I just went to page 1 of the wine thread, and noticed KDawg was the OP. Despite the location specified in my profile, my oenophilic qualifications are sorely lacking.

Perhaps I will tell the gang that my erroneous thinking about a Three Floyds pilgrimage was corrected on twoplustwo, and we will all have a chuckle about it. Then I will whip out a couple great bottles of obscure wine, and everyone will remark, "So that's why we keep this clown around."

Catch you mofos on the last page of the wine thread if I learn anything worth mentioning. Thanks again for your wisdom.

Im doing a Michigan/Indiana brewery road trip at the end of June. Here's our itinerary:

Bells
Founders
Brewery Vivant
New Holland
Greenbush
18th Street (best in Indiana IMO)
Three Floyds.

Anyone have experience with these brewpubs? Recommendations?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dark Horse in Marshall Mi is good and not to far from Ind.

3 Floyds > all for ipas imo. I'll have to try 18th st. The place I get Floyds has been pushing it. I thought they couldn't get rid of it or had a connection. lol

This is a very good beer that I recently had in Portland, OR, at pubs/portland; along with an Elk Burger. Yummy. From Deschutes Brewing of Bend.

trees-of-doom-dunkel/

are german-inspired lagers gonna be the next big thing? They can def hit the spot.

Trying another Fort Hill beer.. G-Fresh. It's just their Farmers Fresh session IPA (5%) brewed with grapefruit. This might be a simple beer, but I like it more than grapefruit sculpin. LOTS of grapefruit. Could maybe even dial it back a touch. Not a blow you away beer, but I would def pound these at a cookout. Really good and refreshing.

Plus Fort Hill crushing the value game. A 6er of this and a 6er of DIPA cost under $20.

Is fort hills a Brewery only thing? Or do they distribute outside MA?

not sure about outside MA, but I've never been to the brewery. They distribute fairly widely in MA. I've had it in the Marlborough area and in the Fall River area.

I just tried their Double Paw DIPA. Didn't know it was a mosaic bomb. Thus I didn't really enjoy it. But it was "better made" than the previous DIPA I had from them, if that makes sense. Better carb, not a ton of floaties, real nice feel. Just not my fave flavor and didn't want to dome a 9.3% beer I wasn't loving.

Bend peeps,

Thanks so much for the recs!

I had a mtg end at 1130 and lunch at 1215. Looked at the map and saw I was 5 mins away from boneyard, so that seemed like a sign! I've only had their double and triple IPAs and thought they were great.



This place is very cool, I loved it. Basically a little shack with some taps. 2oz tastes for $1/each. I did:

Rpm - delicious easy drinking IPA

Incredible pulp - blood orange pale ale wow this was awesome, just a little sourness and hints of orange flavor, not too sweet at all and perfectly balanced. Great beer.

Diablo rojo - my namesake red ale was ok but underwhelming, not that into it.

Hop venom and notorious - double/triple IPA I've had before and are both great, lot of flavor and not too malty or sweet.

Finished off with one more incredible pulp, I just loved it.

After lunch it was 130 and my flight was at 320. And Crux is just seven minutes away...



They do a 6-taster (I suck at this but maybe 3 or 4oz?) for $11, a buck or two surcharge for the barrel aged beers.

I selected barrel aged wild farmhouse, barrel aged sour ale, and haze ipa, and asked bartender to pick the rest. She went with a wit, malbock (?), and Russian imperial stout.

Wild farmhouse - incredible, great wild ale, tart but very well balanced with tons of flavor

BA sour ale - not v good. Sorta cloyingly sweet and sour, a little malty, not into it.

Haze IPA - fine but nothing special. Not very juicy or hazy at all, but def tasty. She also gave me extra taste of another IPA that was even better, just a very easy drinking crisp hoppy IPA.

Wit - I'm not a huge wit fan in general, but this was really good. Light but full of flavor. Great beer.

bock - this lager was prob drawing dead in this lineup, but I didn't think this was very good, just sorta boring

BA stout - very tasty, but a little overly sweet/chocolatey. Quite good, not great.

Overall I didn't like crux beers as much as 10 barrel or boneyard, but a great tasting room inside and cool outdoor grounds, definitely a place that would be fun to hang out for a couple hours. And a nice wide range of styles.

Looking forward to a return trip to bend for a few days sometime.

And beer is a lot cheaper in Oregon than San Francisco!

After years and years of putting out dog****, relatively local brewery, Hooker, made a good beer. Very soft and smooth. Not TH or NEBCO good but still very tasty and has made me reconsider what they're doing.

Staying with the Three Floyds theme, currently going through a Gumballhead *really* quickly. This is a great summertime beer. I did a half marathon this morning, so I feel like today's beers are pretty guilt free. Not sure what's next.

So now I'm trying to finish up The Bruery So Happens It's Tuesday from last weekend, and I'm just not feeling it. I wouldn't turn down a pour if someone offered, but it's definitely not worth $20 a bomber (to me).

Just had a few of these on tap with dinner. Agree, great beer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Diablo,

Bend beer assessment is pretty in line with what'd I'd expect. Hop venom is probably my favorite of all of those.

Heading there next weekend with 8 friends actually, will try to report back.

Picked up some Big Eye from Ballast Point and am really impressed. Usually just stick to Scuplin but it was on sale for $11.99 for 6 so figured I'd switch it up.

Never had that one.

Some more reviews.

Had an infected 2015 bcbs, October date. Umm....Started ok, pretty good, like some bba imperial stouts with Cherry, but as it warmed got very medicinal and the nose was like smelling salts.

Bldg8 IPA outta western mass. I've reviewed before. Simcoe, Citra, and Mosaic. Tad heavy on the mosaic but very solid.

Pipeworks Close Encounters Black IPA. We get Pipeworks now which is cool. I've had a couple of their ipas via trade and they were great. This is just OK. I def enjoyed it and I think I like black ipas more than most (maine beer's beer III for is a top 5 year I've had in the past few years), but didn't really bring anything unique to the table, and a little heavy on the pine and minty notes. NOTES.

Crazy Mountain (CO) Hookiebobb IPA. I bought this solely because it was an OK price and the label advertised aussie hops and it had a classic galaxy haze through the glass, so I took a gamble. Easily the worst beer I've had in 2017. Just a total mess. Over carbed, tasted more like an over-hopped saison or something. Cloying sweetness and bitterness. Drain poured it after a few sips. Suds on drain pour were crazy.

Sorry, I don't understand. It looked hazy through the bottle on the shelf? You attributed that haze to Galaxy hops? And that was your purchase motivation?

Yes.

Went to Jack's Abbey today and the best beer I had was Clerical Error, a DIPA from Springdale brewery which I guess is some offshoot from JA. Really good beer, bought some home to confirm and it's pretty elite imo. Pretty soft and juicy with a small amount of bitterness. Doesn't seem like this is distributed at all but it's worth seeking out if anyone goes out there, I think it's better than any JA hoppy beer except maybe Kiwi Rising. Also had Amirite?! which was pretty decent but not great.

Pastrami sandwich looked amazing. Also congrats on the half, spidercrab. I've got my first half coming up in a month. Beer and pizza will be flowing after that.

This week is Madison Craft Beer Week. Gotten to try Nineteen (from Central Waters) and Black Friday from Lakefront. Craft beer week is awesome. There's like a different place in town with Sump, KBS, Darkness, etc on every day. Plus many other great beers. Wraps up next Sunday with tickets for Great Taste, an amazing drinking festival.

Nineteen was good but I still think I like Black Gold better, for the CW peeps out there.

I strongly recommend hitting Transient in Bridgman, MI. It has better beer than any brewery on your list. Although you may find some of the other places more fun to hang out in a group. (e.g. Bell's is super fun to hang out at and I'll stop by whenever I'm near, even though it's not my favorite MI brewery.)

Perrin, Odd Side, and Arclight are also worthwhile and I'd hit them over New Holland, Greenbush and FFF, but that's just personal preference (and it may not fit with your route, of course). Enjoy the trip!

I'll have to pay more attention and maybe open up another BA stout to compare it with next time I try one, I really like this beer and have never had any complaints with it. BA stouts under $1 per oz don't exactly grow on trees (unless they come in 4 packs) and I think it's a pretty good deal in that category.

I like So Happens a good amount, but I don't think that $1/oz is that hard to clear, unless we are talking about brewery only releases. I try to steer clear of bombers over like $13-15 except for rare occasions, that **** just adds up so fast and there is very good beer, including BA beers, even in 4 packs. At least around here.

Wicked Weed joins The High End, Anheuser-Busch’s business unit focused on its craft and import brands.



I guess it's actually good news for basically everyone ITT because of increased distro.

Hm. Wonder how that will work out since their sour program is so huge.

All the beer nerds raging on social media and article comments about how their beer isn't good anyway and they'll never buy again. Seems pretty lol to me but whatever. If the beer is the same quality I'll buy it since it's delicious.

Just took receipt of a shipment of various beers including some American beers. They're generally pales, IPAs etc with a couple of others.

The European beers I have a pretty good handle on already:

• Omnipollo - Magic Numbers #3.5 Pineapple Gose
• Omnipollo - Magic Numbers #1.618 Grapefruit Simcoe Mead
• Cloudwater - Vic Secret Sour IPA (Dugges collaboration)
• Cloudwater - IPA Mosaic Exp 431
• Cloudwater - Session IPA Wai-Iti Kazbek
• Cloudwater - IPA Vic Secret Wai-Iti
• Mourne Mountain - East Coast IPA
• Thornbridge - Huck
• Brewdog - Born to Die 13.05.17
• Mikkeller - Astley's Northern Hop (yes, Mikkeller brewed a Rick Astley beer)

The American beers not so much (although I'm familiar with most of the breweries):

• Modern Times - Oneida
• Modern Times - Lomaland
• Mike Hess - 8 West
• Mike Hess - Habitus
• Alpine - Hoppy Birthday
• Ironfire - 51/50
• Sierra Nevada - Hop Hunter
• Goose Island - Sofie (2016)
• Lost Coast - Sharkinator
• Devil's Canyon California Sunshine IPA

Thoughts on any of the above?

And for those beers carrying dates of canning/bottling rather than drink-by dates, what sort of rules of thumb do you guys apply? Some of the dates look a little long in the tooth to me. How fresh would/should you drink these (taking into account that they have to be distributed across the Atlantic)?