If its a Flemish red, and you haven't had one of those before, it'll be different. Are you into sour beers in general?

The Brooklyn Black Choc. Stout is a good beer. Sierra Pale is the ur-American pale, so you should definitely have that if you haven't before. If you get it, could you check the freshness on it? The fresher the better, but mostly I'm just curious what kind of freshness you can expect over there.

kwak is a belgian pale. So, it's very possible that sixfour has had some examples before

pretty certain i can get the sierra pale at my nearest supermarket anyway

The Flying Dog beers are good. Honestly they are all probably good as long as their not like 6mo+ old.

Id probably order the Celis White mostly so you can say you had the original Hoegaarden recipe from Pierre Celis. Thats if youre into wheat beers obv.

Goose IPA is pretty awesome too

Both the Stone bottles they have are awesome too - the smoked porter and the self-righteous ale (big black IPA). As was said above, check the date if you can with all american IPAs.... they lose so much with time imo.

Damn, Pliny the Younger is blowing up in Philly right now. There are about 15 bars that got 1 keg each and are all doing some pretty unique things to celebrate, most are donating a portion (in some cases 100% of the proceeds) to charity which is awesome.

Others are having raffels for "tickets" for a chance to buy a $15 glass which is weaksauce.

Another place is making it a black tie affair with a red carpet and everything, I actually find that pretty douchy.

We are pretty lucky in Philly to have all of these options.

http://philadelphia.foobooz.com/2012...liny-calendar/

as promised:

Bruery Saison de Lente

poured from 750 into a tulip. Pours a nice solid orange color with a good foamy head

Well balanced and deep aromas of fresh citrus, spices, white florals, spice tones and a touch of funk+orange peels. Excellent depth with very good complexity

medium/full bodied with a silky smooth feel. Polished with great flavors of orange peels, fresh picked citrus, white florals and some bits of spices

One of my favorite beers on the whole. This is as good as it's ever been. I'll certainly sit on a few more bottles to let the brett characteristics show through more

36 hours:

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Brag: Local bar finally got Green Flash
Beat: It will likely be gone by the time I get done with everything this weekend
Variance: I have to travel enough for work that I should be back by SD by the end of the year and I can stop in the actually brewery

Enjoy your big day tomorrow(or Saturday?)! Looks like it will be a ton of fun! Best wishes!

Man, I knew Sierra Nevada was environmentally conscious but I never realized to what extent.

http://www.sierranevada.com/environment/solar.html

Those utopias are some serious beer porn. Please give a TR after the tasting.

Wow. I hope you're buying tickets for these raffles. Sounds like a great day.

I may go for 10 tickets for Raffle #1, they are capped at 100 tickets so I'd rather go for a 10% chance then spreading it out.

was tempted by a raging bitch, but passed for a local beer that i'd not had before. as far as freshness goes, the beer i did have was dated best before july but that was obviously stuck on by importers to satisfy EU laws rather than indicating when it was actually brewed, the beer being



yeah, it was decent. equivalent of just a touch over $4/bottle, into glass like the above. quite a citrusy nose, but initially quite sharp/sour/dry, not quite with the subtlety that i was hoping for. settled down nicely into an enjoyable enough drink, but not something that i'd rush back to in the same way that i'd recommend, say, a DFH90

wow my camera is truly awful

I had The Bruery Oude Tart tonight and it was surprisingly good. I was a little wary about the style but it was wonderfully sour and a nicely complex sour. Highly recommended.

Raging Bitch is pretty darn good beer. Give it a shot next.

am i the only one who thinks this is a crap gimmick from a company that makes sucky beers at best?

Have you ever read the reviews? It's legit.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/25759

I'm gonna try to remember to look at the date on SN Pale Ale next time I'm in the store. It's in a lot of the regular supermarkets here in the UK. I usually pass by - Brewdog FTW!

I grabbed some Stone & other US stuff here in Scotland the other day - in a specialty store though. Have a couple of bottles of 1pt 6 oz Double Bastard with release date 2010 - who knows how long theyve been on the shelf. The SN Torpedoes I got have 27/05/12 stamped on them ( I got there just a couple of days after that shipment came in apparently). The Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (yummm) has Winter 11-12 on them; they've been around for a few weeks at least....I know cos I've been ploughing em since Jan . So it's not too long a time journey to get some of those foreign exotic beers obv.

I assume the west coast US beers come by slower boat. East coast may be more direct on a busier route.

I relocated last yr and our container had to sit in CA for a few weeks until it could get loaded on a ship down to the canal and then across. Obv took a while extra for the long boat trip also. The East coast to UK is just a very direct few days or summin and there's lots of traffic. I'm obv making all this chit up from some spurious evidence btw so take it FWIW. Maybe they air transport Chocolate Stout in Business class; wtf do I know?! But I'll try to collect more data points anyway .

yes ive read them

i guess i have to search it out and try some, i hope ill keep an open mind when i do

beat - waitrose discontinuing sierra nevada torpedo

at least it's been cut to <$2/bottle

pours slightly darkish gold colour (nowhere near as dark as combination of bad camera/backdrop/lighting makes out) with solid bit of head. nose is nice and hoppy, but the thing is very nicely balanced. would say it's crisp rather than dry, it reminds me a bit of thornbridge jaipur except slightly more refined and you can tell it's about 1.5% stronger. you can tell it's fairly powerful bit it doesn't overload you with anything. have to say this is pretty megaelite