The Beer Thread - what are you drinking?

I've got some 1998 Thomas Hardy I guess I should try one of these days. I've never had one, fresh or aged.

Tonight I randomly picked up a bottle of PranQster from the grocery store, described as a Belgian style golden ale out of Fort Bragg, California. Wonderful bouquet of citrus and flowers and everything you associate with what a good golden beer should be.

I like it, but at 7.6% ABV I think the alcohol content is just too high for something competing with pilsners, flavorwise. Probably wouldn't buy it again, but certainly wouldn't turn down a glass if offered.

Black Butte Porter tonight. So good.

I MISS BLACK BUTTE SO MUCH. :(

I drank mostly rum over the holidays so I'm just now getting back into beer mode. Nothing unusual, though, just some Sam Adams basic Boston Lager at the moment.

LONG TIME LURKER FIRST TIME POSTER

Last night I stumbled across this little joint in Jersey City with a bunch of craft beers. Now I basically know nothing about beer, except I can remember which brands I have liked and have my "non-NASCAR" rule and so on. Reading RyanMM and others talking about bourbon barrel aged beers seriously piqued my interest, so when I saw one on the menu at this place I had to have a glass with dinner. It was Anderson Valley bourbon barrel stout (Wild Turkey bourbon barrels).

Holy damn. Now, I already know that I generally like stouts with a meal but this one blew me away. It had the bluntness of a stout but muted a bit, maybe slightly creamier or "sweeter" somehow. It was just as dark as a Murphy's Irish or other commercial brand but seemed slightly less chewy. Poured with a perfect head, tons of teeny tiny small bubbles instead of a bunch of fat bubbles in there filling your mouth with air. No bitter aftertaste, but a finish quite similar to the front flavor. Really, it was fucking awesome.

So I don't know how this beer is received among the intelligentsia of the craft beer community, but to this street urchin of fermented oats it was awesome.

Welcome to the fold.

Bourbon barrel stouts are the best. If you liked that, I recommend the Kentucky Breakfast Stout. It is amaaaaa-aaaaazing.

I'm so proud of you man.

Tonight we have dueling imperial stouts! Terrapin WNB (Wake 'n Bake; imperial coffee/oatmeal stout) and Founder's Imperial Stout. I just had my first sip of the Founders, and man is it amazing.

I really need to do a side-by-side of WNB and Breakfast Stout.

Tried a bottle of A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' ale last night - holy cow, I think this has jumped into one of my new favorites. Hot diggity, this is good.

I really enjoy a lot of what Lagunitas does. Glad they are doing wider distribution.

Last night was an epic beer tasting. The following beers got ticked:

AleSmith Brewing Company - Decadence (2011) (Maple Smoked Barleywine)
Alpine Beer Company (CA) - Duet
Alpine Beer Company (CA) - Keene Idea
Alpine Beer Company (CA) - Pure Hoppiness
Boulevard Brewing Co. - Bourbon Barrel Quad
Boulevard Brewing Co. - Rye-On-Rye
Brasserie Fantôme - Boo!
Brasserie St-Feuillien - St-Feuillien Triple
Brewery Ommegang - Adoration
Cigar City Brewing - Cucumber Saison
Cisco Brewers Inc. - Lady of the Woods
Devils Backbone Brewing Company - Eight Point IPA
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Bernheim Wheat, 2012)
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Elijah Craig 12, 2012)
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Evan Williams, 2012)
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Gourmet Haus Staudt Blend, 2012)
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Old Fitzgerald, 2012)
FiftyFifty Brewing Co. - Eclipse (Rebel Yell, 2012)
Firestone Walker Brewing Company - Parabola
Goose Island Beer Co. (AB-InBev) - Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout
Goose Island Beer Co. (AB-InBev) - Bramble Rye Bourbon County Stout
Goose Island Beer Co. (AB-InBev) - King Henry
Goose Island Beer Co. (AB-InBev) - Pere Jacques
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery - Bourbon GBS (Gingerbread Stout)
Harviestoun Brewery - Ola Dubh 30 Year Special Reserve
Hoppin' Frog Brewery - Barrel Aged Naked Evil BBW
Marble Brewery - Reserve Ale
Rogue Ales - Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale
Surly Brewing Company - Sÿx
The Bruery - Oude Tart
The Bruery - Rueuze
The Lost Abbey - Deliverance
Three Floyds Brewing Company - Dark Lord (2010)
Williamsburg AleWerks - Cafe Royale

All in all a pretty awesome evening.

Very nice. Which year of the Boulevard BBQ was it?

How drunk were you, RyanMM? Even at small tastes, that's a shitload of beer.

2009!

I was pretty OK. Most of the pours were about .5 to 1 ounce, so wost case, that's 34 ounces of beer at say an average of 10% ABV. Spaced over 6 hours, it's actually not too crazy.

I slowed down a lot towards 10:30 or so and was good to drive at 1am when I finally got back to my car.

I just recently learned that AB/InBev bought Goose Island, and GI's head brewer departed. I hope that doesn't screw up their quality!

I am drinking a Sam Adams Old Fezziwig Ale. It's okay, but I'm wanting a good stout or something instead. And we just now got to the halfway point in our 24-pack of Sam Adams, because neither of us have been drinking much. (This is only my sixth drink of any kind this year, actually.) Too bad the liquor store won't let me trade the rest of this case in for something better...

This went down before the 2012 batch of Bourbon County Stout was brewed, aged, and bottled. I think the fact that this year's batch was as good as ever is a testament to the guys working in the barrel program there, who didn't leave when Greg Hall departed after the buyout.

Yeah. I expect their existing beers will be OK (after all they've been brewing them forever).

Finally got my ass to the liquor store this afternoon. I only bought four beers, but they're four beers that aren't Sam Adams so YAAAAAAYYYYY.

First one of the evening: Unibroue La Fin du Monde. Had it before and still love it.
Second (current): Ommegang Three Philosophers. Never had it before. Quite good.

The Cool Beer Guy was working, so I said GIVE ME YOUR BELGIANS and helped me pick out a couple, which is how I got the Ommegang.

My Saturday night.

I miss Pliny. And one of my potential (intermittent, semi-unreliable) supplies just dried up; Russian River is pulling out of Washington. That leaves my friends in Oregon as my only supply!

Oddly, Pliny the Younger makes its way out as far as Philadelphia. Will have to get some later this year!

Currently having a bottle of Mother's Holy Molé - a nicely-spiced brown ale aged on cocoa nibs, cinnamon bark, and dried chili peppers. Quite unique.

I am drinking a Unibroue Trois Pistoles. SO GOOD. Like this even better than the La Fin du Monde, I think...

So the fine folks at Wegman's put a bunch of Corsendonk Christmas Ale in their "mix your own six-pack" rack. Let's do the math: the MYO six packs sell for $9.99, regardless of what beer you put in. The Corsendonk Christmas Ale sells for $16.99... for a four pack. So, uhm, score? You are limited to no more than two of the same type of beer in the MYO six packs, so I threw in two bottles of the Corsendonk. Like all of Corsendonk's offerings, it's really tasty.

Heh, I have periodically gamed the Wegman's mix your own six-pack. Sadly the store by me has, of late, cut down on the selection. It's like a bunch of macrobrews with a handful of larger macros (Sierra Nevada, etc).

Kane brewery - a local here in Ocean Township - did a batch of their Port Omna export stout on mole. It was fucking amazing; the only reason I didn't get a growler is that I couldn't imagine wanting to drink, like, a growler worth of the stuff. A 4oz tasting glass was great, a growler though? Man...

They also did a Port Omna Creamsicle, aged on orange peel and vanilla bean. Now that was great; sadly it was so popular they weren't offering growlers at all!

Got two four-packs at the store this afternoon -- one of Unibroue Trois Pistoles because holy fuck that stuff's good, and a mixed 4-pack of Sam Smith (half Oatmeal Stout, half Nut Brown Ale). Om nom nom.

Got around to trying PBR the other week, having heard that, hipster meme aside, it had maintained its market share all those pre-hipster years by being an above-average generic lager. It certainly wasn't a below average generic lager, and I guess that makes it better than Bud or whatever, but given that it's only sold as loose tallboys around here I think I've satisfied my curiosity.

I'm... not super crazy about the oenophile-style beer hobby even though I'm sure it's just as valid as wine-, cigar- or scotch-fancying. I did get a taste for niche-y but not microbrewed bitters when I was in the UK, and getting the same taste back home has mostly meant drinking local microbrews.

I got a couple of bottles of Goose Island's Big John. Haven't had a sip yet, but it smells pretty fantastic! They brew a pretty mean Imperial Stout, I'll give 'em that!

I had to crack open a good bottle of beer since I worked till 11:30pm tonite and had a lot of billable hours today.

I don't know why most people drink PBR. For me it has a certain cultural and sentimental value, since I spent my summers growing up in rural NW Wisconsin where it is omnipresent. FYI, every tavern (they don't have bars -- only taverns, whatever that means) has a 30 or 40 yr old PBR sign. They have other stuff, like your Leinenkugals or Grainbelts, but the majority of light-up beer signs are PBR.

Now that I'm out west, my cheap-ass go-to beer has defaulted to Olympia, which tastes just a little bit better than PBR for the same price or cheaper.

You will get likes from me when those "billables" become "billed".

I walked out with a check from this client. I still have to write the invoice, but I know what's going on the invoice so that'll be trivial. :)

I'm proud of you. and I mean that seriously.

New arrival in my pantry:



Tonight the tubing gets set up, and into it go a sixtel of Smuttynose Old Brown Dog and one of East End Blackstrap Stout.

Mmmm.

RyanMM - have you tried Bell's Smitten golden rye ale yet? I just saw it in the store today and it almost piqued my curiousity enough to get me back to drinking beer again.

WHY DID YOU STOP???

But no, haven't had it yet. I will have to hit the beer store tomorrow.

Is that a trick question? Because liquor is delicious!

I do need to get some Expedition Stout before the season's over, though.