The Beer Thread

fifey_sl said:

Rode my bicycle to a bar(just for you khane) and guess they have Pliny the elder on tap, it's good but I don't see what's so special about it,just a smooth ipa.

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Context. Remember you are drinking one of the world's first Double IPAs and one of the beers that basically inspired every other West Coast IPA out there.

Brewing Pliny is nothing special, I can do it in my backyard, but that beer was a game changer.

So I'm staying across the street from Russian River during the Pliny the Younger release weekend. Good call for my buddy to have his bachelor party up there.

Then explain why hipsters will wait in line on a Tuesday at 11am to buy two bottles of it? To pay homage to the pioneer of West coast IPAs?

Treehouse beers shit on Pliny. That being said its better than 99% of random shelf dipas

Zombie Dust is still my favorite APA/IPA. I've had one bottle of Pliny before. It was damn good, but not enough to for such a limited beer. I am able to get a 6-pack of Zombie Dust atleast 1-2 times a month whereas Pliny is pretty much a seasonal release and still difficult to get (not just limited due to where I live which makes it nearly impossible, but I have friends in Cali that cannot get it).

Szeth_sl said:

Treehouse beers shit on Pliny. That being said its better than 99% of random shelf dipas

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Oh come on. Julius is good but it ain't "shit on Pliny" good. You ever been to the west coast? Every single IPA by pretty much every single brewery is as good or better than Julius.

You wanna talk about hype? Julius is just as hyped around here.

fifey_sl said:

Then explain why hipsters will wait in line on a Tuesday at 11am to buy two bottles of it? To pay homage to the pioneer of West coast IPAs?

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Yeah can't explain hipsters man. I love Pliny and felt it was one of the few "world renowned" beers I've tried that stood up to it's reputation. But I would not wait in line to buy it, not when there are so many world class IPAs readily available and not when you can buy a case of PTE at the brewery with no wait whatsoever.

PTE is amazing both as a DIPA and when you think of the historical context in which that beer was born. It is also maybe like the 10th best beer that RR makes these days.

Khane_sl said:

Oh come on. Julius is good but it ain't "shit on Pliny" good. You ever been to the west coast? Every single IPA by pretty much every single brewery is as good or better than Julius.

You wanna talk about hype? Julius is just as hyped around here.

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I've been to SF and had Pliny. And Julius itself is a bit over hyped. It's their DIPAs like King Julius, Juice Machine, Very Green, and Sap that are amazing. Given they're much more limited.

Szeth_sl said:

I've been to SF and had Pliny. And Julius itself is a bit over hyped. It's their DIPAs like King Julius, Juice Machine, Very Green, and Sap that are amazing. Given they're much more limited.

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Don't get me wrong, they make really good beer. I was there 2 weekends ago last. I kind of wish the IPA fad in this country would fade into the background though. I love a good IPA but every other style seems to take a backseat and every brewery is all about trying to make and market their special IPA. Then whenever a new IPA that's good (not amazing) from some no-name brewery comes out it gets 98+ scores on all the sites, just cuz it's new and from a relatively unknown brewery. Seriously... Julius is sitting at a 100 on BA. Gimme a break. I'm glad Sours are starting to gain momentum at least. Though it's much harder to make a decent sour than a decent IPA so we get a lot of actually terrible beers in that genre whereas there aren't many truly terrible IPAs I feel.

That's how I've felt for about 3 years now, every bar here had 5 taps and one is pabst/Hamms or Olympia, thended three are for IPAs and the last one is for everything else. Think people are slowly starting to fade that out, been seeing a lot of farmhouse and saisons lately which is a ok in my book.

Khane - that's the thing about TH. Their IPAs are definitely world class, but it's their stouts that are most impressive. I don't know how long you're willing to wait in line for beer - but if you can get your hands on Good Morning when it comes out (Hopefully the weekend on 2/5/16) I suggest it.

Szeth_sl said:

Khane - that's the thing about TH. Their IPAs are definitely world class, but it's their stouts that are most impressive. I don't know how long you're willing to wait in line for beer - but if you can get your hands on Good Morning when it comes out (Hopefully the weekend on 2/5/16) I suggest it.

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I waited in line about 35 minutes and Good Morning was on tap (I think, that sounds familiar). They had 2 stouts one was a coffee stout the other was a milk stout. Picked up a growler of each

They haven't had GM since November, must have been Single Shot and Double Shot. (Edit - which are both great)

Khane_sl said:

I waited in line about 35 minutes and Good Morning was on tap (I think, that sounds familiar). They had 2 stouts one was a coffee stout the other was a milk stout. Picked up a growler of each

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This is the beer hipster I was referring too with the pliny the elder. Waiting 35 minutes in line for a beer is beyond pointless.

fifey_sl said:

This is the beer hipster I was referring too with the pliny the elder. Waiting 35 minutes in line for a beer is beyond pointless.

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Yea I'm not a big fan of doing it either. I did it one time long ago on purpose for the release of Portsmouth's Kate the Great, never again. But the reason we waited in line was because my friends had to ensure we got there before the doors opened, they hate to feel like they missed out on anything. I had never been there before. So basically it was 25 minutes of waiting for the doors to open. And 10 minutes of actually getting the cans/growlers of what we wanted.

Apparently though that is a really slow day for them. Some people were talking about having waited for up to 3 hours on certain days before so I guess it gets pretty hectic.

To add a little perspective though New England (and specifically CT and MA) have never had many breweries until about ~4 years ago. We saw this sudden crazy explosion of new breweries and for 2 states that never really had great beer offerings (CT had New England Brewing which makes mostly mediocre beer and has 2 good IPAs and MA had decent breweries that didn't really distribute like Clown Shoes and Pretty Things) Treehouse really is on a different level. That's why people go there and wait. It would be the same thing at OEC if they didn't only do Sours (And God bless them for that, most people hate sours but I love them and they make some pretty good ones)

Khane will you be going 2/20 to OEC? They're releasing two limited ones.

Sadly no. My family loves planning every single one of their vacations/get togethers/graduations in February. I won't even be in CT a single weekend for the entire month.