Hey! I just found this small liquor store thats next to a 7-11 in kansas and went in to get some sierra nevada but was blown away by the fact that they had an amazing beer selection. Not amazing compared to a giant liquor store on the coasts obv. but it was still unbeleivable based on the way this place looked- when I went in I was only 80% sure they would even have sierra nevada pale ale.
They had rochefort trappistes 10, 8, 6 chimay blue,red, yellow, goose island matilda, bourbon county stout etc, orval, peche mortel, all the ommengangs north carolina imperial rasputin, old stock, they even had mikkeller breakfast, mikkeller black hole, bells expedition stout, and i was like wow the owner of this tiny shack must drink a lot of beer.
I had a mikkeller beer geek breakfast and im n9ot going to make a review right now but that beer was right up my alley and prob in my top 5 beers ever
also, whats the easiest way to get beers they simply cant have in overland park because of distribution issues like westvertlen apt 12, dark lord, speedway stout , etc?

also i can fly btw.

I have some catching up to do in this thread... looks like a lot of nice reviews. I haven't reviewed much because I haven't tried much new stuff lately. I do have a Rochefort 10 in the fridge that I'll pop open at some point. I also had DFH's Palo Santo a while back and I got the rest of the 4 pack in my pantry. To be honest it wasn't really my thing. Almost like wine. Lots of alcohol. I'm probably going to steer clear of DFH stuff for a while because in Cali it's just not worth the price.

Just want to mention I'm fortunate enough to be able to get my hands on some Old Rasputin XI. My sister and her friend just happened to be on a trip up to Mendocino so they were within 15 mins of the North Coast Brewing Co. I told her to pick up a few. Can't wait to give it a try. I'll have a review up for it, of course.

WHITE OWL!

BevMo now has two Hitachino brews, White Ale and Red Rice Ale, both in 12 oz singles for ~$5. Yuck price. I bought both because I love White Owl and figured I'd try another.

The Red Rice Ale was very, very forgettable, for me anyway. Light, straw colored, not really a distinctive flavor. Stick to the white.

I'd take a hike to Selinsgrove Brewery if you get a chance. Their growlers don't hold very well though, but you might want to inquire on like Beer Advocate or BeerMapping for places in your area to get good brew to take home.

Went to Father's Office in LA this weekend (great beer spot for those in this city). On my way out I noticed a tap on the wall labeled "Ommegang Rouge". Ommegang is on of my favorite breweries (with Hennepin and 3 Philosophers easily in my top ten beers) and i had never heard of this one, so I decided to sit back down and try it out.

Ommegang's website makes no mention of it, and from what I can gather online it's currently only available in draft with the possibility of bottling down the line. This is the only picture I could even find online (shouldve taken one myself, but I guess this random internet lady will do):



It is a Flemish style sour red ale. Pours with a nice head, and its pretty thick. Great taste of tart cherries and apples. Just a hint of the alcohol (I think its 5.5%). REally great beer if you like sour beers from one of my favorite breweries. If you happen to see it around, definitely give it a try.

Just had a fantastic beer for the first time - Delirium Noel. It was sold on tap in a Belgian bar on 43rd b/w 6th and 7th in NYC. I was originally planning to go for my favorite brown ale - Corsendonk pater ale, but some random dude mentioned this to me. Thank you, random dude!

Pours deep amber with high head that recedes relatively quickly. Very rich spicy smell and smooth taste that hides alcohol well imo (10%). Very easy to drink, goes well with food, perfect ale for the winter.

posters.

Opinion on Orval now, please. I'm too much of a newb to properly describe this flavor. For a while I wanted to say it was minty. I'm not really blown away with it. I still got half a glass left. But I will say this: it's very unique, and it's getting better as I go along. I'm quite perplexed.

side note: also tried sam smith's winter ale (called something different but it's escaping me at the moment). Not all that noteworthy to make it worth the price, unlike their stouts.

kutuz,

look forward to trying the delerium noel. It caught my attention before your post, but I was hesitant since I hold tremens in such high regard (if that makes any sense).

Orval is quite a strange beer indeed. It's fermented with Brettanomyces, which gives it that funky aroma. I'm a huge fan of the smell, but the taste is a different animal. I thought it was very bready in taste with some earthy bitterness. In the end I wasn't terribly impressed, though I'd like to try it again some time.

bready was something I came away with as well, but I thought it was a little more spicy than bitter.

Been shopping, so I'll have a number of new reviews soon. The first will be Mendocino's new Imperial IPA, which, sadly, looks like only a winter seasonal offering. Many of Mendocino's beer's aren't all that exciting, but after their awesome Belgian White, I'm anxious to try anything from them. This ran me just $6.67 for a sixer of 7.5% ABV beer, a little light for this style.



The beer pours a crystal clear gold with a head on the lighter side. It looks more like a lager than an ale, really.



The beer smells mostly of floral hops, which is nice. The taste is hoppy as expected. The malt behind the hops isn't anything special, though. It is not especially sweet or otherwise flavorful. The hops are good and the price is right on this beer, but it needs more than just hops to stand out against the many double IPAs out there. .

Delirium Noel is soooo good. Also try the Nocturnum and Tremens which are the year round ones, Noel is just at Christmas (obv).

Tonight's beer is Floreffe ale. It's a Belgian brew. I'm not exactly sure of the style, but it's 8% ABV, dark brown, and brewed with star anise and orange peel, so, a dubbel maybe? As you can see from the pic below, it was on sale for $5.54. This may mean that this beer is older than the hills and skunked, but there's a printing on here that indicates that there's a chance that this is from 10/10/2008. Maybe it's old, maybe it's on sale because it's just bad, or maybe I got a really good deal. We'll find out.



This beer pours a dark, opaque brown with a head for the ages. This meets or maybe even exceeds the LaChouffe Tripel-IPA, the previous head champion of the beer world, in both volume and persistence.



The beer smells very sweet and earthy. I smell raisins, prunes, spice, and a sweet dark malt. The taste isn't skunked, that's for sure. I get more of the orange in the taste along with the above. It's sweet, but not overly so, not as sweet as some dubbels. The anise isn't especially detectable. This isn't as bold in flavor as I might have expected, either. It's complex, but it doesn't knock you over with strong flavor. I do prefer bolder beer, but I'll give this . I think I got a pretty good buy for $5.54. I may see if there are any left the next time I go back.

Tonight's beer is Harpoon's Rauchfetzen from their 100 Barrel series. Past beers I've had from this series have been pretty good, and not too expensive. This one ran me $6.39 for a similarly strong beer: 6.3% ABV.



The beer pours a perfectly clear reddish gold without much head. I've had a Rauchbier before, and it was cloudy and heady, so this was unexpected.



The previous Rauchbier I've had was a very smokey thing that I was only lukewarm about. This has a hint of smoke in the nose, but it smells more like a pale ale. The flavor also has a light smokiness that's welcome rather than overpowering. It's also moderately hopped with a nice pale malt. There are some other mild flavors in there, too, that I can't put my finger on. This is a nice beer that's both flavorful, drinkable, and yet still a little departure from the norm if you're looking to change things up. and a half .

Avery Old Jubilation (winter seasonal)

the poor - dark brown, caramel color
the nose - decent alcohol presence, sweet malt, some caramel, little bit of hoppiness with a touch of spice.
the taste - starts off pretty nice. Full bodied, initially notice a little bite as well as the sweet malt and caramel flavor. However, this beer got to be too much for me. wayyy too sweet, and it gets worse with each sip. It's become almost flavorless on the front end, then the super sweetness and alcohol overwhelm my taste buds and my face contorts. Really not digging this.

I regret buying this six pack.

Freud?

I'm not a big fan of anything from Avery. I work with a guy who thinks they're great, though. The best from them I've had was their Presidential Ale, an IIPA, and I thought it was pretty good, despite my general dislike of the style. Everything outside of that I've been very meh on.

LOL, I hadn't noticed that from the review. Nice catch, RDH.

I agree with you on Avery. The best I've had from them was their Maharaja IIPA, and even it was nothing special in the vast world of delicious IIPAs.

With my class now officially over (except for calculating grades), it's time for beer, imo. Tonight's beer is Heylissem Belgian Abbey Ale. It's subtitled "triple brune sur lie," which I believe means a thrice-fermented, bottle conditioned brown ale, a little different from most tripels. It got it on sale for $7.96. It's a 9% ABV beer, typical for tripels.



It pours a reddish brown with a moderate head.



The smell is very fruity: plums, pears, apples, along with a little spice. The flavor matches. It's very similar to Ommegang's namesake ale, but perhaps just a hair less sweet, and I think this one is a little stronger. I'll give this the same rating I gave the Ommegang, , although I think I won't be buying this beer again because the Ommegang costs me less money, esp. when this one is not on sale.

It's a big night. I'm going for two. My second beer will be Green Flash's Le Freak, a Tripel-IPA blend. A 22 oz bottle of it ran be a rather steep $10.29 for a 9.2% ABV beer.



This is a bottle conditioned beer. I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't. It pours the expected cloudy gold w/ a good, persistent head on it. It's not in the La Chouffe territory, but it's pretty respectable. It looks too dark in the pic below. I guess I held it too far away from the camera.



The smell of this beer is great. It smells of delicious hops and a fruity malt behind them. Had I remembered at the point of purchase that I was lukewarm on Green Flash's trippel, I would have passed on this one, but I'm glad I didn't. I like the hop profile of this beer even better than in their double IPA. It's not overpoweringly bitter, and I get citrus, grass, and flowers from the hops. The malt is richer and perhaps more like a good Belgian trippel than their regular trippel, too. There's a little more apple and pear in there, although it's hard to tell if any spiciness is either masked by the hops or not present. This is an excellent beer whose closest peer, even though I've had other trippel-IPAs, is probably the Brooklyn Hopfenweisse, one of my favorite beers to which I gave a 4.5 heart rating that probably should have been a 5. I prefer the Brooklyn, but this beer is awesome and worth every penny. It's a solid and a half . Kidcolin or other Green Flash fans definitely need to look this one up.

cool. I saw that Le Freak recently and was very intrigued. As I mentioned before I love their IPA, but I've tried a few other styles by them that, while not bad, didn't impress me much.

agree with you guys on Avery. For whatever reason I always hear they're a solid brewery, but this is the 3rd or 4th thing I've tried by them and I just haven't been impressed. I'll avoid from now on.

Hi Bryce, can't help you with dark lord or speedway stout but West-Vleteren is only sold at the gates of the Saint-Sixtus abbey in a very small town called West-Vleteren (Belgium). I'd guesstimate it's about a 3 hour drive from Paris (France) and not too far from Ypres (a WWI museum, some trenches and cemeteries to visit). A very long shot if you're from Kansas.

What's even worse:
-You have to order by phone, in advance. When you do that you also have to give the license plate of the car that'll pick up the order.
-It's not allowed to sell the crate you bought to anyone else; but you're allowed to give it away as a present.
-You can only order 1 crate per month, per phone number and per license plate. Which makes this a present for extremely rare occasions.

-December last year some people got caught who found a way to circumvent the system (selling the crates to US customers for up to 500 euro), as far as I know the investigation is still going.
-If this beer is getting sold in the US, it's either fake or ridiculously expensive and it'll bring attention to the stuff that makes you fly (congratulations on the wings, soldier).

It's a good beer, but all these nonsensical rules turned it into a hype it doesn't deserve; it's not worth paying 500 Euro for. If you're a beer fanatic and you're on holiday in Paris you might want to take a day off and travel the countryside. Beats me why you'd want to go through that trouble if you can find other brands of equal quality easily. Judging from the very fair reviews in this thread there should be a bunch of USA beers that are top notch.

Anyways here's the official site with prices, phone number, availability etc.

I got a new beer that I'd been looking for for a while. MaxxDaddy reviewed Adam from the Hair of the Dog brewery and gave it a glowing review. I finally saw it myself, and I picked it up without a second thought. Maybe I should have, because this beer is not cheap. It's $6.39 for a single 12 oz bottle. It's 10% ABV. According to Maxx, this beer tastes something like an Imperial stout, although it's technically a different style and has a few extras in the flavor. Let's see.



It doesn't look quite like an imperial stout to me. It's a little lighter, even though it's still pretty dark and opaque. It has much more of a thick, persistent head, too.



It smells a fair bit like an imperial stout, though. There is a dark, sweet malt in the smell along with chocolate, hops, and dark fruit. The flavor was unexpectedly full of coffee, much like a good imperial stout, but it's much different in texture and finish. For texture, it's not as syrupy, and the creamy thick head is nice. In the finish, it lingers for a good long time with many different flavors, including hops and the fruitiness I smells. The coffee and chocolate come back, too. This is not the sort of beer I instantly fall in love with or would consume in large quantities, but it's subtlety and complexity make for a nice change of pace. It's very appropriate for late fall/early winter drinking, imo. I don't generally give quarter-heart ratings, but Maxx's 4.25 is pretty appropriate. I'll officially give it .

Tonight's review is North Coast's new Cru D'Or, following in the trend of American brewers increasingly introducing Belgian styles. This one is also organic. It's an 8% ABV beer that ran me $2.79 for one 12 oz bottle.



It pours a medium brown with a light head. This combined with the 8% ABV leads me to believe that this is a dubbel.



Sure smells that way. I get cherries, apple, pear in the aroma. Yeah, this is like a very fruity and less earthy dubbel. It does taste a little thin, though. I'd like a little more maltiness behind the light sweetness of the fruit. This isn't bad, but there are better offerings out there. heart:.

Glad you mentioned North Coast. I'm enjoying their 08 offering of Old Stock Ale tonight. I paid $13 for a 4 pack. ****! At 12.5% I thought it would be some kind of hop bomb but it's really well balanced. The alcohol is well tamed also. When I first opened one I thought i smelled like wine. It looks similar to the Cru D'Or you posted above. I'd say it's somewhat Belgian but not overly fruity. I'm midway through my second and am well past the normal plateau I like to achieve. It's hard to justify these ever increasing prices but this is a great beer. Worth the price? I dunno.

I still haven't gotten my Old Rasputin XI from my sister. Won't be able to until after new year's. Can't wait to give it a shot.

Been a while since I had the old stock. I remember it being solid, fairly strong, but overall nothing spectacular and not really worth the price. Their Pranqster is a golden belgian and that's pretty solid but pales in comparison to something like Duvel, but not a bad substitute at a reasonable price.

During the winter, Old Rasputin is a regular for me.

I think their Acme line is pretty solid. Good IPA and pale ale at decent prices. Nothing amazing but good.

Hi guys,

been a while since I logged in, and had beers to recommend. Apologies if anyone's already shouted for this one, but imo one of the best pale ales anywhere in the world:



Little Creatures Brewery, from Fremantle (freo) near Perth, Australia. Got it in the local world beer store and have loved it from the off. A near perfect pale ale to be enjoyed cold, just the right balance of effervescence, fruity-bitter hop and sweet malt.

Brits hate it when I say Pale Ales from the US and Australia frequently trump UK ones, but this is a prime example. I cannot recommend it more strongly.

On a sad note, the pub I used to work in stocks a beer called Woodeford's Wherry:



this used to be one of my top 3 beers in the world. The bad news? it became so popular they have obviously expanded production - and suppliers. The end result is whatever batches of barley/hops they have gotten in have ruined all that was good about the beer - it's now got a soapy start and a horribly acrid aftertaste. Not recommended, and a damn shame to boot.