I’m getting married next weekend and got 5 1/6 barrel kegs from some local breweries. Anyone have any ideas on the most efficient way to keep them cold? I was thinking buckets, but I didn’t want to have to buy 5 of them.


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You mean cold at the wedding or cold until the wedding? If it’s the former I can’t imagine 5 buckets breaking the bank, if it’s the latter I would just let them get warm. (Somewhere temp controlled, don’t just toss them in your trunk) then cool down the day of.

In The Dallas, Oregon



That’s a Hopfunke IPA with the extra foamy head in the background and a Belgian Blonde thingy in the foreground. Both are excellent.







At Everybody’s Brewery, outside patio; that is Mt. Hood in the distance. Located on Washington side of the Columbia in White Salmon.







Sampler; every beer was great to excellent. Most impressive sampler I've had.





And the food was great also; that is the Mediterranean plate which went well with all the different beers I sampled.





Full Sail Brewery sampler:




That is a Russian Oligarch on the other side of the table.


What was sailing:



Enjoyed them all; good to very good. The everybody's sampler/brews were superior IMO but both were top notch and very enjoyable.

Zeno,

Looks great all around!

wow just realized malice hit VT at the perfect time... cans of double galaxy. jesus what a beer.

I had a can of Alchemist Crusher in NYC last weekend. Not gonna lie, was extremely underwhelmed. It was fine, but quite malty and reminded me of old big DIPAs when I lived in california. Not anything wrong with that style but I've had better.

Also fan of the foley bros but not sure I've had prospect. Can't remember tbh.

You also got some second fiddle which is really starting to get distributed around here regularly. Drinking one now actually. This is probably my favorite IPA of 2018. Not a haze bomb at all. Just a super ****ing clean, crisp DIPA.

Zeno,
If you are still in the vicinity, I would recommend heading to Hood River and checking out pFriem and Double Mountain.
RF

Some notes/thoughts on our above NE beer trip.

Foam is making the best stuff of anyone that we hit, for my taste preferences anyways. More along the lines of monkish/great notion/trillium style than treehouse, but I realize I'm likely in the minority on that one.

We flew into Boston then headed north towards Portland. Stopped by stoneface on the way and it was great! Their double clip is awesome, readily available in cans on site and it's a great easy drinking hazy. Very clean, if not simple, but really solid.

We got to Portland early and couldn't check in yet so we just decided to go to Maine beer Co. Easily worst beers of the trip. They have simply been surpassed by everyone by a large margin and haven't innovated forever. However, their new pizza oven setup outside made some amazing pizza! It was a nice chaser for their beer.

I was especially looking forward to Bissell, since I've had swish in cans a few times and it's always been a top 5 beer for me. However, when we got stuff on tap, most of them tasted too fresh/green. All 3 of us agreed swish was better in cans when we had it than on tap. It was still delicious, just splitting hairs like a douche beer snob, and we may have just got a new Keg. Who knows. The space was awesome and Portland lite seems like a cool city. We chat with the guys that founded great notion a little and they said they really want to do a collab with Bissell, which would be cool. Double Portland?

Disappointment of the trip, which is mostly our fault... We went to Bissell first and then headed to Austin Street around 6:30... Get there and every brewery is closed, Wtf! How are their not riots for such blasphemy? So we missed that pod of breweries, but were able to try them all on tap around Portland. Of those, I liked battery Steeles Flume a lot. Neither the proclamation or foundation beers we had were too memorable, but we only got to try epiphany and derivative Citra.

After we got pretty drunk, we stumbled to Boda for late night Thai and they had battery Steeles triple dry hopped (?) Avalon on tap. It was awesome, I'm pretty sure.

We quickly hit goodfire and lone pine since they're right next to each other, nothing too great, but not bad.

Then the lengthy drive to HF. We were pretty sure we were going the wrong way as we drove on mud roads for 5 minutes. First thing we did after buying our cans/bottles was split a bottle of Damon. Wow, what a beer. Very memorable. It has a ridiculous global rating of 4.8 on untappd, and I can see why. I generally dislike the huge BA stouts where Woody/boozy flavors mask the actual beer, but this is perfectly balanced.

After that, I got a full pour of Susan, nice clean ipa that straddles the NE haze/west coast style. Really good.

I have to say though, none of us liked the culture/vibe at HF. I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but the staff seemed very cold and a bit holier-than-thou.

I'm also not a fan of their philosophy to only have 2 beers during a visit. I get the idea, to appreciate the beer and not just overwhelm yourself with a ton of different beers, but I'm there for my 1 visit ever and I want to try more damnit. We side stepped this a decent bit by strategically ordering within our group, but I still don't like the general idea.

Then we went to prohibition pig. I got the patriot burger and it was awesome. Then surprisingly, got what was one of my favorite beers of the trip on tap: green empire brewing's Free Spirit. Hadn't even heard of them until then and it was a really good beer.

Then we did the typical alchemist stop, Meh. The space is kinda cool, but a weird setup with the free 2 oz pours and then just a retail line. Kinda feels like a social experiment, and easily the 2nd worst beer after MBC for the trip. Jokes on us though, we still bought cans. I'm still a focal > heady guy.

Then onto Foam, best beers of the trip for us... I also didn't know Burlington was such a cool city and had no idea it was a college town. The area by the water did smell terrible, though.

Their beers You Would Know and Galaxie 500 were amazing. Very great notiony, as I mentioned earlier.

Next day was the long drive to Treehouse. Jeez, what an establishment, they really got you guys by the balls. It took over an hour just to get 1 draft pour, ridiculous. If it wasn't my 1 time to ever visit and tick that box, I don't think I would have stayed. It's just so chaotic and impersonal, it really just seems like a factory with a 3 hour line of zombie beer nerds standing outside.

I'm exaggerating a bit. We got in line later after the initial rush and only took us about an hour, but the line was ~2-3x as long when we first got there cause everyone was worried about getting Very Green. All of us still got our VG allotment 3 hours later .

That being said, there's no denying their stuff is world class. We were lucky enough to get triple shot... Again what a memorable beer! Reminded me a little of double stack in style which I also love, but not quite as sweet. Curiosity 46 and SSSap were my 2 favorite hops.

After that, we were pretty much at max capacity for beers and didn't do much else, drank some trillium at friend's place in Boston then flew home.

And Zeno, how dare you not make it to Great Notion when you're an hour away!

Malice,

Amazing trip report, thanks. **** waiting in line hours for beer, though.

You went to Portland and didn't go to Novare Res??!! Facepalm.

Thanks. I went to both, PFriem was much better. No pics.

Thanks for the recommendation - I'll visit on my next swing through Portland, Oregon. I visit frequently for brews and other ramblings about town.

The place I wanted to visit was further up the Columbia at Boardman, Oregon: Ordnance Brewing brewery-taproom-boardman-oregon, but did not have the time. I've had some of their brews on draft and was very impressed by one of their IPA's.

ordnancebrewing

I had Great Notion at a beer festival a few months ago, was really impressed

All-- how's the beer in Canada these days? In Montreal for the weekend, would love to try some stuff I can't get at home.

Great NE trip report. Doing that in about a month and a half myself. With my wife's parents. Luckily they're awesome and laid back. They make their own wine so I don't think I'll be judged too harshly for acting like damn beer nerd on the trip.

The Treehouse write up makes me dread going there actually. But, my father-in-law is getting pretty into craft beer and they're a real box to check. In all honesty I hope it's just a stupid lazy day with no "special" beers. I'll just take a case of Haze and Sap and bounce, sure.

Our trip is gonna look something like: Portsmouth (1 day), Portland (2 days), Burlington (2 days - including a trip to Hill Farmstead), then Boston for 3 days.

Been to Tree House about a half dozen times this year after not visiting since they opened the new place. Most of my waits were under 30 minutes, often I could walk right in, even for my favorite of their beers like sssap or hurricane.
Timing is everything, I guess you can consider yourself lucky or unlucky if you hit a long wait because of what they're offering.

Absolutely no excuse for an hour wait on a pour though.

Re:Hill Farmstead two pours policy: they had that in place for about a year before they lifted it a few months ago. flatlanders started sliding off the roads and blowing hard and back to the 2 drink limit they went.
people suck.

I did have a similar impression of their staff, though talking with a couple friends that spend a lot of time up there, they seem to think it's more them just being typical North East Kingdom weirdos (much like Shaun Hill himself) rather than pretentious.

Update from night 1: drank a lot, most of it mediocre, but Pub BreWskey was great, despite the random capitalization. Their Beloya coffee IPA, brewed in-house, is very nice and I'll be having a few more of these before I get out of town. Wish I could find some coffee IPAs in California!

Joe,

Fieldwork makes coffee and milk ipa. I can’t really remember it, so it must not have sucked or been great.

vermonters are weird people. That's all there is to it.

re: Tree House vibes.. agreed, I've only been to the new spot 3 or 4 times and only got pours once. To their credit, I think they've improved the way they handle pours a ton, but it can be a **** show and I don't get why anyone waits any real time for a draft beer. On days where it's chill it looks fine but busy days forget about it.

I'm also now anti waiting in line for beer. I went there a couple weeks ago cuz they had 3 beers that were on my to-try list, and reports were line was short. Guess they had an after work rush as when I got there line was halfway down the sidewalk. I didn't even bother. Just turned around and left.

I don't know a ton of Montreal based breweries, but Canadian breweries are starting to improve quite a bit. There's a lot of crap but also some good micros that are doing good stuff on both sides of Canada.

In the greater Montreal area is Dieu du Ciel. They distribute to the US but their dark beers are quite nice. Peche Mortel and Aphrodite are classics of their styles that hold up very well even today.

Definitely anti waiting in line. I only make it out to Tree House a few times a year. Its enough out of my way that I'm not going to turn around if there's a line. Given how infrequently I go, I am happy to pick up a mixed case of haze and julius or whatever other regulars they have. Last time I was there was the day they had Very Hazy. Good beer, but I would have been happier with a shorter wait and 2 more cans of regular haze.

Unibroue's always been awesome, looks like they're based 16 miles outside Montreal.

I just got back from a couple weeks in Hawaii, not a lot of beer drinking took place except for when I went to Kona Brewing's HQ on the big island. They had a menu of small batch stuff that I think they don't distribute which included a coffee imperial stout (though I recall it being low-ish ABV for having the name "imperial"), a barleywine, and an IPA that I tried in a tasting flight. Coffee stout was probably the best but none were that great or memorable, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to this thread.

Fun fact of the day: Craft Brew Alliance, the holding company that owns Kona/Widmer/Red Hook, does not meet the American definition of "craft brewer" because ~a third of it is owned by InBev, and craft brewers must be at least 75% independent.

I’m in New Orleans for the weekend and I’ve had a few Gnarly Barley beers and I’m super impressed. Last few times I’ve been down here I haven’t found anything even close to good. The Jucifer is a pretty tasty Neipa

Do they sell it at regular liquor stores? I'm in New Orleans for the weekend too and although beers weren't in our plans (sazeracs were), I wouldn't mind tasting some good stuff while here.

ETA: just Google it and will probably stop by courtyard brewery to get some Jucifer.

I had the jucifer at kingfish which is in the French quarter. Had a peanut butter porter on magazin street. Not sure where.

Both were tasty. Definitely not mind blowing must track down kind of stuff but solid.

Is there still the 6.8% abv limit for beer down there? It’s been 5-6 years since I’ve been down there, but, that was a bit frustrating when coming across beer in NOLA and Baton Rouge