Beer & ale

[Underseer]

If we have a thread just for liquor, then we oughtta have a thread for beer & ale, oughtn't we?

 

[Treedbear]

Yuengling Porter. Dark, mellow but not too heavy, and inexpensive at about $6.50/6 pack.

 

[bilby]

'Bilsner' Czech-style Pilsner, brewed in my garden shed. About AU$50 for the ingredients and consumables to make 20 litres.

 

[Underseer]

I want to go on record as saying that I am sick and fucking tired of IPA (India pale ale). It seems like the beer isle everywhere I go is dominated by IPA.

If I get stuck with IPA, I've discovered that putting slices of fresh jalepe[ent]ntilde[/ent]o in the glass will cover up the taste.

My distaste for IPA has led to me actually trying out dark ales and porters, which I normally shy away from. I've discovered that I quite like vanilla ale.

Thankfully, Goose Island is local to me, and they have lager available nearly everywhere for less than the other microbrews.

 

[bilby]

Agree 100% - the current fad for hugely over-hopped American style IPA, to the exclusion of all other styles of beer, is one reason why I brew my own. Around here, your choices at the bar are piss-weak adjunct lagers, or beer that looks and tastes like grapefruit juice.

I would rather stay at home and drink a strong dark Yorkshire Ale, thanks.

 

[Old Woman in Purple]

This coming Sunday, Husband is flying to Austria ...some suburb of Vienna whose name eludes me at the moment... for 3.5 weeks of training for work.

He hopes to sample some local REAL beers & ales while he's there.

(It's all wasted on me; I never developed the taste for it.)

 

[bilby]

Greater Germany (Germany, Austria, Czechia and the immediate surroundings) is definitely a good place for beer lovers, as is most of Eastern Europe. In fact, anywhere in Europe away from the 'axis of vintners' (Spain, Italy, and France) seems to be pretty good. The Netherlands are (for some reason) an exception - Dutch beer is depressingly bland - but it's a short drive across an uncontrolled border to Belgium, home of some of the best beers in history.

I have an old friend who recently moved to Bulgaria, and he is very impressed by the beers over there - I will have to see if I can arrange a visit some day.

 

[Old Woman in Purple]

Well, then.... Do I need to worry about my beer-loving husband "forgetting" to come home at the end of the month?

 

[bilby]

Well, then.... Do I need to worry about my beer-loving husband "forgetting" to come home at the end of the month?

Quite possibly

 

[TV and credit cards]

I am another who refuses to drink beer that taste like grapefruit rind. For the most part I enjoy a smooth even lager. I had been drinking Devil's Backbone Vienna Lager but have recently noticed they like so many other small breweries sold their soul to Anheuser-Busch. I cannot support that. The US has gone through a beer renaissance and now the likes of InBev is going around vacuuming up many of these small breweries. So it's back to my standby Great Lakes Amber and Dortmunder Lagers. They have a bit of an edge but until I find a worthy successor to DB Lager, I will suffer for the cause.

 

[Underseer]

This coming Sunday, Husband is flying to Austria ...some suburb of Vienna whose name eludes me at the moment... for 3.5 weeks of training for work.

He hopes to sample some local REAL beers & ales while he's there.

(It's all wasted on me; I never developed the taste for it.)

I seem to remember enjoying a salt mine in Austria, but I was a child then and old now, so my memory is unreliable.

All of central Europe, from northern Italy to Poland to Germany to Hungary and more is a gold mine of sausages.

 

[rousseau]

There was a thread for beer but it was obscured by it's thread title, this one should do.

These days I'm moving past my 'try everything' phase and into a 'stick to my favourites' phase. As we speak I have about 10 pumpkin ales by Great Lakes and St. Ambroise, and 10 Honey Elixirs by Railway city stocked in my kitchen, along with a few American craft beers I bought a few weeks ago, by Lagunitas and Dogfish Head.

I also really like the Oatmeal Stout by St. Ambroise but I've over-done it lately.

 

[rousseau]

Agree 100% - the current fad for hugely over-hopped American style IPA, to the exclusion of all other styles of beer, is one reason why I brew my own. Around here, your choices at the bar are piss-weak adjunct lagers, or beer that looks and tastes like grapefruit juice.

I would rather stay at home and drink a strong dark Yorkshire Ale, thanks.

I've noticed IPAs getting a little more refined and better crafted around these parts over the past few years.

There's been a shift from cans that say things like HOPSPLOSION, to genuinely well crafted hopped beers. I'm still not a huge fan of the style, but I'll dabble now and then.

 

[Arctish]

Lately I've been enjoying the Alaskan Brewing Co. Kolsch. It's an interesting style of beer made with ale yeast but finished like a lager.

 

[Underseer]

There was a thread for beer but it was obscured by it's thread title, this one should do.

These days I'm moving past my 'try everything' phase and into a 'stick to my favourites' phase. As we speak I have about 10 pumpkin ales by Great Lakes and St. Ambroise, and 10 Honey Elixirs by Railway city stocked in my kitchen, along with a few American craft beers I bought a few weeks ago, by Lagunitas and Dogfish Head.

I also really like the Oatmeal Stout by St. Ambroise but I've over-done it lately.

{Insert tasteless joke about white people and pumpkin spice here}

 

[rousseau]

There was a thread for beer but it was obscured by it's thread title, this one should do.

These days I'm moving past my 'try everything' phase and into a 'stick to my favourites' phase. As we speak I have about 10 pumpkin ales by Great Lakes and St. Ambroise, and 10 Honey Elixirs by Railway city stocked in my kitchen, along with a few American craft beers I bought a few weeks ago, by Lagunitas and Dogfish Head.

I also really like the Oatmeal Stout by St. Ambroise but I've over-done it lately.

{Insert tasteless joke about white people and pumpkin spice here}

Yea they can feel a bit gimmicky, but St. Ambroise and Great Lakes are two of the oldest / most established craft breweries in Canada. Their pumpkin ales are really good beers, and this was decidedly so after sampling the style every Autumn for about the past five years.

The Great Lakes is a great session beer that pairs well with hearty meals, where the St. Ambroise has a bit more complexity to it and should be enjoyed for it's own sake.

While I'm here I'll mention that I just picked up some small batch brews from local brewery Forked River last night:

- 2 lemon peel Saisons
- 2 dry hopped Pilsners
- 2 double IPAs
- 2 coffee porters

 

[Underseer]

There was a thread for beer but it was obscured by it's thread title, this one should do.

These days I'm moving past my 'try everything' phase and into a 'stick to my favourites' phase. As we speak I have about 10 pumpkin ales by Great Lakes and St. Ambroise, and 10 Honey Elixirs by Railway city stocked in my kitchen, along with a few American craft beers I bought a few weeks ago, by Lagunitas and Dogfish Head.

I also really like the Oatmeal Stout by St. Ambroise but I've over-done it lately.

{Insert tasteless joke about white people and pumpkin spice here}

Yea they can feel a bit gimmicky, but St. Ambroise and Great Lakes are two of the oldest / most established craft breweries in Canada. Their pumpkin ales are really good beers, and this was decidedly so after sampling the style every Autumn for about the past five years.

The Great Lakes is a great session beer that pairs well with hearty meals, where the St. Ambroise has a bit more complexity to it and should be enjoyed for it's own sake.

While I'm here I'll mention that I just picked up some small batch brews from local brewery Forked River last night:

- 2 lemon peel Saisons
- 2 dry hopped Pilsners
- 2 double IPAs
- 2 coffee porters

Normally, I'm a big fan of putting weird things in beer.

At an ale fest I attended a few years back, someone put Chinese smoked black tea in[ent]hellip[/ent] white ale? Wheat ale? It was a milder ale, I remember that. Anyway, it was fucking delicious. As previously mentioned, I will put slices of fresh jalape[ent]ntilde[/ent]o into IPAs to make them drinkable, so naturally I like any kind of chile beer. Dark ales and/or porters with coffee, vanilla, chocolate, etc. are all welcome.

I draw the line at sweet beers. Put any kind of fruit in it, and I'm likely to stay away from it.

Also, pumpkin spice [fill in the blank] has become as much of an obnoxious fad as IPA, just in different areas.

 

[rousseau]

Yea they can feel a bit gimmicky, but St. Ambroise and Great Lakes are two of the oldest / most established craft breweries in Canada. Their pumpkin ales are really good beers, and this was decidedly so after sampling the style every Autumn for about the past five years.

The Great Lakes is a great session beer that pairs well with hearty meals, where the St. Ambroise has a bit more complexity to it and should be enjoyed for it's own sake.

While I'm here I'll mention that I just picked up some small batch brews from local brewery Forked River last night:

- 2 lemon peel Saisons
- 2 dry hopped Pilsners
- 2 double IPAs
- 2 coffee porters

Normally, I'm a big fan of putting weird things in beer.

At an ale fest I attended a few years back, someone put Chinese smoked black tea in[ent]hellip[/ent] white ale? Wheat ale? It was a milder ale, I remember that. Anyway, it was fucking delicious. As previously mentioned, I will put slices of fresh jalape[ent]ntilde[/ent]o into IPAs to make them drinkable, so naturally I like any kind of chile beer. Dark ales and/or porters with coffee, vanilla, chocolate, etc. are all welcome.

I draw the line at sweet beers. Put any kind of fruit in it, and I'm likely to stay away from it.

Also, pumpkin spice [fill in the blank] has become as much of an obnoxious fad as IPA, just in different areas.

I consider pumpkin beers more autumnal than being in the same vein as other pumpkin spiced faddish things. The breweries will draw you in with the pumpkin tag, but a lot of them have very little pumpkin and are actually well crafted beers. For instance the St. Ambroise is basically a spiced auburn ale with negligible pumpkin in it (if any).

I could see this being a bit different in the U.S., though, where the craft beer scene goes a little wilder. It can turn into an arms race to produce the craziest beer.

I'm with you on the fruit beers, but mostly only due to sweetness. I've come across a lot of great sweet beers, just no interest in actually drinking them. My wife loves them.

 

[Treedbear]

I had a really interesting bottle of beer the other day called Browars Black Boss Porter, imported from Witnica, Poland, and refered to as a Baltic porter. Best word to summarize it is delicious. Very dark brown but if you hold it up to the light it looks like a port wine red. In fact it resembles wine in other aspects. Nice fruity/tobacco-y nose. Lots of malt and sweetness with a touch of hops. I'd almost compare it to a sweet sherry. And 9.4% alcohol, although you're not so much aware of it. Very enjoyable if you can find it. 11.2 oz bottle is $1.49. You probably only want to drink one at an occasion. Kind of a desert beer.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

I walked into a store to pick up some beer over the weekend, and found that 3/4 of the shelf space was taken up by IPAs. I found another store, one that recognized that "beer" and "IPA" are not synonyms.