The Beer Thread

If your typical _____ Mart sells beer.... it's 'gon be cheap.

Ameraves_sl said:

Yeah, I read a story that people lined up at the brewery at 11pm the night before. I really wanted to try Pliny the Younger, but fuck that noise. I am hoping the Alehouse in Livermore still has their 2nd keg for this weekend. Need to check on it and find out.

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I did something like this once at Portsmouth Brewery for Kate day (Kate the Great RIS). The beer was amazing aged but wasn't all that much more special than Old Rasputin fresh (I got 4 bottles, drank 1 right away, 1 after 1 year, 1 after 2 years and the last after 3). The 3rd year one was all kinds of awesome. However, I had to go to the brewery at 3am to get my ticket. Then had to stand in line for almost 5 hours to get the beer.

Here's the best (worst?) part though. I got something like the 5th to last ticket. As I was walking up to grab my bottles the table next to me broke and the last remaining bottles all shattered. There were only 4 bottles left after my lot so some people who waited all that time didn't even get the beer. Terrible.

Toronado is a pretty famous beer snob spot here and they tap a fresh keg everyday. Apparently it runs out in less than two hours. No absurd wait though. Showing up an hour before the keg tapping on a weekday is usually good enough, but that's still 10:30 on a weekday. I need to find a day to skip outta work because it's impossible on the weekend.

The horror on the faces of people in line close enough to see that table collapse. I can't imagine.

I just don't see the point of lining up to drink an RIS on draft. They are good fresh but aged is where they really shine. Not worth that kind of wait for it on draft.

I'll look for it. I like stouts in general, and I like Young's Double Chocolate Stout; I just didn't like the milk stout thing.

Young's is a milk stout Duppin. Left Hand makes a great milk stout as well.

Is it? Maybe it's just the Elysian one in particular that I didn't like.

Youngs is going to be different than most you'll find because it is back sweetened (after the beer is done fermenting) and also pasteurized which people claim really helps make the chocolate flavors pop. Add in some dutch chocolate and nitro and you have quite a different beer than you typical American style stout.

From what I can tell from most of the clone recipes I have found it is pretty loaded with lactose so my theory about that being the part of the beer you didn't like probably isn't correct.

Duppin_sl said:

Is it? Maybe it's just the Elysian one in particular that I didn't like.

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Some milk stouts taste very creamy and rich, like the Young's. And some have less lactose and taste more bitter, like a Keegan Ales Mother's Milk.

Had a great Beer day on sunday!!
All my favorite beer with the exception of Pliny and they were all less than 2 weeks old

Drinking this right now:

Alaskan Smoked Porter | Alaskan Brewing Co. | Juneau, AK | BeerAdvocate

Good but not great. Wasn't worth the $9 that it cost me.

Khane_sl said:

Young's is a milk stout Duppin. Left Hand makes a great milk stout as well.

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I don't have wide experience with milk stouts but Left Hand is my favorite of the few I've tried thus far.

Alex_sl said:

I can't imagine any beer found in Utah being the best beer in the world.

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Certainly not best in the world, but Monkshine is no slouch.

Can I find that beer easily in SLC? I'm going to be there next month for a ski trip.

Tried a Mosaic hopped pale ale last night. One of the better new beers I've tried in a long time. Made by a really, really small time brewer here. I don't know if it's likely I'll be able to get it any time soon. I think this brewer is two people running it out of their garage.

kudos_sl said:

I really don't get people who camp out for beer. It shows what a fucking fad beer has become and it needs to hurry up and die. I hate going to a brewery and having people who really couldn't give a shit if they just served Millers or Budweiser in there.

I used to not know what the old guys were talking about when they just bought 12 packs of Lagunitas IPA or Sierra Nevada. Now I totally do and it makes perfect sense. Those beers are the best bang for the buck and most hard to get seasonal shit isn't even as good. It's all so hyped now.

If I want a RIS I'll just buy Old Raspy because nothing else I find off the shelf will be as good 9 times out of 10. IPA? Well Jai Alai is easy as shit for me to find and Invasion is one of the best pale ales I know of. No point trying to find seasonal stuff or one offs anymore. Not worth the effort or time. Unless it's something seriously amazing or new I don't even bother anymore.

The only time I even try new stuff is when I show up to a bar and it's on draft.

/rant

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It's no different than people standing in line for hours to try some hyped-up burger joint or whatever.

kudos_sl said:

I really don't get people who camp out for beer. It shows what a fucking fad beer has become and it needs to hurry up and die. I hate going to a brewery and having people who really couldn't give a shit if they just served Millers or Budweiser in there.
...
The only time I even try new stuff is when I show up to a bar and it's on draft.
/rant

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I'm pretty much on the same page with you. Over the last couple years I jumped on the hype train and got on waiting lists and stuff for various limited release/seasonal beers that are hard to find. More often than not I didn't even like them as much as what I normally drink, and they cost 2-3x as much. Nothing worse than buying a big 750ml bottle of some small-batch release for like $20 and pouring half of it out because it sucks.

I'll try something new if I go to a bar or restaurant that has it on tap, because worse-case scenario I'm only out the cost of 1 glass of beer, I'm not stuck with 5 bottles out of a 6 pack that I hate, or a bigass 750ml bottle that I can't hardly choke down, but I feel obligated to because it cost so much.

The big hoopla right now in Kansas City is Boulevard Choclate Ale(I think I posted a pic a few pages back in this thread). It's done in collaboration with a local high-end(and very popular) chocolateer, so people in KC go nuts trying to get the stuff. People are selling 750ml bottles of it on Craigslist for $50 a pop(retail is like $10 a bottle). Bars that have it on tap are charging $10 for a 10oz glass. All for a beer that is just ok to good, but nowhere near great.

It's bad enough that a 6 pack of any microbrew bottles is going to cost you well over $1 a bottle anymore(many more like $1.50-$2 a bottle), even for the common stuff that is made year round. If I'm going to spend that much regularly I've decided that I'm going to make damn sure that it's something that I really like.