Kriek" (12.7 oz)
another Dinos'mores, cuz why not
Nøgne Ø/Mikkeller/BrewDog "Horizon Tokyo Black" (.25 L)
Omnipollo "Fatamorgana" (12 oz)
Omnipollo "Zodiak" (12 oz)
Evil Twin/Amager "From Amager With Love" (22 oz)
Citizen Cider "AmeriCran" (750 mL)
Crooked Stave "St. Bretta" (375 mL) x2
Crooked Stave "Surette" (375 mL) x2
aaaaaand not buying beer for a while. cheerz!
Went to Waterbury area Vermont from Friday night to Sunday night with my girlfriend and picked up this epic haul (disclaimer: she probably technically "owns" more than half of the pictured beers/containers... it pays to have a girlfriend who loves beer too!)
For posterity, that's (top left to bottom right):
Foley Brothers "Citrennial" (22 oz)
Rock Art "Holidays In Vermont" (22 oz)
Anchorage "The Tides And Its Takers" (750 mL)
Rock Art/Hunger Mtn. Co-op "Black Moon" (22 oz)
Rock Art "Wine Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout (22 oz)
Hill Farmstead "Edward" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Society and Solitude #5" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Earl" (2 L)
Hill Farmstead "Galaxy Single-Hop Pale Ale" (64 oz)
Hill Farmstead "Excursions #1" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Harlan" (750 mL)
Lost Nation "Gose" (750 mL)
Sierra Nevada "Barrel-Aged Narwhal) (750 mL)
Evil Twin "Aún Más Café Jesús" (12 oz)
Grassroots "Brother Soigné" (750 mL)
Hill Farmstead "Dorothy" (750 mL)
Finch's "Sobek & Set" (16 oz)
Mystic "Hazy Jane" (32 oz)
Anchorage/Jolly Pumpkin "Calabaza Boreal" (750 mL)
Brewfist "Spaghetti Western" (12 oz)
Fiddlehead "Second Fiddle" (64 oz)
Off Color "Dinos'mores" (12 oz)
Queen City "Rauchbier" (32 oz)
The Alchemist "Heady Topper" (4x16 oz)
Rock Art "Bourbon Barrel Aged RIS w/ cinnamon & maple" (32 oz)
Finch's "Hardcore Chimera" (4x16 oz) (drinking now; not bad at all!)
Mikkeller "Spontanbeetroot" (12.7 oz)
Mikkeller "Spontanseabuckthorn" (12.7 oz)
Mikkeller "Spontanredcurrant" (12.7 oz)
Hanssens "Oude Kriek" (12.7 oz)
another Dinos'mores, cuz why not
Nøgne Ø/Mikkeller/BrewDog "Horizon Tokyo Black" (.25 L)
Omnipollo "Fatamorgana" (12 oz)
Omnipollo "Zodiak" (12 oz)
Evil Twin/Amager "From Amager With Love" (22 oz)
Citizen Cider "AmeriCran" (750 mL)
Crooked Stave "St. Bretta" (375 mL) x2
Crooked Stave "Surette" (375 mL) x2
aaaaaand not buying beer for a while. cheerz!
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