Previous years were worse!? Wow I'm sorry ☺

We split a bottle last night and the general sentiment was thin/no body. Maybe a bad bottle, who knows 🤷*♂️ but it was definitely watery

Was in Chicago last weekend for a couple days due to a funeral, but found time for beer of course.

Hit up Beer Temple then Metropolitan's new place. When I last lived in Chicago Metro was out of a garage in Ravenswood, so it was cool to see how far they have come. Really great location there on the river and the lagers are pretty solid.

Also had time to hit up Whiner. Holy **** that's a great place you Chicago guys have out there. Great environment, and I don't think I've ever seen a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio of females to males in any brewery before, not even 1 to 1, that was interesting. Beers were good too and the pizza upstairs really hit the spot. Love what they've done with that place.

Traded for some DB VSOD and VSOD too and a few other bits and pieces. Both those VSODs were really good, I think I like regular VSOD better right now but I could see them developing with age too. With I had more time, next time I'll be out there under better circumstances.

Kbs is decent but it has definitely not kept up with the best stouts today.

Toss:
Bummer about the birthday bomb. That’s not my favorite of them, but I’ve never had a prairie bomb that I thought was bad. Also sad to hear that about kbs, I really enjoyed the one I had on draft a week or so ago.

Nit:
Excellent!

Hoagie:
Good to hear!

Bode:
daaaaaamn, you guys did some work! I love doing side by side variant tastings like that.

Malice:
Damn!

Spider:
Good to hear!

Stabn:
Damn!

Talk about a polarizing stout!

I had a few beers tonight:

FW nitro Merlin: pretty thin beer, but great creamy mouthfeel and generally tasty beer. Happy to drink it, won’t seek it out.

High west BA victory at sea: surprised spider didn’t like this one. I thought it added some great bourbon and oak flavors to the basic victory at sea flavors, which I think are great. Maybe slightly sweeter than I’d prefer, but still really enjoyed it.

Had some tasty fieldwork IPAs and dipas, but this was the winner for the night:

Tbf I’m a kbs homer its the first BA stout I had. I agree with Stabn that it hasn’t kept up with some of the new stuff but still think it’s worth a look at $22 a 4 pack.

I think a lot of the complaints people are having about KBS are pluses to me. I’m tired of super thick and overly sweet BA stout. The KBS seems really well balanced. I’m going to get another 4 pack and am probably done with BA stouts to Thanksgiving.

Made it out to Casey this weekend:

Standard Tasting Flight:
Fruit Stand Peach - excellent, bought several for to-go
Blackberry Bourbon Biere de Garde - unique. I haven't had many BBA of this style, and the blackberry added another element. Very good.
The Cut - Grape - I'm just not into grapes; idk it's just not for me

The Advanced Peach Cut (aged in whiskey barrels) was unreal good. The nose was exactly of peach fuzz. Sadly they only had 1 bottle for onsite but someone was generous enough to give me a pour!

I somehow just happened to notice (no idea when this started - maybe last year? Older bottles don't have this) that The Bruery's sour beers (in their Terreux brand) are now labeled with both pH and lactic acid content (in grams per liter). Are those good indicators for how sour a beer is going to taste?

Haven't seen lactic acid content before, but a common QA benchmark is titratable acidity. TA is a better indicator of how sour the beer is but pH is an OK one as well.

A few thoughts:

- I rate normal Breakfast Stout over KBS. For whatever reason I feel like it has a more balanced flavor and mouthfeel. KBS is still good, though I've not gotten any this year. I'd take Big Bad Baptist over it though, most years. I also think Backwoods Bastard is better, though a different style.

- I hit in Metropolitan and Maplewood semi-recently in Chicago. I'm not a huge fan of German style beers, which is Metro's focus. Really like their taproom though. Maplewood was a pain in the dick to walk to but was at standing room (to where they were keeping a line outside) at like 3pm in the afternoon. Lots of ****ers live in Chicago. Good beer here.

- Yellow Belly - I've had it a couple of times, and Yellow Belly Sundae (which is almost the same, a bit better, but pretty much the same). It's outstanding. Peanut Butter all the way but with a really nice mouthfeel and good chocolate/stout flavors too. Like someone else said, we've entered this world where a lot of stouts are *so* ****ing sweet, this was able to walk the line much better. I saw some hit distro in the last month or two, but I didn't get around to picking any up.

- It annoys me that BCBS sits on the shelves in California when it's off the shelves by 2pm on Black Friday in Madison. Even with the sellout this beer is almost peerless. Only the absolute best BA programs can compete with this.

Spider:
You are my beer spirit guide. Didn’t buy them all (over 20 out), but I grabbed a few more!


Spivey:
Lol, there was a row of bcbs sitting next to the Baptista for $11.99.

NE pros, need your advice for our upcoming beer trip. We're doing 4 full days with this preliminary itinerary.



Mainly need good food suggestions for stops along the way (especially for the long stretch from Burlington to Treehouse).

Any must visit breweries that I'm missing along the route? Can't stray too far with our time constraints.

For folks hitting Chicago, I'd hit many places before Metro or Maplewood. For lagers or German styles in general, Dovetail>>> ime (and they have a koelschip and have had spontaneous brews from what I've read, so they should have some lambics someday?) I could sit and debate the rest of the Chicago list for quite a while, but now is a great time to visit, for the weather, the Cubs, and the beer!

I like MBC, but I might skip it with this route. It’s a bit out of the way, and you could hit Foundation/Austin Street/Allagash (all within 5 min of each other) instead while in Portland. Plenty of places there will have MBC on tap or in bottles if you wanted to try some.

Definitely hit up Industrial Way instead of MBC. Also not much point in going to both Trillium spots - Fort point is just a tiny in and out for cans and growlers.

May as well go to Proclamation when you go to Tilted Barn, they are 10 minutes from each other.

Also stop at White River Junction in between G and H and go to River Roost and Big Fatty’s. Great tap list at Big Fatty’s and good bbq, River Roost is the most underrated brewery around.

Make sure to add a stop at Yankee Spirits which is less than 10 minutes from Tree House. They'll have a bunch of stuff from places on your list like Night Shift, Mystic and Lamplighter plus Proclamation mentioned above and basically anything else that sees Massachusetts distro. That store has such an amazing selection I honestly wouldn't feel bad if you can't cram in the visits to the actual breweries mentioned.

I'd probably skip MBC and use that time to hit Tilted Barn though their hours may be an obstacle.

Jacks Abby, Springdale, and Exhibit A are all worth a stop and close together in Framingham right off the pike between Tree House and Trillium.

Idle Hands and Down the Road are very close to Mystic and Night Shift. It’s close for me between Idle Hands and Mystic for who has better beer right now. I’ve been liking DTR more than NSB lately but it’s close.


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Goofy,

The per ounce pricing at your favorite beer bar kinda tilted me, just on general principle.



Both were great, though. The wicked weed pretty funky and def almond flavor with not that much fruit flavor, while the broken wand was a tart fruit explosion. Both delicious in different ways.

Haha, I've def seen that there before and know what you mean. I hope you enjoyed your trip otherwise, though!

thank you!

Our itinerary is likely ambitious, but we'll do our best.

River roost/fattys looks like a perfect stop during our long leg

Anything in Springfield on the way to treehouse especially worth doing? We are staying in Sturbidge that night, but can drive wherever near there.

really no need to hit up both trilliums. canton has what you need and has a taproom. Obv if you're there go, but it's not like you're going to need to double up on purchases of anything between the two breweries. Seems main reason to be in that area on a beer trip is to hit up Row 34.

agree with others re: Maine Beer Co. Unless it's a dinner release, no real need to go there. If you want maine stuff, you can find it on shelves or on tap anywhere, and the brewery is nothing special and a bit out of the way.

If you go to portland and skip Industrial Way (Allagash/Austin St/Foundation/Battery Steele/some new hyped brewery that is opening Memorial Day), you're a dummy.

Honest Weight Brewing on drive from Vermont to Tree House is a must stop, imo. It's in Orange, MA, near Greenfield. I think there's some decent eateries in both Brattleboro, VT, and Greenfield, MA (fairly close to each other).

Jack's Abby/Springdale is must visit, imo, especially if you're into lagers. It's in Framingham, ~halfway between Tree House and Boston. Jack's Abby is my favorite tap room in Mass, for what it's worth.

Armsby Abbey in Worcester is the best beer bar in MA. The food is quite good, though a bit overpriced imo, but the taplist is sick. Guaranteed 3-4 Hill Farmstead beers on tap, plus lots of great others both local and otherwise.

Others to consider:
- On your map you're going through Littleton, NH. Stop at Schilling Beer Co. Specialize in old european styles. Never been to the brewery but I hear it's great, but I really liked the beers I've tried from them. Much different than all of the haze craze places, too, so a nice change of pace.
- Medusa Brewing in Hudson, MA. Between Worcester and Framingham. Another favorite taproom of mine and they've recently had semi-regular canning. But a better bar more than anything. Not a must.
- Think Idle Hands is right near Mystic which has some decent buzz. Not a must.
- Barreled Souls south of Portland does big huge stouts that people seem to like. Haven't tried any myself.
- I see Tilted Barn on the list but map doesn't extend down to RI so not sure if you're still heading that far south. If you get down that way you might as well hit up Proclamation Ale Co. in WARWICK.

Disagree with others re: Yankee Spirits. It's good but you're already hitting up a ton of the breweries featured there. Not even close to a must visit.

Thanks kc, added some of your suggestions -- we're only at 30 stops for 4 days now haha, gl us

Pretty unrealistic to actually expect to be able to hit all those places. It's 10 minutes from Tree House and would actually allow you to try beer from all of them. Don't get why you think it wouldn't be a great place to stop, they easily have amongst the best beer selections in New England.

Boston beer peeps, quick question for a Boston noob. I have a coworker going to Needham this weekend. Can you go into most stores and pick up a couple of cans of trillium? If not where can you can pick up in or close to Needham?

Don’t think Trillium is distributing anywhere currently except for the cbc that was above the indoor beer garden in roslindale. He’ll have to go to Canton or Fort Point for cans. Canton is a half hour away from Needham.