Beer
- Thread starter King Richard
- Start date
damnromulans
Klingons do not faint
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
.. i love me a good brown ale, will need to check that one out.
... just had this and a Hoptimum back to back. SN is the clear winner here imo.
edit: my bad about the big ass pics, but i use most of those pics for BA, so i cant go through the hassle of making a second one just for here.
... just had this and a Hoptimum back to back. SN is the clear winner here imo.
edit: my bad about the big ass pics, but i use most of those pics for BA, so i cant go through the hassle of making a second one just for here.
The Breckenridge 471 Small Batch DIPA is like a nicer version of 90-Minute. I don't think Hoptimum is similar enough to compare.
Considering their lackluster distribution in Florida, I'm excited that I scored all three of Avery Brewing's Holy Trinity of Ales, their standard IPA and The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest on my recent Tampa trip.
Considering their lackluster distribution in Florida, I'm excited that I scored all three of Avery Brewing's Holy Trinity of Ales, their standard IPA and The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest on my recent Tampa trip.
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
I like the pics, TB. 90 Minute, however, I don't really enjoy. Too malty for me. 120 is fucking amazing though.
I was lucky to pick up two bottles of 120-Minute recently. I drank one of them and I'm going to save the other until sometime next year to see how it ages.
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
I've only had it on tap but it was fugginamazing. Super rich and chewy but with a brutal, dank pine/grapefruit hop overhaul on top.
Attending ZWANZE DAY 2015 TOMORROW!! My buddy has a business connection with some of the people brewing at the (new) brewery side of the bar we're going to for it (Lord Hobo), so we'll have a table reserved for us. SO PUMPED. I'll update you guys on all the Cantillon you'll probably miss unless you find a location nearby that is hosting it! And if you DO find one... GO!
Attending ZWANZE DAY 2015 TOMORROW!! My buddy has a business connection with some of the people brewing at the (new) brewery side of the bar we're going to for it (Lord Hobo), so we'll have a table reserved for us. SO PUMPED. I'll update you guys on all the Cantillon you'll probably miss unless you find a location nearby that is hosting it! And if you DO find one... GO!
unknown
fuck ftagn
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
unknown
fuck ftagn
Then again, I'm not sure how I feel about this year's zwanze. I haven't had very many sour stouts and fewer that have blown me away. In the lambic world, for me, Cantillon is number 2 to Drie Fonteinen. Holy shit I would just bathe in Hommage
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
I actually really like sour stouts, and I trust Jean to make a good one regardless of if the style is any good or not. Then again, the zwanze itself is not as much of a draw as the insane taplists and general camaraderie.
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
Sooooo, Zwanze Day was epic as fuuuuck today. Prepare for a long post!
I attended with my homebrewing partner-in-crime and we got to skip the line as I mentioned up there ^ a bit. Got a table with the dude my buddy knows and another guy who ended up being really cool. Had pours of Cantillon's Iris 2015 and St. Lamvinus along with Hanssens' Oude Lambik (12 month old unblended lambic beer). Split a bottle of 3 Fonteinen Framboos with the other three dudes (fantastic and intensely-acidic raspberry sour... similar to Rosé de Gambrinus but with a deeper acidity and a little maltier... less well-balanced in a sense?). Got to try little samples of a bunch of other things people got, including Cantillon Kriek, last year's Iris, Rosé and 2010 Zwanze that ended up getting passed around. All very, very good... worthy of the admiration they receive.
Cantillon's 2015 Iris... low carbonation, very funky unblended lambic
The only one I didn't love was Lamvinus, honestly, but it's also a red grape lambic and there are very few examples to compare it to, of which I've had exactly zero... so can't really expound on that feeling, but it was weird and not as good as the Kriek the dude next to me got and shared with me. This all misses the point of the day, though, in a sense. After all, what's Zwanze Day without the 2015 Zwanze itself?
I'm happy to say I was very pleased with this "sour brussels stout"... it could have gone off the rails, but the man behind Cantillon has a seriously deft hand in regards to balancing beer, so it was rather conservative while still being fucking weird. The basis of the inspiration behind this iteration of zwanze was Belgian surrealism (I'd consider myself a decently-big fan of Magritte's body of work, so this was an instant plus!), so he, somewhat-pompously/amusingly, dubbed the 2015 zwanze "stout" as surrealist in nature. The beer itself was quite good. Very beautiful and righteous pour with an everlasting bone-white head of several fingers that literally never dissipated! On the technical side, it was built as a stout, but with some things changed. As that link says, 50% of it was aged in barrels that previously held his other lambics, while the other 50% was split 25/25 between Côtes du Rhône wine casks and Cognac casks. I don't know what that particular wine is like, and I know it can be a bunch of different things, but my new acquaintance remarked that they generally tend to be rather strong, heady wines with decent peppery spice characteristics and I guess I could pull those out a little bit... the sugary and boozy Cognac note was certainly more notable, however. It was only mildly "sour", especially compared to most of his straight and fruited lambics, but i liked where it was going. I felt it was somewhat restrained, but a nice blend overall, and I hope (potentially in vain, as many zwanze concepts essentially stop dead in their tracks right after the day they're released) threads of "stout-like" ideation go into some of his future beers, as that would be fucking weird and unorthodox and possibly great...anyway...
The extreme highlight of the entire 5-6 hour tour was when Dan Lanigan, owner of Lord Hobo (and of the two Alewife locations in NY and MD!) sat down with us and brought with him a hand-labeled bottle of beer. As he set it down, he had in his other hand a set of 5 Cantillon tumbler glasses, and my mind immediately went "holy shit, this is for us?!"... On the label, it said simply "lambic matured in oak cognac casks brewed 01 March 2005" and... my mind pretty much broke right then and there. Was the owner of this bar, a dude with a pretty good relationship to Jean van Roy himself SERIOUSLY going to open a TEN YEAR OLD UNBLENDED COGNAC CASK LAMBIC to split with us?! Yes, as it turns out, he was. And yes, it was one of the best beers I've ever had. I seriously doubt I'll ever have anything with this particular level of pure fucking awesomeness ever, ever again. Sure, I'll definitely have tons of world-class beer in my life but, damn. This, this was something else. A true, intense, insane, surreal (hah!) experience. One I will never be able to recreate. Dan himself was practically tearing up with every single sip, though he did relate to us that he still had one other bottle, probably the last in existence. Damn. Just... DAMN! It was insanely dry, sour, tart, funky and, yet, perfectly-balanced with hints of tropical fruit and cognac, a labyrinthine tannic complexity and amazing depth of flavor, probably owing to the extremely long aging period sur lie and en caveau (on living yeast and horizontally, respectively) in the LH cellar. Easily in the top ten of beers I've ever had, and I was super excited and enthralled by it. Having almost 6 ounces of this bad boy to myself and spending a good 25 minutes with it was a very special, unique experience.
It's worth mentioning how gracious Dan was as a host (despite his off-putting public persona and the things I've heard about him as a business owner, which have been almost-unilaterally "he's a bit of a dick") for this event. Granted, I'm sure it had a lot to do with being friends with a friend of one of his brewers, but if that's what it takes, whatever. Regardless of that, he made a rather humble, amusingly self-aggrandizing announcement about his first business trip to Belgium when he first got into the bar business, elucidating a fair bit about his ignorance to the fact that Cantillon itself and this day, by extension, would eventually become one of the most important things to him. On the more materialistic side of things, the bottle pricing was out of control and pretty apparent price-gouging (probably to encourage bottle sharing as well as to net $$ for the place) but the draft prices seemed fair for the event ($10 per pour of Cantillon, which usually were 6-8 oz and between $8-12 for other stuff which ranged, depending on style and rarity, from 10-16 oz). The tap list itself wasn't insanely good but did feature some super random shit I've never even heard of along with some stuff I've heard mention of but have never seen around. It was fairly good, kinda running the gamut of intense weird shit to rare finds, but overall I found the taplist at Armsby Abbey to be a bit better (more consistently good stuff, though also more I was aware of and already a fan of, to be fair). I heard that the place was a bit of a shitshow, though, so whatever. Very happy with the decision to stay a bit more local. Now I'm finishing up a bottle of Firestone Walker Helldorado while I ramble on a bit more about things that probably very few people will read!
Anyway, I'm formally wishing all those who read this a fantastic beer journey. Not trying to be cheesy, but if you like beer... get out there and enjoy it! Sante!
I attended with my homebrewing partner-in-crime and we got to skip the line as I mentioned up there ^ a bit. Got a table with the dude my buddy knows and another guy who ended up being really cool. Had pours of Cantillon's Iris 2015 and St. Lamvinus along with Hanssens' Oude Lambik (12 month old unblended lambic beer). Split a bottle of 3 Fonteinen Framboos with the other three dudes (fantastic and intensely-acidic raspberry sour... similar to Rosé de Gambrinus but with a deeper acidity and a little maltier... less well-balanced in a sense?). Got to try little samples of a bunch of other things people got, including Cantillon Kriek, last year's Iris, Rosé and 2010 Zwanze that ended up getting passed around. All very, very good... worthy of the admiration they receive.
Cantillon's 2015 Iris... low carbonation, very funky unblended lambic
The only one I didn't love was Lamvinus, honestly, but it's also a red grape lambic and there are very few examples to compare it to, of which I've had exactly zero... so can't really expound on that feeling, but it was weird and not as good as the Kriek the dude next to me got and shared with me. This all misses the point of the day, though, in a sense. After all, what's Zwanze Day without the 2015 Zwanze itself?
I'm happy to say I was very pleased with this "sour brussels stout"... it could have gone off the rails, but the man behind Cantillon has a seriously deft hand in regards to balancing beer, so it was rather conservative while still being fucking weird. The basis of the inspiration behind this iteration of zwanze was Belgian surrealism (I'd consider myself a decently-big fan of Magritte's body of work, so this was an instant plus!), so he, somewhat-pompously/amusingly, dubbed the 2015 zwanze "stout" as surrealist in nature. The beer itself was quite good. Very beautiful and righteous pour with an everlasting bone-white head of several fingers that literally never dissipated! On the technical side, it was built as a stout, but with some things changed. As that link says, 50% of it was aged in barrels that previously held his other lambics, while the other 50% was split 25/25 between Côtes du Rhône wine casks and Cognac casks. I don't know what that particular wine is like, and I know it can be a bunch of different things, but my new acquaintance remarked that they generally tend to be rather strong, heady wines with decent peppery spice characteristics and I guess I could pull those out a little bit... the sugary and boozy Cognac note was certainly more notable, however. It was only mildly "sour", especially compared to most of his straight and fruited lambics, but i liked where it was going. I felt it was somewhat restrained, but a nice blend overall, and I hope (potentially in vain, as many zwanze concepts essentially stop dead in their tracks right after the day they're released) threads of "stout-like" ideation go into some of his future beers, as that would be fucking weird and unorthodox and possibly great...anyway...
The extreme highlight of the entire 5-6 hour tour was when Dan Lanigan, owner of Lord Hobo (and of the two Alewife locations in NY and MD!) sat down with us and brought with him a hand-labeled bottle of beer. As he set it down, he had in his other hand a set of 5 Cantillon tumbler glasses, and my mind immediately went "holy shit, this is for us?!"... On the label, it said simply "lambic matured in oak cognac casks brewed 01 March 2005" and... my mind pretty much broke right then and there. Was the owner of this bar, a dude with a pretty good relationship to Jean van Roy himself SERIOUSLY going to open a TEN YEAR OLD UNBLENDED COGNAC CASK LAMBIC to split with us?! Yes, as it turns out, he was. And yes, it was one of the best beers I've ever had. I seriously doubt I'll ever have anything with this particular level of pure fucking awesomeness ever, ever again. Sure, I'll definitely have tons of world-class beer in my life but, damn. This, this was something else. A true, intense, insane, surreal (hah!) experience. One I will never be able to recreate. Dan himself was practically tearing up with every single sip, though he did relate to us that he still had one other bottle, probably the last in existence. Damn. Just... DAMN! It was insanely dry, sour, tart, funky and, yet, perfectly-balanced with hints of tropical fruit and cognac, a labyrinthine tannic complexity and amazing depth of flavor, probably owing to the extremely long aging period sur lie and en caveau (on living yeast and horizontally, respectively) in the LH cellar. Easily in the top ten of beers I've ever had, and I was super excited and enthralled by it. Having almost 6 ounces of this bad boy to myself and spending a good 25 minutes with it was a very special, unique experience.
It's worth mentioning how gracious Dan was as a host (despite his off-putting public persona and the things I've heard about him as a business owner, which have been almost-unilaterally "he's a bit of a dick") for this event. Granted, I'm sure it had a lot to do with being friends with a friend of one of his brewers, but if that's what it takes, whatever. Regardless of that, he made a rather humble, amusingly self-aggrandizing announcement about his first business trip to Belgium when he first got into the bar business, elucidating a fair bit about his ignorance to the fact that Cantillon itself and this day, by extension, would eventually become one of the most important things to him. On the more materialistic side of things, the bottle pricing was out of control and pretty apparent price-gouging (probably to encourage bottle sharing as well as to net $$ for the place) but the draft prices seemed fair for the event ($10 per pour of Cantillon, which usually were 6-8 oz and between $8-12 for other stuff which ranged, depending on style and rarity, from 10-16 oz). The tap list itself wasn't insanely good but did feature some super random shit I've never even heard of along with some stuff I've heard mention of but have never seen around. It was fairly good, kinda running the gamut of intense weird shit to rare finds, but overall I found the taplist at Armsby Abbey to be a bit better (more consistently good stuff, though also more I was aware of and already a fan of, to be fair). I heard that the place was a bit of a shitshow, though, so whatever. Very happy with the decision to stay a bit more local. Now I'm finishing up a bottle of Firestone Walker Helldorado while I ramble on a bit more about things that probably very few people will read!
Anyway, I'm formally wishing all those who read this a fantastic beer journey. Not trying to be cheesy, but if you like beer... get out there and enjoy it! Sante!
unknown
fuck ftagn
Yeah when I saw your post on facebook about the 10year old cognac lambic I just muttered "motherfucker" under my breath Cheers for the writeup, Andy. I'm very jealous 
Cheers for the writeup, Andy. I'm very jealous
unknown
fuck ftagn
So earlier I was saying how Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest was my favorite festbier...it has been unseated. Ayinger's Oktoberfest is fucking phenomenal. It's got the right amount of malt, barely a touch of hops, crushable. I love it. I was absolutely blown away by it. It was even better than Weihenstephaner's festbier.
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
Ayingers good. But Spaten is tops for me when it comes to festbiers, with Paulaner at the 2 spot. SN did a great job this year too but my pick for the best stateside fesbier would have to be this years Goose Island Ofest. About as close to Spaten as you can get with a stateside marzen
Great write up V5. I still need to get around to trying some proper lambics.
Great write up V5. I still need to get around to trying some proper lambics.
Eligos
Problem Yet to be Solved
Was the tasting a ticketed event? I haven't had too many lambics, but it sounds like that beer had all the moves.
Left Hand's Oktoberfest takes the cake for me.
Left Hand's Oktoberfest takes the cake for me.
dwellerINTHEdark
Curator of the mausoleum
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
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