Huge fan of Rochefort. Amazing beers.

Are you back in NZ schizoid? I was in Dunedin about two weeks ago, and I have to say that the NZ craft beer "scene" (ugh I hate that word) is fucking excellent. Their New World beer selection puts most of my local craft beer bottle shops to shame. Being able to buy Renaissance Stone Cutter, and as many as you can carry, is just not a thing I can freely do here in Aus, and it's a fantastic scotch ale. One NZ beer I will recommend to anyone who sees it is Garage Project's Cabbages and Kings. A phenomenal oyster stout with body, strength and a glorious briney flavour that keeps giving. I cannot stress enough that NZ craft brewers are doing some truly incredible things.

I was in a tiny place outside of Dunedin called Port Chalmers, in this wonderful 1800's pub (with a fire, because it was freezing), and they had a bottle of this 50/50 quad/pinot noir beer from a tiny micro brewer. Needless to say I bought it, and enjoyed it with a homemade goulash the chef had whipped up. Absolute perfection.

There was a new release of beers here in Norway today, and I ordered two Garage Project beers:
- Fuzz Box
- Triple Day of the Dead

Should be interesting!

Also some Põhjala beers, what a great brewery.

Yeah, I'm back in New Zealand. Even just over the year or so I was away it seems several new local Brewers have popped up. No more Tiger for me!

A while back I had a beer from the only Italian trappist brewery. I believe it had an eucalyptus flavour and I was pretty amazed about how good it was.

So, I am back to home brewing after a pause of one year. Today I am brewing an IPA with Mosaic & Citra hops (and same hops in dry-hop) and Vermont yeast. Should be good!

Just ordered a box from Beerwulf with some great beers of Bird Brewery from the Netherlands and some other delicious stuff frim the Uk, Germany and the Netherlands.

Excellent hop combo!

My latest brew is a Singel Hop Cascade Pale Ale.


Lovely stuff.

Well, I got a rude awakening when I gave a local craft midstrength a 5/10 on a local fbook beer page. Suffice to say that the metal scene is nowhere near as angry as a bunch of beer drinking dudes.

..Currently drinking a very average midstrength

That's...weird.

Had quite some interesting beers this weekend when I was in Bruges, Belgium with my colleagues. Also visited the Halve Maan brewery known for Brugse Zot and Straffe Hendrik beers. Interesting tour and great food and beers.

This is an interesting topic that I’m happy to read through. I used to be more heavily into beer and finding/trying new stuff constantly but these days I’m drinking PBR, Miller High Life, Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, and Guinness. I’m curious to read through these pages and see what I haven’t had in a while

BeerAdvocate rates it Outstanding. It comes in cans, but in my experience it's even better on draft. I order special bottles at https://allinpackaging.co.uk/containers/bottle/ to store it. I'm a huge fan of craft beer. There are always a few bottles of craft beer in my fridge.

Rates what?

Im having a Tank 7 from the boulevard breweing co. Great farmhouse ale, actually one of my favorites. This saturday I went to a nice small craft beer shop and went to visit the beer garden of a cool pub. I somehow manage to order beers unknown by the employees thanks to Untappd.

Tank 7 is awesome, I should get it again soon.

Having a Garage Project now, really like this brewery.


Also just ordered two more from them (Party & Bullshit and Unconditional Love)

You know, it's funny. Garage Project are local to my town (at one point I even lived on the same street as the brewery, but that was possibly before they were there even), but most of their beers are out of my price range

The garage project Touch Wood is freakin amazing. Great brand. Their bloody dingo imperial red is all time.

https://www.beercartel.com.au/nogne-o-quadrupel/



Having this right now. Glad that beer cartel still had one floating around. Got a beer from 2013 from the looks of things. Freakin great, deep red wine vibes, heaps of booze but in a really great way, like a mix of a belgian quadrupel, boiled down fruit cake and an imperial stout. Endless flavour. Proof of a benevolent god. An instant refutation of nihilism, etc.

I'm not sure it's the best beer I've ever had but it's in the top 5, no question.

I'd say the same for Panhead's Johnny Octane Red IPA. Panhead, like Garage Project are another Wellington (OK, Upper Hutt ) brewer. All their beers I've tried are great but this takes the cake.

I live near Walt Disney World. Every year they have a food & wine festival at Epcot from September till November. It's always my favorite time of the year because I love walking around World Showcase sampling different beers from all over the world while taking in the many aromas from all kinds of cuisines. I've had some German beers, tried a Guinness (wasn't a big fan of it but I loved it when made as part of an Irish Car Bomb), had a Japanese beer, and drank a few others. I had this really good German pomegranate beer there last year. Other than that, I'll drink pretty much any beer with my favorites including Yuengling, Sam Adams, and Bud Light Lime (yes, I did read the first post on this thread, but I feel no shame).

Back in April I was in Japan for a while. Here's a list of stuff I had there (leaving off the less interesting, more common beers you can get pretty easily):

Nakano Beer Kobo - "The World" Imperial Porter - Huge oak and whiskey flavors with a little cocoa and spicing, super murky but not as dark as you'd expect, like a rich muddy walnut brown color. Fantastic.
Yo-ho Brewing - Yona Yona Ale - Perfectly Japanese take on the APA. So, drier, more graceful.
Yo-ho - Aooni IPA - West coast style IPA.
Brouwerij De Bock - Satan - Went to a late medieval European themed maid cafe so had some good stuff there like this and some Chimay and some house draft dark beer that was pretty good.
Ushitora - #251 Shio Daifuku Stout - This was an imperial milk stout that I got on nitro tap. Pretty boozy, and the lactose was balanced well with lots of roasty malt.
Fuji Kanko Kaihatsu - Fujizakura Heights Sakura Bock - Supposedly a cherry blossom doppelbock. Definitely had floral notes in the fruity, caramel malts. Yum.
Romantic Village Craft Brewery - F~Unknown - Fucking bizarre...this was like a massive barleywine version of a lager brewed with sake yeast. Something like 16% ABV, very dry and slightly fruity.
Kamakura Beer - Kamakura Moon - Another home-run altbier randomly out of a small-town Japanese brewery.
Kuichi - Hitachino Nest XH - This is a Belgian style brown ale. Very fruity and brown sugary, but malty enough to balance it all. Best Hitachino beer I've had, and they're always solid so that's something.
Baird Brewing Company - Suruga Bay Imperial IPA - Like a full on buffet of hops. Fun picking out all the hops flavors.
Kamakura Beer - Kamakura Flower - This one was a brown ale. Very dark and roasty for the style, nearly a porter, but very nutty. Good!
Kumazawa Brewing - Shonan IPA - This was like a huge kumquat/yuza bomb of a juicy IPA.
Catch the Beer - Yakushima Cedar - Fuck me running, even this tiny little barely inhabited island had a craft beer, and it was a very solid red ale with a nice touch of cedar (of course).
Yo-Ho Brewing - Boku Beer, Kimi Beer - A nice saison, but had an unfortunate metallic taste perhaps conferred by the can. Too delicate for canning maybe.
Yo-Ho Brewing - Boku Beer, Kimi Beer Uraniwa Invader - This was a "cream IPA" which tasted like a hand-pulled cask IPA except somehow in a can.
Barbaric Works - Swoon - Belgian strong golden ale but extremely mild for the style. Dangerous stuff as this could be pounded hard.
AJB - Mango Joint Juice - This is a mango-infused DIPA that was a collab between Barbaric Works and some other Japanese brewers. Both sweet mango and brutal pine hops in equal measure!
Outsider Brewing - The Dark Side Imperial Stout - Creamy and sweet but straightforward and well executed.
Prarie Artisan Ales - OK-si - This is a massive imperial stout aged in tequila barrels. I thought it might be slightly gross even though I like tequila. I was wrong. This was great.
Rogue - 7 Hop IPA - Seven is too many hops. Pretty generic but solid.
Scheldebrouwerij - Oesterstout - I've only ever had a few oyster stouts but this was fruity and sweet and good.

The other night a friend who's leaving to go back to the U.S. came over and we sampled some good stuff, too. Had some Goose Island Sofie, some of their summer lager, some Indeed Brewing Stir Crazy Porter (real good winter beer there - despite it being the middle of summer, heh), some Coronado peach IPA that was like a worse version of the DFH beer, a mocha stout by a Korean brewery called The Hand and Malt that I'd had before and is alright, some St. Peter's Ruby Red Ale. We also went to this craft beer/pizza joint and I had some IPA by Korean brewers Magpie that's decent but pretty standard, as well as a nice sour beer called Surleim by another Korean brewery called Wild Wave.

To cap off the night, we shared the bottle of Old Rasputin XX (bourbon barrel aged) that I'd gotten earlier this year as a birthday present. Man, what a beer - I love the standard version but as of course many of you know aging a stout like this in bourbon barrels really does some magical shit to it.

I can't even keep track of beer names anymore. I don't buy much beer for home these days but there are so many craft breweries popping up that make at least decent beer and send it all over the place on draft, it's not like I need to buy much for home anyway. The volume and variety within that volume have made note-taking impractical though, so I usually don't bother.

I wasn't into sours or wilds back when Cantillon sat on shelves for years on end and American sours were all stupidly expensive, but I must say I like the gose and peached berliner fads more than any IPA craze I can remember from the last 15 years.

Having a Fuller's ESB now.
I really like english beers, and I think I will put this one on my to brew list!

So Troegs Hop Knife is back in stores for fall. Been on a flip-flop on my beer runs between getting a pack of IPAs and a pack of something darker. What Troegs seem to do best is making these slightly citrus tinged IPA brews.

Haven't had that one, but I like other Troegs IPA (or IPA-ish) beers.

Has the price of beer gone up where you are? My usual six pack went from 7$ to 9$. I hope this is temporary but I don't think it will be. Fuck.

I live in Pennsylvania. We have the highest average beer prices in the US. So a six pack of craft beers usually hovers between $10 to $14.

Fuck you guys. I pay that much per beer pretty often.

Paying $10 for a craft sixer is extremely common in the DC area as well. I mean, even ubiquitous stuff like Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams is usually in the neighborhood of $9 or $10 per sixer.

Pffft. I'm lucky to get that kind of thing for under $30 AUD

About minimum $20 NZD, so yeah, still more expensive after conversion.

(For local and also stuff like little creatures, obviously American imports are more).

Wow, nothing since August?


Last week was the annual Bourbon County release for Black Friday. I got the regular and the Bramble Rye, which is a remake of something they did around 2013 (if I remember correctly). I really would have liked to have found Vanilla and possibly the new wheatwine, but I'm happy with what I got. This year's regular is very barrel-forward, by which I mean burnt wood flavors more so than whiskey. Easily the most woody BCBS since the 2013, potentially since last decade.

I'll see what the reviews say, but unless the consensus is "unbearably fruity" I'll probably open the Bramble around Christmas. It's aged in rye whiskey barrels with raspberries and blackberries. The original Bramble wasn't exactly the most sought-after variant but I've had some tasty raspberry stouts before, and I really liked Bourbon County Cherry Rye, so I am intrigued by this beer.

Browsing around Beeradvocate, the consensus on the Vanilla seems to be "waaay too much vanilla." People thought the same thing about the original Bourbon County Vanilla, back in 2010, when it was fresh...and within two years it had become widely viewed as the best variant. The vanilla just needed to mellow out a bit. I wonder if something similar will happen with this one.

I was able to get bottles of the regular, Coffee-Barleywine, Wheat Wine, Vanilla, and Orange. Only dipped into the Regular so far, which is very good, but as is usually the case, needs some time to mellow. I think I might still have a bottle of the original Bramble in my crawlspace.

Only real beer news for me since the summer is that whatever distributor was bringing in substantial amounts of (mostly U.S.) craft imports has seemingly vanished into the aether. The bottle selection at the two foreigner bars I go to most often has really fallen into a hole (thankfully they've got a large stock of Founders Dirty Bastard that seemingly no one drinks but me, so at least there's that). Sadder, though, is that the selection of beer at the local mega-mart that blossomed so wonderfully not so long ago has totally dried up. They have something like six or eight big shelving units that probably held like 40 or 60 unique beer facings each when the selection blew up, but now each one holds two to four different beers, almost all of which is crap.

Hopefully either that distributor gets back into the game or someone else picks up the slack, because it's been a serious beer drought for months now. Almost feels like 2014 again.

I've been drinking mostly Sam Adams Octoberfest lately. Figured I might as well get it while it's still around. But also I live in Kentucky now and there really aren't any liquor stores in my town with a great craft beer selection. I have been on the lookout for New Belgium to release their seasonal "Accumulation" White IPA but so far no luck.

Bell's released their Winter White Ale this month which is pretty good. I also recently tried Blue Moon Winter Wheat Spiced Abbey Ale which prettymuch has an aftertaste like Christmas cookies. Also good stuff.

I'm bought the Beery Christmas from Hopt.com. It's a great deal, great craft beers, the element of surprise and so far beer I never had before (I've had over 1000 unique beers) from France, Sweden, China and Portugal so far. A Saison, Hefeweizen, Wee heavy, Amber lager.

There was a special beer release today so I ordered these:

Founders - Breakfast Stout (2)
Founders - Backwoods Bastard (2)
Avery Uncle Jacob's Bourbon BA Stout

Should be good ones.

And today I am of to England, Newcastle for the weekend so I hope to find more awesome stuff over there.
Already found some shops I need to check out.

The two Founders are delicious!

I just ordered a bulk haul of beer online. I'm guessing most of it is short dated (some of it was stated as such), but I dont care. I've drank beers years past their BB, no problems.

Anyway, I got 24 bottles of Lindemans Kriek, 24 bottles of Lindemans Gueuze, a bunch of saisons by a NZ brewer, a selection box of sours by a NZ brewer (not that into sours, but keen to try), and 24 Bottles of Mongozo Buckwheat White Beer. Reminds me of my East Malaysia days, where getting smuggled in beer hauls like this was the only salvation from generic lagers.

Anyone here heard of Shipyard brewery out of Portland Maine? It's fairly good tasting shit.

Yeah, been there before. It's all right, nothing that knocks my socks off, much better stuff in Portland. They use a very distinct English yeast called "ringwood" known for having buttery esters. Some people hate it; I don't mind, but it's weird when used in like say, an american IPA.