The Beer Thread - what are you drinking?

I drain poured that one.

I just tried the Goose Island Xmas last night. Not too shabby.

Tonight would be a good night for La Fin du Monde beer. Well, if the world hasn't ended by the time I finish fixing this pizza... Is there a "les humains sont des idiots" beer I can hand out tomorrow?

I'm going to take a picture tomorrow with all of the rare beer I own that I'm NOT drinking because the world isn't ending. ;D

I had Stone's Vertical Epic 12/12/12 tonight. It was very good; spicy and not too sweet. The Vertical Epics had their hits and misses (mostly hits), and this was a pretty fitting conclusion.

Supposedly, I'm going to be attending a tasting with 030303 - 121212. We'll see.

That's awesome!

You know what cracks me up? I'm seeing tons of shit on Facebook and forums and whatnot where people are making fun of the Mayan thing, but I don't know a single person who actually believes the world is ending today. Am I just sheltered?

I woke up from a nap 15 minutes ago, and decided, why not, I'll drink the La Fin Du Monde. This shit's pretty damn tasty.

My wife observed that her feed is filled with people making fun of the end of the world thing, but she has seen posts from people she's friends with saying, "Why is everyone in my feed freaking out?" So some people have some really stupid friends, but not us. ;)

Just got this as a Christmas gift from a coworker. Heard it's pretty good, but I won't get to drink it until sometime next week (driving the family down to Cali right after work).

I've got a few 05's and a couple of 04's. the 06 is the first year I've got a full case for. So here I go! Six year old Vertical Epic!

I love when O'Fallon Smoked Porter hits the "Pick 6 for $8" shelf. This stuff is goooood.

I've only had one O'Fallon beer, and it was their cherry chocolate. It was truly awful, and I really wanted to like it too.

I have a bottle of that in the fridge, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

Yeah, that's pretty much the only reason I bought it. I'm interested in what other people think of it, since I'm not a huge beer drinker to begin with.

IT IS WEIRD.

EDIT: For values of weird being awful. Heegurgagurk.

Southern Tier Krampus: really really good!

I am drinking my Corsendonk Christmas Ale in one of my new tulip goblet thingy like RyanMM uses. It's so nice. Is 7pm too early for bed?

My god. The combination of the excellent beer and the excellent glass makes for the best glass of beer I've ever had in my whole life. More Belgians please. (And apparently it only took me ten minutes to drink the whole thing. Whoops.)

Did I mention I love tulips because they're ridiculously easy to drink out of? lol

It's amazing. I've got a mediocre brown ale in it at the moment, and even it tastes better. Could be my imagination, but... yum.

Opened a bottle of Southern Tier Creme Brule Stout for the family for Christmas Eve dinner. They loved it. A bit sweet for me but very tasty all the same!

Tulip glass is the best glass. FACT.

My local place was out of Samuel Smith Organic Chocolate Stout. It made me sad, so I got a Westmalle Tripel.

One is much better than the other.

You can take my Trois Pistoles chalice from my cold, dead hands!

Oh god, Piraat. It's delicious stuff, but it reminds me of how I used to watch Steelers games down at a Belgian-themed bar near me, and Piraat turned out to be just the worst possible combination of delicious, drinkable, and over 10% ABV for something as long as a football game.

By the end of the third quarter we'd be ordering another round by walking up to the bar, putting a hand over one eye, and shouting 'ARRR!'.

Sometimes there was overtime. I don't remember overtime all that well.

Quat's mom got him a 24-pack of Sam Adams holiday beers. (Why she got him beers and not me is a weird question.) White Christmas, Holiday Porter, and Fezziwig Ale are in the fridge. I think I'll try one. The pack also contains Winter Lager, regular Boston Lager, and Chocolate Bock. I don't want the chocolate. I don't want chocolate beer ever again.

You want the Chocolate Bock. Did something bad happen with a previous chocolate beer? I thought you liked the Sam Smith Chocolate Ale?

So I spent a good deal of time putting together the selection of beers for my Secret Santee, and made up some notecards with descriptions of beer styles, brewer's descriptions of the beers, and useful info like ABV and where the beers were made. I figured after putting all that together, sharing it with the the beer thread would only be appropriate. I've tweaked the cards for web display (these were originally designed to be double-sided, hence the duplication of imagery) and I couldn't be buggered to completely reformat them for web display.

I mentioned how I came to pick these beers in the letter, which was hard to photograph because of the font size. The relevant passage:

That said, here's the vitals. If you're in Michigan, no reason you can't go to the store and buy a lot of these and have your own tastings.

That's so awesome that you took the time to do that.

I think my memory of the Sam Smith chocolate has sort of morphed in my head to being yucky. I'll try the bock, though, since you insist.

I just had a White Christmas, and it was very nice -- a light,mild ale that had a bit of a Belgian flair to it, according to my taste buds. I could be wrong about the Belgian part though.

Going to be in Michigan in three weeks, downloaded to my phone.

Whereabouts?

Hometown of Jackson for two days, then staying in a cabin near Battle Creek for the other two. Short trip.

Getting smoked meat at Arcadia in downtown Battle Creek wouldn't be a horrible idea, just sayin'.

I can't personally vouch for any of the stores in that area, but my sources tell me the following may be worth checking out:

Super Liquor - 1200 West Michigan Avenue, Jackson
Cork ’n Cap - 904 Lansing Avenue, Jackson
Mega Bev - 5570 Beckley Rd, Battle Creek

Let me know what your taste in beer falls to and I can make some specific recommendations on what you might actually find on shelves currently.

GO TO KALAMAZOO! Drink at the Bell's tasting room. You will leave a better person.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooot! I got a couple of bombers of RIPA on Rye. This was one of my favorite beers in Seattle, and for whatever reason He'Brew doesn't get distributed much in NJ. The best part: the liquor store had it marked as the normal RIPA, so I got them cheap too!

Holy shit, and it's nearly three years old, too. Store must have had a few gathering dust in a corner or something! This is the second time I"ve gotten aged beer from them (I got some 2010 Old Stock from them last February).

I should just sell you my Old Stock vertical. I can't stand the stuff.

In other news, I enjoyed two 9-10oz pours of Bell's Batch 9000...bourbon barrel version. Holy fuckballs. I am pretty blitzed right now.

Unfortunately I don't like Old Stock enough to really pay for it. I mean, it's OK and I kind of enjoy it for what it is; I got the 2010 four pack mostly because hey it was two years old!

Based on that experience and this one, I'm seriously tempted to pay one of their stock guys ten or twenty bucks to go pick through their storeroom. What the hell else might they have back there?

I'm still sad that you drank all that 1997 JW Lees. I'm guarding my 1999 bottle like a motherfucker.

Yeah I have this weird thing with beers like that. You kind of want to save them FOREVER but also what's the point if you don't drink them? I ended up busting the last one out with a few friends to celebrate; it was worth it. Also, based on my experience at the Pike Barleywine tasting a couple of years ago, once you get about ten years in you're not changing appreciably. Their oldest barleywine at that tasting was like 13 years, and while it was good it wasn't much different than the 10 year.