Professionally. I'm actually not at Sam anymore, I'll post something about it sometime after January 2018, AKA 12 months after January 2017.

Nice, was that your first time there? How'd you like it? I think I've posted a few times that it's one of my favorite spots in the city for beer.

Found some M-43 from Old Nation and my god that is a great beer. Never had a hazy NE style ipa before

Witch's Hat Brewing Company in Mi near Ann Arbor is getting a lot of talk. I think they're starting to distribute more but I've never seen it.

Does Transient distribute at all? Doesn't look like it from their website.

Goofy,

Obv great bar, though IMO the layout could be a little better. But great beer and staff. Also heard Amsterdam Cafe is reopening in a few months, another excellent spot.

Good start to a CO trip and you picked 3 really good breweries to check out, but if you are into wild ales, I think TRVE, Baere, Weld Werks and Powder Keg are worth looking into as all do very good wild ales.

Doing a SARA, Rare Barrel, Russian River trip is actually a very pleasant drive. Sure the time in a car can get to you, but the drive itself is actually very beautiful.

yeah norcal is great driving.

buff you ever have kent falls coffeemaker? coffee brett ipa. Sounds like a disaster but I was pleasantly surprised. I quite enjoyed it.

Had some people over Friday and opened some beers. Got to use my flight glasses/paddles, which I always enjoy.



Here's what we drank:



From left to right:
Tree House Curiosity 36. This was a good pale ale, and I was excited to try Tree House after hearing so much about it. I would happily drink more of it, but it didn't seem dramatically better to me than other midwest IPAs/pale ales.

Tree House Haze. I don't remember this one as much, other than a generally positive feeling towards it. I have another can that was left here, so I may have more to say at a later date.

Tree House That's What She Said. I generally don't like milk stouts; this was above average for me in that category.

Hoof Hearted Don't Tell Mike. "Double IPA w/ Hibiscus and Pinot Noir Juice". I thought this was terrible; only beer to get dumped by me. I could tell there was a good beer hiding underneath the hibiscus and pinot noir, but those flavors did not get along with one another.

Lagunitas Dark Swan - I thought this was gross when I tried it earlier, one of the wives drank this bottle and liked it. So she took home the remaining 4 bottles I had.

Cantillon Kriek. Great.

Bell's Oberon - the woman who had this liked it. I'm not crazy about it.

Lindeman's Cuvee Rene Special Blend. This was great. Pick whatever typical adjectives apply to good gueuze. Funky? Horse blanket? I don't know what those mean, but sure.

Rodenbach Alexander. Clear winner of the night. This was an awesome cherry pie taste with just a little bit of tartness, but not overwhelming sourness. So good. This was the first time I've tried it and I can easily imagine ordering more.

Tilquin Squared. The original vintage of this is maybe one of my favorite beers of all time, and I was excited to get a few bottles of this newer vintage. This bottle was a big let down. Not close to drain pour, but nowhere near the magic I've experienced with multiple bottles of the first vintage. I really, really hope the remaining bottles are better. I will say that this bottle did get better over the course of the night as it got some air.

Zima. My wife bought a 6 pack and seemed to like it as much as she did 15-20 years ago.

Yeah, had Coffeemaker before. Its decent for the style, but not something I seek out.

Modern Times is the latest brewery to get acquired

I brought a few local-ish beers home from Oregon to try over the next ~week - all are barrel aged stout-ish beers in the $10 to $15 range. Entry #1: Wild Ride Brewing (Redmond, OR, ~10 mi north of Bend) Sweet Rye'venge, imperial porter with vanilla and cacao nibs aged in rye barrels.

This is probably a bit harsh of me - my girlfriend liked this beer a fair amount - but to me this tastes like a young brewery's first attempt at barrel aging something. It came off to me as overcarbonated and the vanilla flavor really muddles, rather than working with, all the roastiness and rich flavors you'd expect to get from the BA imperial porter side of the beer. It resulted in a flavor I would describe as "thin", though the gf appreciated it as a "light" flavor. Personally, I imagine if you want a "light" flavor, there's no reason to put something in a barrel - but, that's just me.

Interestingly, a friend of my dad's is an investor in this brewery and from what my dad told me about it, they've been pretty successful despite being in a market (the Redmond-Bend area is SO full of breweries, in a county with 160k people) that you'd already think is fairly saturated. This is the only beer I've had from them, so maybe it's an outlier, but I assumed before buying this that you'd have to stand out to succeed in such a competitive place.


On a similar note, we had lunch last week at a brewpub in Redmond run by Cascade Lakes Brewing. On a Friday afternoon it was packed during lunch and the beer (I tried two, a standard blonde and a caramel porter) was decidedly mediocre. I thought the food was good, so maybe that swings it, or maybe literally everyone in Deschutes County drinks craft beer and you just cannot fail opening a brewery there.

BA fans,



That Mexican hot chocolate monsters park sounds great, but damn, $30! Picked up the Doom to give it a try because why not?



All of those almanacs are great.



I didn't really get any coconut, but tons of lime, tropical fruit, citrus. Delicious beer, tastes like a very lightly hoppy NE IPA.

So not much brett out of it? Really curious about that one, sounds fantastic.

RDH,

Nice sourness, but not really much funk at all.

Well that just makes me more curious about that farmhouse-brett base, because brett doesn't sour beer.

Pretty jealous of the SF Almanac selection. We get some stuff but not nearly as much in Chicago.

I picked up a bottle of Doom at a similarly ridiculous price and was massively disappointed. Just an all-out miss for me.

Was in MA this week and got to swing by Tree House. Julius on tap, Lights On in growler, and Old Man in cans (haven't tried yet). Also a few other things while chilling by a lake for the week. Will write up thoughts later. Julius definitely the most "balanced" and elegant of the stuff, but Lights On I just really enjoyed a ton and could see killing a day outdoors grilling and drinking. Maybe it'd be too sweet after a while I guess but sheesh so easy to drink.

Yea it's tough to do much better than lights on for a daily pounder.

SF juicy beer fans,



Cellarmaker double moonage. So good and so drinkable. Big citrus flavor double IPA.



Can release for $5.50/16oz today. Yum!

IPA > DIPA imo. I might even be going down the APA > IPA route. I'm old.

Just picked up a bunch of SKIMPY SPARROW from trillium for a cookout this weekend. Road soda'd on the way home. Better than the last time I had it. Trillium seems pretty dialed in at this point. Haven't had an overly green/too fresh beer from them in a while.

Kid,

I agree IPA > DIPA in general, but that double moonage is so juicy, refreshing, and drinkable. Just a great beer that I could drink multiple pints of in a row easily. Not something I'd say for most DIPAs.

6%-7% IPA is my wheelhouse. Summer is definitely APA season though when you're crushing beers on the beach or patio

I heard from one of my beer buddies that Charlton is opening tomorrow. I saw some pictures and the place looks fantastic. I do not plan on going as I'm sure it will be a zoo. Going to be interesting to see what production and limits are once the place is fully functioning.

Hey guys,

Going to be in Denver and Colorado Springs for a few days and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on any Colorado beers to be on the lookout for if I get a chance to go to a liquor store.

I've heard good things about Avery.

Weldwerks makes the best stuff in CO, but you'd have to go to the brewery.

It is indeed open but just on site pours today.

They've already been brewing there which is why limits are somewhat up. We'll see what it's like.