ahhh, another Ontarian with whom I can commiserate about the complete unavailability of all these great Bourbon Countys everyone else is posting >_<

it's great that the St. Bernardus is back. A friend of mine swears by it -- he likes it better than the Westy 12. The Koningshoeven / La Trappe Quad is back too which I'm happy about.

it's been a pretty crazy month for beer releases at the LCBO!

You still in the Boston area? Where'd you get all these?

love the mason jar in there

I'll have to give that quad a try. Not sure if you've tried Conductor's Ale, but I'd recommend it if your LCBO has it.

various places around Brookline/Brighton/Allston. though a couple of those bottles in my picture were old

if you are looking Wine Press on Beacon near Kenmore might have more Coffee and Backyard Rye. you have to ask for it. they certainly have more of the regular Bourbon County. if you want to try coffee and they are out hit me up I'll give you a bottle.

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Went to a holiday party tonight and they had a white elephant gift exchange thingy. Supposed to be ~$20 spent on gift. Lot less alcohol than years past but had two packs with Baileys and one with Grey Goose.

We were second to last to go and nothing really struck our fancy, so we choose the large present left and got this:


At first I thought this was some limited edition holiday brew and was willing to give it a try. But on further inspection, it was a limited edition bottle with standard Stella in it. Less than 3 beers worth. I like Stella, but for a supposed $20 gift, I would hope to get more than 2.5 beers worth. Along with two Stella glasses that we already have at home when we got them free when Stella was doing a free beer pouring lesson at a local restaurant (in which you kept the glass and the beer, pretty awesome!).

Sucky gift, but a few were slightly worse. My Mom likes Stella, so regift time!

http://www.totalwine.com/eng/product...pack/125836750

I had it on tap some time ago. I'll look out for it again.

let me know if you try the La Trappe and if you enjoy it. I think the Tripel might still be floating around. I haven't seen the Dubbel in the LCBO in a while, but depending on where you live you might be able to find it on tap.

another really really solid pick in stores now is the Best of Beau's pack. It's a mixed 4-pack of 500mls and it's just all-around solid. I think these 4 are all selected from their Wild Oats Series (experimental beers).

Great Lakes Brewery (for others reading this thread: not to be confused with Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland) puts out some really interesting bottles from their experimental program too, but they're not available at the LCBO. Sad, because the selections that DO make it to the LCBO are often pretty terrible (Green Tea Ale, Orange Peel Ale).

I'm in SD for the week and went to a random liquor store today which was supposed to have a particular brewery's stuff stocked that my friend wanted me to check out and bring back. Imagine my surprise when browsing around, I saw all this:



A guy at Mikkeller Bar mentioned Wanderer sold out in SF so I was pretty surprised to see a ton of it sitting on the shelf at this random place I walked into (the stuff pictured is, like, only 1/3 to 1/2 of the Bruery stuff they had). Got a couple of those to add my 3 Black Tuesdays I picked up yesterday. This place was incredible though, probably the best craft beer selection I've ever seen in one place (though marked up a little, Wanderer was $30, think it was only $20 in SF right?).

Curious if anyone's had Melange 3 or Tart of Darkness and would recommend, they both sound pretty cool:

Melange No. 3: "Melange #3 is a blend of three bourbon barrel aged strong ales. White Oak Sap, a wheat wine, our Anniversary Series old ale and our imperial stout, Black Tuesday, join forces in this luxurious strong ale that links some of the best characteristics of each of the contributing beers. Chocolate, dark fruits, oaky vanilla and rich toffee-like character reach through the bourbon veneer for an intensely satisfying quaff." - 98 on BA

Tart of Darkness: "We brewed a stout (no, not Black Tuesday, this one is only 5% abv if you can believe it), but we then decided to throw it into oak barrels...and added our special blend of souring bacterias and yeasts. The result is a perfectly tart yet awesomely dark and roasty sour stout. Not a style you see too often - and in our opinion, not a style you see often enough." - 94 on BA

Melange 1 blends Black Tuesday and Oude Tart. Sounds both compelling and terrifying.

Not buying stuff from Bruery would probably be a good start.

I saw some posts earlier on the per-ounce cost of BCBS versus Black Tuesday - BT is that good, though. I was lucky enough to be invited to a tasting of each BT from 09-12 earlier this year and the older ones were easily the best beers I've ever had.

Goofy,

I've had both of those you mentioned and liked them both a lot. The flavored are pretty much what you'd expect from those descriptions.

I had six geese a laying yesterday and was kinda underwhelmed. Flavor was sorta muddled kinda malty and sweet but nothing really standout about the flavor, just sort of middle of the road ale for me.

i got a 4 pack each of coffee and BW and 2x 4 packs of regular BCBS.

i did not camp out, per se, but i did get to city beer store around 415am and got a bottle of king henry for 20 us dollars for my trouble. they also threw in a half-pound of intelligentsia BCBS blend (whatever that is?) and a poster, which i have since framed

Terp,

Approx how many people were there at 415?

my friend and i were ##12+13 and 11 beat us by about 10s. he got the last bottle of rare for $50

Tonight's selection and then it's back to Heineken. An incredibly boozy triple chocolate milk stout by Flying Monkey's. I'm loving the taste and richness, but it's a little too strong in alcohol for me.

I"m sipping the Stone Southern Charred for the first time right now. Very interesting beer. It's good, but I don't think I'd buy it again. There's a little too much sweet/boozyness to it for my liking. I prefer the regular Double Bastard....which is better for my wallet.

I still have yet to crack mine. Did you try the Flying Monkeys BNL Chocolate Stout from last year? I'm looking forward to comparing the 2. FM has been doing good work; I can't think of a single large-format FM that's been anything short of excellent.

if you're by the Beer Store I'd also recommend the 6-pack of Flying Monkeys Amber Ale (used to be called Robert Simpson Confederation Amber Ale). That's a great one if you like straightforward beers.

[x] thinly veiled attempt to make the US posters jealous of local selection since usually it's the other way around

BTW Spottswoode I'd like to put in a vote for more beer serving pics from you. I love all the bottle/haul pics from others too, but let's see more pics of drinking as well!

just place a few copper pennies in some budweiser and voila, cheap heineken.

Been powerless for a day now, ungh! I haven't tried any of the beers you listed, but I will give them a shot for sure. I actually just started exercising my beer snobbery a couple of years ago and have mainly stayed within IPA's, but I'm branching out and trying new stuff now.

I couldn't finish that chocolate stout last night, it was way too boozy for mem.

hah thanks! I'll keep them coming. Unless it's pennies in a budweiser glass.

For those of you that keep beer around awhile - any advice on coolers or stuff for temperature controlling while aging? Living in SF I'm not sure if we really need it, but it does get hot in the summer sometimes (like, high 70s) and I'm starting to pile up some fairly nice bottles of beer that I'd like to take care of over time.

I imagine most wine coolers would want you to put the bottles on their side, which I've read is bad for beer, though that may be an internet bro fable.

I have zero expertise here so this is what I have gleaned in my overall casual learning (I hesitate to call it research) and not-very-long experience.

-wine is mostly laid down to keep the cork moist. For crown-capped beers this is obviously not a thing at all. For bottle-fermented (IE yeast-in) beers, standing is 100% the way to go. I have stored these laid down, and then stood them up after a few months, and it is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING the literal SHEET of hazy yeast that swirls around, coming off the side of the bottle. For bottle-fermented, stand them up, don't invert or swirl, pour them gently, and leave the sediment in the bottle and discard. BTW this isn't like wine sediment where you can lay it down for years, stand it up for a few days, and it sinks. I imagine cage-and-cork non-bottle-refermented beers would be OK on their side. But I've always seen it advised to stand them up, and never seen votes for laying down.

-now, the point of laying down wine is so that the (natural) cork can stay moist = not dry out = not shrink and leak. If you're standing it up in a relatively humid (read: climate-controlled) space, dryness is not an issue. But that would be a much-more-humid-than-normal space; an Ontario beer writer stores in a facility designed for wine storage, climate-controlled for 60% relative humidity. I can't vouch for it, just giving an anecdote.

-temperature. I have "stored" (IE failed to drink quickly enough) some beers in the fridge for months (3-6), and IMO there is a deterioration effect. I can't say for sure that this is temperature/oxygen, but that's my working theory. IMO it is more obvious for "lighter" beers -- lagers, amber ales, hoppy stuff. BUT a friend of mine claims through his reading that beer should be stored at its serving temperature. FWIW, his beer-storing fridge is much warmer than my (regular) fridge. Probably like 55F vs 40F.

-random wine tidbit: don't store unopened wine in the fridge because the dryness + cool temperatures will cause the cork to shrink -> oxygen gets in -> bleh. I only have 1 data point on this, a sparkling icewine I had in the fridge (sealed/new) for probably a year+. It was definitely not as good as fresh.

-anything hoppy isn't going to store well anyway. Light, heat, and oxygen will all help break down hops into that skunky taste.

the longest I've kept bottles so far is some Unibroue Fin du Mondes (750ml cage and cork, bottle-fermented). When I bought them they already had 2 years in the bottle, but in controlled conditions. I stored them another 2 years after purchase in a dark spot in my condo, in which humidity and heat probably still varied. The bottles were still delicious.


tl;dr = for a few months, don't sweat it much. Longer: store standing in a cellar you should be fine. If you're hardcore, live in a condo, and storing for a year+, THEN maybe consider climate-controlled spaces.


P.S. I have zero actual expertise here and just learned from reading/experience. I would love to be corrected on any misconceptions I might (likely) have.

I tried to see what some of the breweries I enjoy have to say about aging their beers:

http://www.stbcbeer.com/seasonals/se...ing-beer-page/
http://www.stbcbeer.com/black-water/choklat/
http://www.stbcbeer.com/black-water/plum-noir/
http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/21/aging
http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/17/aging
http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/15/aging
http://www.sintsixtus.be/eng/brouwerij.htm

Cliffs: *upright*, dark, cool and stable temp. Temperature overall 35-60F but varies by style: Trappists, stouts/porters/stronger stuff seems to be warmer, more aromatic stuff = cooler.

Storing on the side is OK, and the sediment absolutely will settle back out once you stand it back up. It's physics. Just give it fridge temps and a couple days unmolested. The reason you don't see people advocating storing beer laying down is that there's no advantage to doing so.