I've been on a barley wine kick lately, trying one from just about every brewery I can get my hands on. Impressions so far are that I don't care much for SN's - just too hoppy and the sixer I have has a somewhat hot alcohol flavor to it - Southern Tier's was ok, Stone's was interesting - I think I thought it had an unusual malt sweetness to it - Lagunitas was just ok, and my biggest surprise so far has been really liking Killer Penguin barley wine from Boulder Beer. In general I've thought that Boulder's beers are pretty meh, but the price was right on the Penguin ($5.99/22oz? $6.99?) so I picked it up. Very nice.

I've been trying to taste them in flights, so I can compare each to the others, and I always include a bottle of my homebrew barley wine, so things get a bit fuzzy toward the end of the bottles.

My local liquor barn lately has been putting out a clearance table with high alc beers that I guess they consider past date. I loaded up on Great Divide's barley wine and Mendocino's barley wine for $2.99/22oz. Haven't cracked them yet.

I really liked Great Divide's when I had it a while back.

I usually try to have one a few nights a week. I probably only go out to beer establishments 2-3 times a month now, and that seems to always include 3-5 beers.

The local brewery has a mug club which I'm a member of. They have tappings usually once a month (they just switched brewers so there's been a few month delay, if any of you are in Oregon I have a name for you to keep an eye on) and that includes 1-3 free beers and now free food, so those are kind of killer. I had 3 milk stouts (lower abv and drinkable, around 5%) an APA and a guest tap from Two Brother's the other night (their red rye which I didn't particularly love, had a lingering rubbery taste to me which I did not care for), so those have to take a toll on the calories.

These are key. A huge "county line" type liquor store I used to live by had a rather large but unorganized craft beer section. The imports, particularly the German beers, were always dusty, so I avoided those. I did, however, get a nice old stock ale that was several years old (north coast I believe it is) for cheap. It is quite a deal when you find these mistaken discount bins. I always check the Binny's near me when I am there and rummage through the discount beer area for any "age friendly" brews. Unfortunately, those folks seem to have somewhat of a clue as to what can stay on the shelf and what cannot.

I went through a brief phase of taking iphone photos of beer I was drinking and uploading them to facebook and I didn't know about this thread!

well then











That's a garlic bagel with pastrami and cream cheese in the last one. Yum with a capital Y.

Which of the above did you like (best)?

I've been wanting to try the Victory Golden Monkey but it's like $12/6 pack, and I'd rather just have something from Belgium.

Maybe RDH or even Wookie can weigh in on this one, but I wouldn't necessarily assume most Belgian beers are better than their American (belgian style) counterparts.

I don't know enough about them to give my own opinion, but I've heard it from more than a few brewer's and other beer people.

Of course there is always going to be subjectivity, but if they're comparable, why not give it a try?

Wookie,

The only one I thought was below average for a microbrew was the widmer W'09; there just wasn't much to it.

Golden monkey is a run of the mill tripel which definitely puts it ahead of the curve but there are lots of better tripels out there. I just got a six-pack to drink when I'm feeling unusually victorious :-).

Double black is good, it's a solid coffee stout (I really like coffee beers).

Pipeline porter is my favorite coffee beer ever. The kona coffee and porter flavors just complement each other perfectly.

I also really enjoyed Mighty Arrow and I can't even really say why. It's a pale ale but with something extra about it that's smooth and delicious.

I'm not saying that. Ommegang/Allagash make very good Belgian style beers. I really think New Belgium nailed their version of a Tripel (ironically named Trippel), and it's a ****ing steal for $7.50/6 pack @ 8%. Something I would keep my fridge stocked with.

Albeit 9.5%, I just curiously wonder why Victory charges $12+ for a sixer of Golden Monkey when it's beeradvocate rated nearly the same as something $5 less like the New Belgium counterpart. You can't lose w/ the NBB Trippel.


Next beer purchase: NBB Might Arrow, I love good APA's (is it better than Bell's Pale Ale?)

imo most belgians are a good amount better than the american counterparts. Exception would be the unibroue line and some of new belgium's beers (particularly la folie and la terroir).

Ommegang and Allagash both put out first class Belgian style beers for a price much lower (usually) than imports.

allagash's white is quite good but we disagree heavily on ommegang

in honor of a nice spring day I broke out this one which I had been saving for a long time



this is a Rasberry Lambic from Cantillon, a super small brewery in Brussels. I visited there about 2 years back, and it's really cool. they are one of the very few breweries who still uses real fruit in their beers; nothing from syrup or concentrate. when they can't find any suitable rasberries they...stop making beer. consequently they often sell out their entire yearly production. their standards are very high. the brewery also takes advantage of spontaneous fermentation with airborne yeast. kind of freaky, really cool though.

I feel like this is "beer" in the sense that it shares common ingredients with other styles, but the taste is so different that it's really a different category. very sour and fruity but yet not sweet.

this bottle is from 2007, and it ages well. as the beer gets older and older the lambic taste takes over from the fruit taste, but the raspberry is still very evident. yes that is a naked girl grinding on some dude on the label.

anyways, this is a great treat. it's not something I would want every day, but it's great outside on a nice day.

Kneel B4 Zod -

ABV on that bad boy? How about a price in American $? Sounds good!

hmm I already tossed the bottle, but iirc it's pretty low in ABV actually, around 5%

I paid $15 for it, which I think is about as cheap as you'll find it, if you can find it. I've seen similar bottles for $20 - $30, though like I mentioned if it's aged it will cost more

Drinking this right now:



Not gonna bother rating it, because I would end up giving all imperial stouts 4,5 or 5 anyways. Sad thing is that this brewery has gone under, so soon it will not be available.

Have to thank the US for it's microbrew scene that eventually made it's way to Scandinavia, which has resulted in us finally having great beer available over here as well.

Sad thing is that we have a government monopoly on sales of alcohol >4,7%, which of course leads to few stores and a frustratingly long process to get new beers (where in the US you can request your local liquor store to get a type of beer and they might have it in 1-2 weeks, here it will easily take 6 months to a year to get a new beer into the system).

So a few of the beers the local Nøgne Ø brewery make is impossible for me to get a hold of, because they just rather ship the whole batch to the US where there is a big market and not an endless road of bureaucracy and fees to go through.

That's a Scandinavian brew? How does it stack up against other imperial stout's you've had?

I've mostly had Scandinavian Imperial Stouts, because the selection of American beer is extremely limited here (when I said that the American microbrew scene had made it's way over here I meant that it had influenced a growth here (especially in Denmark)), and I was stupid/unlucky enough to get into microbrews 1 week after moving back to Norway after 4 years in the US. The only real "dark" American beer available here in Norway is Gonzo Imperial Stout, which is a different style of course.

So unfortunately my ability to compare is very limited. If you are interested in Scandinavian brews you should check out Mikkeller or Nøgne Ø, both of which are available in the US. I really like Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast, but it has a lot of coffe beans in it, so you have to like coffee to like it. If you ever come across Nøgne Ø Sunturn Brew you should try it, I never got the chance because they decided to ship all of it to the US, but people who had the chance to try if from some of the very few cases they kept in Norway said it was spectacular.

Scandinavian microbreweries are mostly American in style, so I guess the taste of Raasted is close to your typical American IS. Had a very "full/round" taste to it though, not so much of a bite. I like Gonzo IP because it has a bite/sting to it, so at least I know it is different from that. But of course, somewhat different style.

I've been curious to try the Nøgne Ø brewery beers but haven't. How are they?

I love 'em. My go to beer is Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout, but I guess it is nothing special in regards of IS, it is just a very good easy drinkable IS. I've had the #100 when it was years old, and was fantastic. Fresh, not so much. The IPA is very good, Dark Horizon is supposed to be very good, but is very expensive (probably 25$ for 0,5L). Never got a chance to get their Dark Horizon first edition, but have 1 bottle of 2nd edition in the cellar that I am waiting for (1st edition won a gold medal in the world championship in Cali last year). Both are 16% I think.

I don't think you can go wrong with a Nøgne Ø, but I guess they are kinda pricey by American standards, because of course Norwegian labor is more expensive, shipping hops from the US is expensive, and shipping the beer back to the US is expensive.

But if you find a beer at a price you can live with you should definitely try it, they have a very good reputation, and I love 'em. And as I said in an earlier post, if you see Sunturn brew you should definitely grab one, it is supposedly spectacular. Not sure about the style, but smokey and different.

I'm going to buy a few Saisons the next time I'm at the liquor store. It's Summer!

Here's my list:

Hennepin
Saison Dupont
Fantôme

I am on a Tripel binge at the moment. What should I expect from these beers? I have yet to try a Saison style beer.

If you drink a Saison expecting a tripel, you're going to be horrendously disappointed. It'll be like drinking chardonnay when you're expecting Scotch. However, that's not meant to imply that there's no such thing as a good chardonnay.

abso,

Make sure you don't get the Dupont in the green bottle. I know they sell 750's in green, but I've also seen 4packs of 12oz in brown bottles, so if all your store has is the green guys, don't assume you can't get something else. Funny story, I was in CA for a wedding a couple weeks ago, and the cocktail hour was outside. They were serving a local place's American Hefe, poured from a bomber into a glass. I had had mine for less than five minutes when I picked it up, started to drink, and then stopped to sniff. I handed it to my gf, who drinks beers I give her but isn't a big beer person. She noticed something off and confirmed it when I told her exactly what it was: the beer got skunked. In less than 5 minutes of drinking after pour.

I've had a couple of the Nogne O beers, the pale and the porter, if I remember correctly. Got them in St. Louis. Both were solid and unspectacular. I remember being surprised that the pale was decent, since I kind of expected it to suck.

Yeah, I'm not expecting it to taste like a Tripel. I've just been drinking a lot of Tripels and White beers lately. Def going to expect something different.

What is wrong with the green bottle Dupont?

I noticed my girlfriend picked up a small 11.2oz bottle of the Foret Saison. That's what I'll be trying today.

saison are universally pretty good but not great beers from what I've had. If you're into belgians and whites then you'll probably find it solid.