I'm having a Scotch right now.

A beer that is. Named Midnight Sun, a "rich, dark & spicy porter". Nice!

I was under the impression that BCBS Coffee wasn't that hard to get, but maybe that's just in comparison to Vanilla and Rare, neither of which are made any more. Have you ever seen any Rare kicking around? I'd kill to try one of those, and I've been trying to trade for one with no luck.

Rare was done only once. They used pappy 23 barrels for it, and those aren't easy to get. I hope they do it again, but who knows.

Coffee comes out only once per year(and i actually think it may be on hiatus). It's hard to find at stores when it does come out and sells through fast.

FWIW - I had to trade for the 2 bottles of Coffee that I got. Traded 2 bottles of Founders Better Half which I was stupidly lucky to get. I don't think you can ever expect to get the variants off the shelf.

Sour Beers are an expensive habit. I need help. Some recent gets:

Nice haul there. Cascade puts out some great stuff. As for spending too much, just wait until you start having bottles shipped over from Belgium! (Bought some Cantillon online for my wife's birthday last year, and wow. Spendy, but worth it.)

really nice sour beer haul, anyone know any websites that deliver beers? I live in California and always wanted to try some Founders, Bells, Three floyds but never had the chance. I know beer shipping is "illegal" but figure theres a way around it.

I got the Cascades on Letspour.com

I only think it is illegal to ship to certain states as this doesn't seem like a rouge website. Basically it cost slightly more per bottle but if you get 6 bottles, the shipping is free (if you paid for shipping it wouldn't be worth it unless its really special).

They send out daily emails with new beers and some of the good hard to get ones are limited to one per customer per order, so thats kinda how they get you. So for me to buy the Apricot Ale, I ordered 5 other beers. Then a few days later they offered the Kriek Ale and I ordered that along with another Apricot Ale and 4 other beers.

If I knew the Apricot Ale would have lasted I could have waited hoping something else would come out and I could have gotten both Cascades in one shipment, but some of the hard to get stuff sells out pretty quick.

The 2009 Apricot is one of the greatest things I've ever drank. The **** explodes when you open it, but it so so delicious - so glad I have 1 left.

PA is one of the banned states so I can never order beer online. Can't complain too much given how much great beer we get in Philly, but as a fanboy of Cascade it would be nice to just order the stuff online and not have to deal with trading for it.

Last year i missed out on the firestone walker invatational beer fest but definitely wont make the same mistake this year. They get a crap load of good breweries to come out there, dogfish, founders, stone, sierra nevada, three floyds, u name it and they where there. Love firestone walker great brewery.

Love the bookers in the back. There are only 11 bottles of that here in Seoul. I was fortunate enough to taste

Trading on sites like BeerAdvocate is an alternative to ordering online. Some people think it's a hassle, but I have fun doing it. And if you're in California, with access to Pliny the Elder and other good stuff, you should have no trouble whatsoever trading for Founders, Bells, etc.

A bottle of Bookers should last awhile. Its super strong.

I was about to hijack the wine thread when I suddenly thought "omg, people like beer too. There's probably a thread like this for beer". And so it proved.

Hopefully I don't get turfed out of the thread for this first post since this is not really a connoisseur beer. More like a pseudo-connoisseur beer.



I was in the mood for a hoppy as **** beer tonight and I thought "Americans. Those guys can always be counted on to help you out if you want to be drowned in a vat of hops". So I went and grabbed this. It's made with fresh hops that have not been dried and as a result have intense herbal and vegetal type notes.

It is, as expected, ludicrously overhopped and even in my hop-desiring frame of mind tonight I gave it a raised eyebrow look on first taste. But there's a pretty good beer under there. The wet hops give great complexity of flavour and there's a nice balanced weight to the beer - it feels good in my mouth. The 6.7% alcohol is not apparent. I don't regret buying it.

While I'm guessing (from the number of places I've seen it, both here and when I was in the US) that Sierra Nevada is not really a boutique brewer, we are starting to get much more of a variety of beers here from the US.

Do you guys get any decent Australian beer there? When I was in Europe and let on that I was Australian, one common response was "Australian eh? FOSTERS AMIRIGHT?". Which is even more annoying than "Oh you're American, LOL MILLER TIME AMIRIGHT?" because people actually drink Miller's in the US and Fosters is virtually unavailable here. I don't think Australia is that amazing a country for boutique beer, New Zealand is better (one of two things they do better than us, the other being playing rugby). But like everywhere, we have some good beers.

In my book, Northern Hemisphere is as well crafted as beer gets. Sierra Nevada may be huge, but they do crafts as well as anybody. From Northern Hemisphere (wet hop) to Southern Hemisphere (fresh hop) to Hoptimum (dry hop) to the smaller batch Chico Estate editions, they know how to make a world class IPA.

Yeah as my palate got used to the quantity of hops, I was enjoying it more and more as I drank it. Just a satisfying structured feel to it. IIRC though I tried the standard large-production IPA from Sierra Nevada once in the past and thought it was awful.

Chris, we don't really get good Aussie beer here. There's obv fosters and my store sometime carries James boaggs. We do get the odd NZ craft brew, but it still isn't all that common(at least here in the Midwest)

I had the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale last night. A buddy of mine who is also on these forums said he had heard good things about it so we bought a 12 pack last night. I am not a big fan of IPA's and although this beer is not an IPA, it tasted an awful lot like the ones I've had in the past. It wasn't nearly as bitter as the regular Sierra Nevada IPA and was definitely a bit sweeter. All in all, it was a decent brew to chill on (I had 3 total), but that bitter aftertaste began to show up in my mouth causing me to shut it down. However, it is a high abv beer which is always good

~JB

Even though it merely says "ale" on the label, I'm pretty sure Celebration is an IPA. I think most of Sierra Nevada's stuff is good, not great ... but I LOVE Celebration. Look forward to it every year.

I used to believe the Foster's commercials, until I met a few Aussies in college who told me Foster's is considered crap over there. After finally going to Australia and NZ last year, I find it funny that they'd consider ANY beer "crap" when they drink swill like Hahn, Toohey's, etc.

That said, I did enjoy Stone & Wood Pacific Ale a lot, and Fat Yak (I think that's the name) was pretty good as well. But we don't get them here. I've seen Moa (NZ) in Seattle, as well as 8wired and Renaissance.

So I had the Southern Hemisphere last night. Still a pretty decent beer but not as good as the Northern imo. Dried hops so kind of the difference between dried pine needles and fresh ones. Still quite a lot of hops but not vegetal/herbal. A little touch of sweetness as well. Much preferred the Northern and spent my whole time wishing I was drinking that. The Southern had probably had 6 months on the shelf so that might be a consideration.

I used to drink a lot of James Boag Premium when I was younger and had less taste, but it's too sweet and limp wristed for me now. Used to enjoy that touch of honey but I don't rate it anymore.

Oh most people drink a lot of terrible beer here, no argument. Just like a lot of people in America drink Bud Light and Coors. It's just we don't drink Fosters.

Stone & Wood beers are generally good. Fat Yak I don't rate at all. It makes me sad that that was your #2 best beer here.

Moa are super good, or they were when I last had their stuff like 4 years ago.

Haha, Yes!!!! I told a couple of my buddies that it tasted just like an IPA and they both told me it was not. And I thought they were the beer snobs...

Didn't mean to imply that Fat Yak was my No. 2, just didn't remember the names of some of the other beers I had on my trip. Fat Yak, along with Little Creatures Pale Ale, got high marks from me because they were pretty good and very widely available.

Other favorites, now that you've spurred me to go look at my notes:
-- 4 Pines Pale Ale (in Manly near Sydney; don't think they bottle)
-- Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel Nelson's Blood Porter
-- Mike's IIPA (from a tiny brewery in New Zealand; had it at Hashigo Zake "cult beer bar" in Wellington, and it was by far the best beer of the trip)
-- Bellingen Dark Ale (offered only at the Federal Hotel in Bellingen, a small town near Coffs Harbour)

4 Pines do bottle now, I've had it but don't remember it.

Little Creatures Pale is a very solid beer. Probably one of the best ones that's widely available.

Ommegang is a great brewery. Try Rare Vos if you can find it, or their Belgian Pale Ale. I'm looking forward to trying out Three Philosophers and their Abbey Ale.