The little stand in Bally's (in the back of the casino where it goes into the Paris) has a few good 22s, or at least the last few years I've been to LV it has (Stone IPA, Lagunitas IPA).

If Ellis Island is the same one that has/had the little shop in the Venetian setup, you can do without those. Whatever the "micro brewery" in the Venetian shops is, it's quite poor, like a homebrewer's first unsuccessful attempt, you kind of drink it because you brewed it and you're proud of it, but you know you've got a ways to go.

There are more and more restaurants every time I'm back that have a few good craft beers. That's all I need, personally, one or two good beers to choose from and you can check me off on being beer satisfied.

this is changing, but probably pricey

This is how I feel. Cosmo is frustrating cause it's awesome in so many ways but everyone there always tries to get me to drink fat tire which is gross and that's their one beer that's supposed to satisfy the snobs. Girl theme casino, what can I expect?


Pro tip: "She" is some kind of upscale restaurant outside arias hotel lobby next to veer towers. They have a wide selection of beer. Place is classy, serves food and has EXOTIC dancers (like in ultra clubs, not strippers. Place has transparent tinted windows,etc). When I finally poked my head in the other day the hostess made a point of telling me it's aimed at women or female friendly or something - I'm a dude, etc.

I just lucked myself into a ticket for Dark Lord Day. It's in 2 hour sessions for crowd control this year.

I will say, I hope that Big Hugs day doesn't turn into this. I'll have to do a side by side Saturday night.

The guy who owns my local homebrew shop just basically gave me a '11 and '12 KBS!! I gave him 2 bottles of PtE but I dont think thats a very fair swap.

He said he gets a case from a friend in MI every year and just ends up getting sick of it...and it sits around.

I've been unable to drink more than a handful of beers in the last 5 months. Unimaginable, I know! I had issues with my gallbladder, that have been recovering rather quickly after removal a few weeks ago, so I'm back, I'm back baby!

Had a Tank 7 from Boulevard tonight. Farmhouse ale, 8.5% abv, it was fresh and tasty. It wasn't groundbreaking for me, but if I wanted a farmhouse ale I wouldn't hesitate to buy this again. Recommended if that's what you're looking for.

I also hired a welder to build me a brewing stand. Met with him today, should be done within a month. I'll post some pics when it's complete.

Excuse my excitement, but imagine you move to Colorado, can't drink more than a few beers for 4-6 months and then in a period of 2-3 weeks you're pretty much recovered.

Looking forward to participating in this thread a bit more again, and very much looking forward to visiting more of this beer paradise I live in.

Florida got Stone's Enjoy By series this time (5.17.13) and I picked up a bottle and had it last night. I absolutely love this beer. A nice nose, floral hops then the first sip punches you in the face with big, bright, hop bite. Stone puts out such quality product, I wish this was year round.

I'm not a fan of DIPAs unless they're done really well. Most just end up being a huge sweet malt/hop bomb to me and I can't handle more then a few sips. Heady, PtE, Hopslam and now this are really my favorites of the style and I tend to avoid others. (Insert beer snob comment here)

I did hear their 10th Anniversary Ruination was going to be released again. If you missed this the first time make sure you pick some up, it's equally delicious.

Jesus, that's rough. Welcome back to beer! I like the Tank 7, too. Solid, but not great.

Dogfish 61 minute IPA. very very nice but only problem is it's a bit lacking in body - dare I say watery.

Doesn't really detract from the flavor though.

Brewed with Syrah grape must and a very cool red color.

limited I think..

I love this brewery.

Love the newest bottle from Yazoo. From my understanding it's because of these high taxes that TN doesn't get a wide distribution of craft beers.

Sipping Flat 12 half cycle IPA, brewed in Indy, delicious

Had a 6er of this beauty in Vegas over the weekend. I must say, I'm a fan and what a better place to drink it!

crazy finding my own post from this long ago. I think I invented this beer pose!

anyways, my local beer store has been getting great stuff in lately. some buys this week were the

Stone Enjoy Buy (loved this, hard for me to put a description on 'fresh' but it really just tasted fresh)
Sierra Hoptimum. This had a really clean feeling to me - reminded me a lot of Heady Topper.
Dogfish Burton Baton. Not nearly as oaky as I would have thought, given the description. Very excellent though. free pint glass too. score.

Stone's kicking ass lately. Enjoy By is such a great beer. I just had their Espresso IRS and it is delicious. One of the best coffee stouts I've had. On par with Founders Breakfast Stout dare I say?

I also had their Dayman Coffee IPA. I think they nailed a coffee IPA style, a bright coffee nose, upfront coffee taste really well complimented by big citrus hop notes. With that being said, I don't think I like coffee IPAs. They did it well, just not for me.

I must agree with that Stone has been kicking some ass. I think they are still building a hotel on their property now. **** is going to get real crazy with them in the next few years I think.

Just picked up a bottle of Firestone's Parabola. Excited to try it out tonight, will post a review later. Anyone tried this before? Firestone is one of my favorite breweries so I'm pumped!

Never tried the Parabola, but I am a fan of Firestone so I would expect that it shouldn't dissapoint.

parabola is awesome stuff. Granted, I would say, that you probably should've given it a year or two from my experience.

So do u guys age your beers ever? Which ones and how long?

Commerical beers or Homebrew?

I age both, which ones and how long depend entirely on the style/beer.

IMO there is not much of a point in aging beers unless you have had that beer young for comparisons sake, unless I guess someone tells you flat out that the beer isnt great young and needs some age (see SN/RR Brux).

Most of what I have aging are Imperial Stouts, Lambics, Brett/mixed fermentation sour beers/ Barleywines etc.

Some general rules of thumb for aging beer.

You want to age beers that are higher in alcohol content, have more complex or stronger flavors, or as Coff said, brett beers or beers with "wild" yeast fermentations.

You don't want to age beers that are lower in alcohol content, or beers that would be describe as having an inherent "fresh" quality. IPA's and similar hoppy beers should generally be drunk as fresh as possible. Something like a Belgian Wit would also be a bad candidate for aging.

As for how long, that really depends on a lot of factors. More intense & complex beers can generally stand up to longer aging. The best resource for information on peak aging times is generally the brewery itself. If a brewing company is making beers that are meant to be aged, they will generally be able to give you pretty good guidelines on which beers should be aged for how long.

The most important thing to keep in mind when aging beer is that the beer needs to remain at a consistent temperature for the duration of the aging process (usually ~55°F). Vintage beer should also be bottle-conditioned.

This may be TL;DR so skip if you don’t want to hear about my beer vacation trip to Portland, OR.

I flew in Tuesday afternoon and left Saturday morning and the main goal was to hit breweries, see the city and just relax. I’ll do a highlight reel of the best beers/breweries/bars I visited.

APEX beer bar was awesome. Pliny the Elder on tap next to Boneyard’s Hop Venom and RPM IPA. Honestly, although it was a different take, Hop Venom gave Pliny a run for its money. RPM was one of the best IPAs ive had in a while also. Wish I could have gotten a few bottles to go.

Wednesday was our hardcore brewery tour day. Started at noon with Hair of the Dog.



Moved on to and spent the most time at Cascade Barrel house. Had Luckie Charms, a sour that tasted exactly like the cereal, absolutely wild. Chocolate Bourbonic Plague, Vine, Vlad the Imp Aler, Noyeaux and tastes from my GFs Blueberry, Manhattan NW and more. We spent a long time here, it was my favorite brewery.



Went from there to Base Camp, which had mediocre beers, but the space was badass and they had a smore stout where they put a marshmallow on the glass and took a little propane flame and roasted it for you. Pretty gimmicky, but still neat as I had never seen that before.



Before I go on, for some reason Wednesday is the greatest day ever to drink because every brewery we went to had $2.50 pints or $4 imperial pints (20 oz). All the beer the entire weekend was really reasonable.

We got a flight at Burnside brewing, nothing special but they did have a pepper beer that I hated. Why people put pepper in an IPA is beyond me.



Coalition was a really tiny space with some solid beers.



Migration had an awesome outside space and a ridiculous taste flight for like $8.



Last stop of the (very hazy, drunken) night was Deschutes for a flight and Elk burger.

The next day didn’t have much beer tasting but instead we went to the Willamette wine country to visit 3 wineries. First stop, Voodoo Doughnuts.



I know nothing about wine but it was a gorgeous day and the views were great. We did hit up this ridiculous bottle shop on the way out. The best selection I’ve ever seen.





On Friday we did a brewcycle tour where you pedal yourselves in a cart thing to three breweries then have a pint.



We hit Lucky Lab (beer hall with not good beer), Caps & Corks (beer bar/bottle shop) and Deschutes again (remembered more this time). Then it ended right next to Rogue where we had a flight and I got to try the Beard Beer where they brewed a beer using some yeast that had been in their brewers massive beard. Not too bad!



Last few stops were Upright with the weirdest brewery I've ever seen in the basement of an office building. But they had some really tasty saisons (Four, Five, Six and Seven). We also made one last stop at Tugboat brewing, a tiny, not-so-good brewery.



Overall it was an awesome trip which I might still be a little hungover from. There were still more breweries that we didn't get to go to, the city is fantastically beer-centric. Favorite beers were Boneyard Hop Venom and RPM, everything from Cascade, HoTD Fred, and many I can’t remember. One last shot of some beer porn I came home with.

Looks like you did it up pretty well - I like seeing other's TRs or Portland as it's so easy to take for granted the magnitude of the beer scene when you're living here. Only sad this is visiting Tugboat without going to Bailey's Taproom right across the street - probably my favorite beer bar in the city. Also that picture of the bottle shop (John's Marketplace) is funny because you're not only likely to find this year's Parabola, if you search hard enough, you can probably find the previous few years covered in dust somewhere.

Boneyard should be releasing their beers in cans within the next year or two as well, really great IPAs.

Maybe - I went to Bailey's twice during my trip. I didn't mention them because I didn't have photos. I'm seriously jealous of you living in Portland. Maybe one day...

That roasted marshmellow sure does look tasty..pretty unique I would say.

Nice TR Pliny! Looks like tons of fun.