Man, I was going to post a review of Urthel's Hop-It after stormstarter's enthusiastic recommendation, but I just cracked it open, and I think I must have gotten a bad bottle or something. It poured with absolutely zero head. None! It's totally flat, and tastes like a Budweiser, except with a slightly grassier hopping and no carbonation. I taste nothing of fruit or spice or delicousness. Having paid almost $14 for this beer, I'm bitterly, bitterly disappointed, and would give the lowly rating of , but I do recognize that this is probably variance. The cork doesn't look to be damaged, though, and I looked at the bottle for a bottling date or something, but it wasn't there. If it wasn't for storm's review saying that this beer should have a billowy head and many delicious flavors, I'd say never buy this beer again. I'm not sure I'll give it another shot myself, though, since it may be that the bottles at Beers of the World have been sitting there for ages and are now all bad. I'll talk to the guys at BotW next time I shop there and see if I can get a sense if I'll have a better result w/ a different bottle.

I had two of the Harpoon IPA's tonight. I really enjoyed the flavor and the taste of the beer. I considered it to be a light in carbonation and a very easy drink. Sometimes with nicer beer I find it a bit of a challenge to drink but I found the drinkability very good. When i poured it the color was very nice and the head of the beer stayed with it the entire time. It had a nice fruity flavor to it and really reminded me of the Summer Ale I drank earlier this week. I found the taste to be a little too bitter but I think that might be due to the amount of hops in the beer. I was reading the label and it said something about using alot of hops.
Overall definetly a beer I would buy again. I am interested in trying more IPA's and I might try Dogfishead next as I noticed that next to it in the store. I would rate it 4/5.

Wookie,
I was going to get Blue Moon but i had my heart set on trying the IPA.

Tonight I'm reviewing a Strong Scotch Ale from Founders (Michigan) called Dirty Bastard. It weighs in at 8.3% abv.

This is their flagship beer. I previously have had their Centennial IPA and was very impressed with that beer, but had never tried Dirty Bastard so I picked up a 6 pack the other week for about 10 bucks. This was the last beer from the 6 pack.

The beer pours a dark red, even brownish with a thin off white head. Sweet, fruity alcoholic aromas and a sweet, caramel taste. Malty. A nice hoppy finish.

Overall, a very complex tasting beer for me. I would recommend this beer to those of you who do not dislike a sweeter tasting beer. It's a very subjective thing, but personally I have a limit to sweetness in a beer and with this beer I did not reach that limit. That being said, I don't think I could enjoyably drink more than one, maybe two of these in one sitting. rating.



One last thing, afaik they recommend most, if not all of their beers be served at 42 degrees. This is a little cooler than I generally drink my beers and a little cooler than I usually see recommended for some styles of beer. Not a big deal or anything, I just found it a little strange.

Something went horribly, horribly wrong. My Hop-It was alive and kickin', with the best head I've ever seen (most of the reviews on BeerAdvocate mention the awesome head as well, so mine wasn't a fluke). Sorry to hear this, I think you'd really enjoy a good bottle of this (although where I'm from, I got the Hop-It in a pick-six that ran me 12 bucks for the whole pack, so maybe it's not worth the price where you are)

I just got home from the store.

I got three sixer's.

Hop-It
Lagunitas IPA
Ithica Flower Power IPA

Its gonna be a good weekend.

I'm not good at reviwing, as I cannot use the colorful language to describe the beers.

However, I can give my little synopsis.

Friday night I tried the Lagunitas IPA.

This thing just explodes with flavor.

Sierra Nevada Pale is my all-time favorite beer but, wow.

I just fell in love with this.... it is incredibly bold.

I had three of them and a couple oxycodone and life was good.

Saturday night I have had four Hop-It's.

I paid 4.95 each for a the 11.2 oz bottle.

I find it to be very strong and pours with a large head.

I find the flavor lacking compared to the Lagunitas... but I got tipsy after 2.5 of these...


Overall, I found this brew to be very good but, not worth the money.

I absolutely LOVE the lagunitas, and I will be purchasing this alot in the years to come.

I'm yet to try the Itchaca
but, I will some time during the week.

Sorry that I didnt describe the head and the flavors but, I am not very well versed in this area.

Kev,

If you can get Ithaca's Cascazilla, that's also a great beer, maybe better than the flower power. If you like the Lagunitas, it'll be right up your alley.

Storm,

If the Hop-it comes in 11.2s, then I'll look for them. They'll be less likely to have gone bad than a corked bottle.

The flower power was very good as well.

It had a nice flavorful aftertaste, somewhat smoky and a little bitter (this is good).

I definately see myself purchasing this again sometime.

I'm a n00b at this but if I had to rate the beers I bought this weekend on a 1 to 5 scale... i'd give the Lagunitas 5, Ithaca 4 and Hop-It 3.

The Hop-It was the most expensive but, maybe my taste buds just prefer the earthy IPA's... Hop-It calls itself a "blond" ale on the label.

Or, it could just be innate patriotism pushing me towards the domestics!

kev,

Paragraphs are your friend.

Wook, storm,

I've eyed Urthel's stuff for a long time and always pass just because their logo/dwarf dude is so frickin' annoying.

o,

I think Harpoon's IPA is fairly solid, but nothing special. Generally that's how I feel about Harpoon, which is more of a compliment than a put down. I can always count on reliably solid beer from them. Plus their Winter Warmer is the bomb.

sorry Colin,

I find posts easier to read when the lines are well spaced.

Don't mean to derail and not being a dick, but I don't really see a difference in these two posts and both are very easy to read for me.

Also, a few reviews to come in the next couple of days.

All,

I've been thinking about redoing the index that I'd made for this thread, since the current one is totally busto with the switch in forum software. However, this is a huge undertaking. Since I can't use tables in vB or any HTML code at all, the best formatting I could do would be something like

Beer Style

• Beer in this category
  • Brewed in
  • ABV
    • Reviewed by (as a link): Score
    • Link to another review: Score
• Next beer in this category

etc.

This wouldn't be bad, but I'd lose basically all the work I'd done on this so far, and making it would be totally on my shoulders. I can't say my enthusiasm would be high.

Alternatively, what would you guys think of making a wiki somewhere that anyone could update? I might be able to use some of the HTML code I already have, and a few more participants in this thread might help out in updating some of the links. Does anyone know a free/easy place I could start such a wiki page? Would any of you be interested in helping update it a bit once I got it started?

http://www.beertown.org/events/wbc/w...ners_2008.html

World Beer Cup winners just announced - a very large list on that link.

Blue Moon won for best large brewery - interesting. List shows how many entries in each category and the gold, silver and bronze winners. I think there are way too many categories - I mean - do you really need to differentiate between American style pale ale and English style? Still a huge list of many names I've never heard of. More beer please......

Wookie - I could help out if it doesn't involve anything technical or involving programming.

I dunno about too many categories. There is a difference in taste between an APA and an EPA.

Looking over that list, it seems to be about equal parts solid picks, beers I've never heard of, and utter bull****. For example:

Category 41: Belgian-Style White (or Wit)/Belgian-Style Wheat (35 Entries)

Gold Hoegaarden
InBev Belgium N.V./S.A.
Jupille-sur-Meuse, Belgium

Silver Ommegang Witte
Brewery Ommegang
Cooperstown, New York

Bronze Mill Street Belgian-Style Wit
Mill Street Brewery
Toronto, Canada

Never heard of the bronze winner. The silver winner is from a brewery I love, and this is a beer I like from them. And then wtf is Hoegaarden doing at #1? I mean, it's certainly not bad beer, but there's a long list of Belgian-style whites I like better.

Also, many beers on that list seem to be mis-categorized. Maybe they were entered into a category with softer competition? But, like La Fin Du Monde won the gold for Belgian Strong Pale Ales, but it says on the bottle that it's a tripel. Tastes similar to any other tripel I've had, too. Anderson Valley's Brother David Double took bronze in the Belgian Strong Dark Ale category, but it wasn't entered (or didn't place) in it's proper category: dubbels.

Beers I'm happy to see get some love:

The Wise ESB
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle, WA
Silver, ESBs (this is a great beer from a smallish brewery if you ever get to try it. I think they've recently started bottling it)

La Fin du Monde
La Brasserie Unibroue
Chambly, Quebec
Gold, Belgian Strong Pale Ales

Allagash Dubbel
Allagash Brewing Co.
Portland, Maine
Gold, Belgian Dubbels (although I was surprised it was #1. There are one or two others I prefer)

Brooklyn Lager
The Brooklyn Brewery
Bronze, American Amber Lager (although it bills itself as a European-style lager)

JW Dundee's Doppelbock
High Falls Brewing Co.
Bronze, Doppelbocks (from my city. Haven't tried it, actually)

Allagash Curieux
Allagash Brewing Co.
Portland, Maine
Bronze, Wood- and Barrel-aged Strong Beer (I'll have to try the silver and gold winners if they're ranking them ahead of one of my 3 favorite beers on the planet)

The ones that beat the Curieux were:

Paradox Grain
BrewDog
Fraserburgh, United Kingdom (gold)

Silver Elmer's Reserve
Newport Beach Brewing Co.
Newport Beach, California (silver)

Allagash Tripel
Allagash Brewing Co.
Portland, Maine
Silver, Tripels (more love for a great brewery)

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
The Brooklyn Brewery
Brooklyn, New York
Gold, British Imperial Stout (surprised it was this high, but I buy lots of this beer when its in season)

Aventinus
Schneider Weisse
Kelheim, Germany
Bronze, Weizenbocks (I'll have to try the Penn Weizen Bock (silver) and the Plank Heller Weizenbock (gold) since I the Schneider)

Gonzo Imperial Porter
Flying Dog Brewery
Denver, Colorado
Gold, American Imperial Stout (This is a damn good beer, but it's no imperial stout. It's an imperial porter. Just like the name says)

Hey there. I am a bit of a beer fanatic too and I just thought I'd say a hello. Might do some reviews in the future. For my birthday in January I was given a jeroboam/double magnum (3 litres) of Chimay Blue. I plan to age the beer for maybe ten years before I drink it. It is so big and so exciting.

Ten years? That seems like an awfully long time, and you risk the beer going bad. I don't know much about aging beer, but I'd do a little homework.

Well I have done a little bit of research and it seems 3-4 years is the standard for getting the beer to its peak. So my estimate may be a little high. I will re-evaluate after 3-4 years and see how I want to progress. It will also depend on whether I buy more of these bottles to age. I have heard of people drinking 20-25 year old bottles though and still rating them highly.

This is an interesting read.

http://www.ratebeer.com/Beer-News/Article-184.htm

Also, the fact that the volume of mine is especially large means that it can be aged for longer. The guy in the article was typically drinking 330ml bottles.

From the Chimay website:

Store preferably in a vertical position so that the yeast remains at the bottom of the bottle, at a temperature of 10-12°C (50 to 53,6°F).

The consume by date given on some labels is a recommendation but does not mean that the beer cannot be drunk after that date. It can never, in fact, go "bad ".

Chimay Blue/Grand Reserve being vintage, some connoisseurs keep them for 10, 15 or 20 years. It will oxidise in the course of time.

The Red/Premier must be consumed more quickly and we recommend that you drink Triple/Cinq Cents as young as possible so that it retains a maximum of bitterness. The personal taste of the drinker will influence the storage time of our beers.

While it seems like a long time, it sure would be an interesting experiment. When cellaring, it would be best to keep it away from light and cooler than 70 degrees. I've been aging some stuff myself and I really have no idea when I'll drink some of it.

A while back one of the local beer stores in Manhattan pulled out some De Dolle Stille Nacht bottled in 1996. A bunch of friends and I drank a couple of bottles and it was some kind of good. Though there are hints of carboard in there, the overwhelming complexity of it really takes over. On the opposite side of the coin, I've had stuff that was around 3 or 4 years old and was totally shot. It's somewhat risky for sure, but worth it if you think it'll turn out for the better.

I'll post more about this later, but I recently got back from a trip to Copenhagen and Stockholm. While these places may not immediately jump out at you as beer havens, I must tell you that aside from being amazing cities in their own rights, the beer culture in both places is absolutely spectacular.

Just bought this selection at my local supermarket bottle shop.



From left to right: Florisgaarden Framboise (Belgium), Knappstein Reserve Lager (Australia), Hoegaarden Grand Cru (Belgium), Rochefort Trappistes 8 (Belgium), Leffe Radieuse (Belgium), La Guillotine (Belgium), Gippsland Gold Bitter Pale Ale (Australia).

I plan on drinking these in the next few weeks and will write up some reviews.

The Grand Ridge Gippsland Gold (330ml bottle) poured a medium amber colour with a fair, slightly off-white head that dissipated quite quickly. Aroma was hoppy and fruity, with hints of banana and caramel. The taste was malty with a toffee type sweetness. It also had some fruity notes. Creamy mouthfeel with small, tight bubbles and a lingering bitterness. Dry finish. Very easy to drink. It was a different take on the pale ale style and I enjoyed it very much. I would rate this beer between 3 and 3.5 out of 5.



and a bit.

wrongwrongwrongwrong
wrongwrongwrongwrong
wrongwrongwrongwrong

Little Creatures>>>>CD.

CD is just a boring standard boring beer.

So, so, so many better beers, like, VB is actually better, because it actually has some taste and history.

Though carlton has great ads, thats it.

Filenky im assuming your from australia?

What are some of your fave australian micro's/botiques?

I really like the Grand Ridge and Little Creatures brands. Love LC Pale Ale. I haven't really had that many Australian Micro/boutiques yet. I'm very keen to try:

Thorogoods Billy Bs Golden Malted Apple Beer

Redoak Special Reserve

Redoak Baltic Porter

And especially this last one:

Murrays Icon 2IPA

Was anybody at Dark Lord Day today?

That place was nuts, my first time going.

I got 6 bottles and another 6 as well (luckily gf doesn't drink so I came away with 12 total).

There looked to be some really nice guest beers on tap for the event, but after waiting in line for like 5 hrs and doing a little "pre DLD" partying another local brewery last night, wasn't really in the mood to stick around.