Matilda Bay have been one of the worst macro-posing-as-microbreweries out there for a long time but maaan their Alpha Pale Ale really takes the cake. By fay the worst pale ale I've had in my life. Weird sherbet hit that attacks your nose upon a sip. All in all it tastes like your drinking mouldly lemon juice with bit of sherbet and maybe a pinecone floating around. Gross! Was super cheap and on sale (for good reason) but totally not worth it. Glad I only bought one as a curio.

Old Dominion are stepping up their game lately. I tried the Morning Glory imperial espresso stout and was pretty pleased with it, especially since it was only $7 or so for a 6-pack of 9% stout. The Double D imperial IPA at 10% and the same price point also looks promising.

I also tried Fordham's Ram's Head IPA which was decent. Very bitter. Sort of reminded me of a less potent Weyerbacher Double Simcoe in that it was quite bitter but didn't really have the depth of flavor I look for in really hoppy IPA's. Anyway, it was better than other beers in Fordham's usually lackluster lineup.

I've been wanting to try Stone's "Dayman" and Ommegang's "Iron Throne" for a while now, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to find either one here in the Sacramento area.

Dayman, as in, fighter of the Nightman? Champion of the sun? Master of karate and friendship for everyone?

Currently finishing my last Little Creatures pale ale, but I have some more tasty Vale Ale IPA in the fridge. I am fast becoming a HUGE fan of this stuff.

Vale IPA, not Vale Ale IPA.

Stone and Wood Pacific Ale for me tonight, hooked on it after I grabbed some after a long absence. Shame it's not summer.

Yeah that one too

Big luuurve for the Stone & Wood. Fantastic drop.

Hail Satan, Lucifer and... Baal?

Nice one!

I just drank this Rochefort 8:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochefort_Brewery



REALLY nice one! It reminds me of my loved Affligem Dubbel!

I tried Satan a few years ago. As far as I can remember it's pretty bad.

Yes, Satans - both Gold and Red - are pretty bad. Not worth drinking. So is Baalzebuth.



Just wait 'til you try 10.

"Hell" from Sweden is decent, though.

Really?!? Nice, thanks!

Hehe I actually never tried it, but I tried Lucifer once... Don't really remember much about it besides the waitress not knowing what the hell I was talking about.

Yeah, beers named after the dark lord seem to be pretty hit or miss. Avery makes a pretty cool one called Mephistopheles. It packs a whollop at about 16% ABV, but I'd only recommend drinking one; it's got a bit of a molasses thing going on.

I can't stand IPA and cheap American adjunct lager. Dark, roasted, malty beers are my man, along with nice and classy Euro lagers. Brown ales, stouts, porters, wee heavy. Hefeweizen is good for hot weather.

Just bought a six-pack of this here in New York now that the hot weather has arrived:




Didn't even know Woodchuck existed until a couple weeks ago when a friend of mine showed up with a sixer of the Crisp line. Overall, this Vermont cidery gets my vote as a very solid purveyor of cidery products! Wonderfully refreshing and doesn't go too heavily on the apple sweetness, just a really good balance of flavor and saturation. This Summer brew has an undertone/aftertaste of blueberry that's subtle but really damn nice, and at 5% it delivers a nice mellow as well. Will definitely be checking out some of their other flavors and limited releases.

I actually don't like the Summer 'Chuck very much. I do quite like blueberries but I thought that it was sort of distracting in that cider. The 802 is very good, as are some of the brewer's reserve ones (I had the one brewed with Belgian ale yeast).

I don't do cider very often, and the ciders I drink aren't particularly normal.


These are the two I buy most often:

http://www.foxbarrel.com/products/black ... ear-cider/
http://www.foxbarrel.com/products/black ... ear-cider/

You can see why I say they aren't normal.

So I got laid off, which is a bummer, but I got some good-ass beer out of the deal! I went to a really good gastropub for lunch today and had

Oskar Blues - OSKAr The G'Rauch - This is like a rauchbier take on an American IPA. I'm not normally a huge fan of smoked beers, but this one was incredibly tasty. Lots of biscuity malt to balance out the bitter, which left a lot of the citrus and floral elements of the hop profile. The smoke came more through the nose than the palate, but was quite subtle in both cases and really complemented the brightness of the hops. Really tasty brew. Too bad it's not so easy to get hold of.

Pratt Street Ale House - Oliver 20 - Hmm, having trouble finding anything about this one on the internets. Anyway, it was a 9.5% bastard somewhere between an English Dark Mild and an Old Ale. Also had some stout-ish characteristics (roastier malt than you usually get in either of those styles) and a really rich breadiness often found in more potent wee heavies. I'm generally a pretty big fan of these vaguely unclassifiable strong ales, especially when they throw such wonderful malt at you. Brilliant stuff.

On top of that, my boss got me a mixed 12 pack of beer as a parting gift. Here's what it included:

Gouden Carolous Ambrio (red bottle, Belgian Strong Dark)
Gouden Carolous Classic (black bottle, Belgian Strong Dark)
Gouden Carolous Hopsinjooer (green bottle, Belgian IPA)
Otter Creek Russian Imperial Stout
Bell's Third Coast Old Ale
Atlantic Brewing Coal Porter
Mission Brewery Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout
Mission Brewery Shipwrecked Double IPA
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil (one of my favorites!)
Breckenridge Small Batch 471 Double IPA
Green Flash Brewing Palate Wrecker Double IPA
Tournay Black (Belgian Stout)

Almost worth being unemployed! Out of all of those, I've only had the Old Engine Oil and the Third Coast Old Ale, but the rest all sound really tasty.

Gouden Carolus does some good stuff, though I haven't had any of those three. You should definitely give their Blue Ribbon beer (Cuvee Van de Kaizer Blauw) a shot some time, provided it is at least over a year old. Shouldn't be hard to find an older bottle, the thing doesn't sell nearly as well as it deserves too.

I concur with the Pilsner Urquell peeps. That stuff is ambrosia.

One of my first times trying beer other than regular lagers was Blue Moon. Used to be a beer of choice to but never got back to getting around to it.

For IPA, I like Sierra Nevada's version.

As pointed out, Het Anker (the brewery that does the Gouden Carolus line) does quality stuff, most of the time. Hopsinjoer I wasn't too keen on, the hoppiness too much leaning on the flowery plastic and soap that English/Belgian hopping tends to sometimes do when the beer ages. But Classic and Ambrio are great. As also pointed out, the Kaizers (both Blue and Red) are exceptional beers as well, especially the former if aged. Though considering they only come in 750ml bottles and are in the two figure range in ABV, they've been designed to share. Green Flash's Palate Wrecker is a superb DIPA as well. Not sure if the best I've had, but in the top five definitely.

They started bottling the two Cuvee....'s in 330ml (11.2oz) bottles in 2011. The four-packs are around $18. But yes, the larger bottles are way, way more common. I've only seen the four-packs in two stores ever, and those were only for the Blue (but I'm pretty sure they started doing it for the Red too).


I've had bottles of the Blue up to four years....may have been almost five years, come to think of it. Really does well, though the best I've had were around the three-year mark.

Almost three weeks with no alcohol! Good health is the best motivator.

I can't too!
I tried this last saturday night:
http://www.brewdog.com/product/punk-ipa



Shit. I prefer european beers (trappist ones, specially).

How anyone can enjoy even higher quality lagers against IPAs is beyond me. Just such a boring kind of beer. So are brown ales, although I'm partial to the Samuel Smith one. And that brewdog! Man. Now I like trappist along with probably everyone else, but if you can't like Brewdog's Punk... I dunno. It's just a ridiculously nice IPA basically.

Uhm... I was TRYING to say that I can't stand IPA beers too.
They seem like artificial to me while the trappist ones seem like really natural.
Edit: I can't understand your first phrase.

Yes, it was a bit confusingly reworded. So I will restate:

IPA's are about x10000 than Lagers. This was in response to a post that doesn't seem to exist anymore. Strange!

My second sentence was simply me expressing disbelief that anyone could dislike Brewdog's Punk. I know what you were trying to say

Interesting that you think they taste artificial.. Must be a cultural thing. For me, IPAs are kind of the way I expect beer to taste.. The bitterness is super key.

I was talking about this last night at our local metal pub with someone drinking this same beer I was talking about and he told me EXACTLY what you say now.
I have bitterness in Trappist beers BUT they taste natural and not artifical like IPAs.
Don't know, I'll see if I get used or not.

It's possible you just don't like bitterness. Which, when you think about it, is pretty natural anyway. That being said, if you ever happen upon a fresh bottle of Lagunitas SUCKS! or Three Floyds Zombie Dust, do not turn them down. They aren't really too many hoppy beers like them, but I suspect that will change in a few years as these newer experimental varieties of hops start being planted more. They are just starting to come out now, the crop acreage is still pretty low.

I drank the Breckenridge Small Batch 471 DIPA I had. It was a bit disappointing. The nose was fantastic - big citrus and floral notes - so I was hoping for a DFH 90 min or Pliny the Elder type of experience. The tongue was missing a lot of the malt you really need for a beer like that to be well-rounded, and a lot of those hops notes that were evident in the nose were sort of missing in the up-front hops profile. There was an unusual sort of hops bitterness that lingered in the back of the throat. I might try this again, maybe a bit colder (drank this one around cellar temperature or just below), but my first impression is that it's something I'd drink if it were inexpensive on draught somewhere.

Looking forward to GLBC's Silver & Gold IPL which should be on shelf and tap by the end of the month. I'd be more than glad to give my .02 of it for those interested when it's available. Until then, I've been polishing off the last of my leftover winter seasonals, specifically Great Divide's Hibernation Ale. Between that and some stray rye IPA's I have floating around, it's been a flavorful night. Calories and scales be damned - I've earned this.

Hoegaarden case for $45. For a blonde beer that's pretty fucken amazing. Not the best beer of it's ilk by any means but for that price it's pretty incredible and I'm going to enjoy drinking it oh yes A tasty beer that works in a lot of contexts

I doubt you get it in Australia, but Allagash White is better than Hoegaarden in pretty much every way. Though I agree it works well in a lot of contexts and isn't a bad beer.

Oh, I drank that Atlantic Coal Porter - really pretty awful I must say. You know that really particular sort of grassy, rotten plant flavor you get in a lot of really cheap, shitty beers? It had a bit of that going on, but more annoyingly it was way, way over-carbonated. Some reviews on Beer Advocate mentioned it being too carbonated so maybe it's a recurring problem for that brewery. The head was like this gigantic, fizzy root-beer type thing, and it was nearly impossible to get past the carbonation to taste the actual beer. I'd give it another shot in the event that this bottle was a dud, though.

Did it gush over? Sounds like an infected bottle. Some breweries tend to have that as a recurring problem. Too bad really.

No, it didn't foam up when I opened it. It just had a massive head once I poured the beer. It seemed artificially carbonated, like a soda, but just with way too much carbonation.

Stauder
http://www.bierclub.net/bilder_bier/176 ... m_Pils.jpg

Fiege
http://www.bierclub.net/bilder_bier/177 ... e_Pils.jpg

Don't think so.

St. Bernardus Prior 8:
http://www.sintbernardus.be/stbernardusprior8.php?l=en



Worst than I remembered:
viewtopic.php?p=2186018#p2186018