This weekend I tried Hammerheart Brewing's Imperial Longship - a barrel-aged Scottish Ale. Holy fucking shit, that has to be the best BA beer I've consumed after Bourbon County. Smoky and sweet with the right level of booziness and not the watery consistency of Backwoods Bastard. Said brewery is near the Twin Cities and I know various bars in Chicago carry their product (Sheffield's in Lakeview in my case), so anyone from the Midwest here ought to keep their eyes open.

You know Hammerheart Brewing is Austin from Panopticon, right? I've only heard good things, can't wait to try it next time I'm in that neck of the woods.

That would make sense, since I've often seen it hyped by my friend Ben, who runs Pagan Flames Records, which had Panopticon at one point. Fuck, I should try to hit up Hammerheart and Surly Darkness Day in the same trip...

I did NOT, thanks!

Another pathetic try to delegitimate the microbreweries using the alibi of hipster's hype (article in spanish, sorry):
http://elcomidista.elpais.com/elcomidista/2015/07/09/articulo/1436418603_093778.html

Perhaps it's because my palate has changed, but GLBC's Lake Erie Monster is much improved compared to last year. Thought it was more on the funky, almost soapy side then but it's got a more complex flavor this time around. It's not specifically labeled as a Belgian DIPA, but it wouldn't be inappropriate to consider it one. Either way, it's just different than a lot of what's out there.

I'll also be giving Two Brothers' Hop Centric another chance later this evening. I think I made the mistake of trying it during an evening of just dead heat and humidity last summer and warmed too quickly as a result, tasting reminiscent of expired medicine.

If all else fails, there's always the Stone RuinTen.

Two Brothers is far overrated IMO which sucks because their stuff is so readily available and the brewery is only like 20 minutes away from me. I've never had a beer from them and thought about buying it again.

This weekend I'm drinking Dirty Bastard from Founders, this shit is delicious.

Dirty Bastard rules. I saw a bar down the street with Chimay and Duvel signs but strangely it also looked exactly like the kind of place you'd get murdered in, or at least kidnapped by triads. I'll stick to drinking $1.20 600ml Tsingtaos at the hotel bar for now.

I moved to the Bay about a year ago and have been trouble finding some reasonably priced liquor stores with a good selection of craft beer. Where are you getting Eye of the Hawk for $6?

Currently drinking some Ballast Point Calico Amber Ale. Really tasty Amber which I don't typically go for.
Was in San Diego last week and managed to get to the Stone Brewery, Ballast Point Brewery, and Coronado Brewery. All three were great, with Stone being the obvious favorite! Stone released a unique beer called "Its Pizza Time!" which tasted just like Pizza in a great way. Both the lady and I were really happy with it and actually ordered a second. Usually beers like that are a mere novelty or curiousity, but they managed to make the flavors balanced perfectly.

It's the only Two Brothers I've ever bothered with and, sure enough, foiled again. I guess Hop Centric just isn't jiving with me no matter what. I'll finish the other five of the sixer eventually, but only if I want something strong at the end of an evening.

Celebrating my own "Christmas in July" with leftover Thirsty Dog's 12 Dogs of Christmas in a tall, chilled, cinnamon-rimmed glass. Quite possibly better now than during the winter. There's only a handful of winter warmers I think can hold their own outside of season and this is one of them.

so I've been smashing a whole lot of cheap,generic, import Eurolagers recently, all of which are ranging from average to mediocre. The only saving grace has been Gösser, with it's pleasantly hopped flavour. I guess thats means the Austrians are winning this one.

Well, I'm pretty sure I made this post at least some four to five years ago. Nevertheless, I live in the Concord/Pleasant Hill/Martinez area and Monument Wine & Spirits in Concord is generally the best liquor store in the area when it comes to selection and prices. The liquor store closest to my new residence (corner of Olivera and Port Chicago Hwy) has six-packs of Eye of the Hawk for $7, still a good deal.

For the last month, Drake's Imperial Stout has kinda become my new-found favorite. Real dark and chocolatey, terrific stuff but not the kinda thing I can drink every night. Very rich, kinda like some sort of dessert-beer, mmmmm.

Well, I am leaving for Belgium on Friday night, gonna spend a week there. There are a couple of breweries, pubs/bar I plan to visit. Stuff like Cantillon, Moeder Lambic for the breweries and pubs like Kulminator, Delirium Café etc.

So, any of you guys here had the chance to visit or even better live there? What would be the places/beers I definitely should NOT miss?

I wouldn't miss Le Bier Circus.

Noted, thanx!

That's discouraging to hear as I just picked up a six pack of Hop-Centric! I really like their Revelry Imperial Red (although it's pricey) but I agree that most of their stuff is just ok.

Random six pack from Jewel tonight containing:

-21st Ammendment Brewing - Hell or High Watermelon. Surprisingly decent actually, could be a bit stronger on the watermelon flavor though, kinda out weighed by the wheat.
-Revolution Brewing - Eugene
-Revolution Brewing - Rosa. Never had a hibiscus ale before but I'm looking forward to trying it.
-Lagunitas - Little Sumpin' Extra
-Lagunitas - Pils
-Founders - Dirty Bastard. This is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

Surprisingly enough I'm not at all familiar with RB and seeing as how they're a local brewery I figure it's high time to rectify that. Also checking out some stuff from good ole Lagunitas that I haven't yet. Results will follow.

Edit: yeah ok so this Rosa is no gouda. I won't be drinking this again.

Dieu du Ciel! from Montreal brews a hibiscus beer, called... La Rosée d'Hibiscus ( rosée as both dew and the color of the beverage). I'm not sure if it's available in some US stores, but I know that some of their beers are sold south of the border (Péché Mortel, one of the best coffee stout, is sold there), but it might worth checking out. It's not a super mind-blowing beer, but it's very refreshing, with of course, strong notes of flowers, some spices, herbs and stealthy raspeberries.

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/dieu-du-ciel-rosee-dhibiscus/59877/

Revolution Brewing isn't bad, they just seem kind of pedestrian when compared to a lot of the quality brewing in the Chicago area (Pipeworks, Three Floyds, Off-Color, Buckledown, Lagunitas, etc...) Their barrel-aged vanilla bean porter is pretty rad though.

Damn y'all Little Sumpin' Extra is soooooooo good.

This is a really, really underrated beer imo. As far as no-frills, malty europilsners go it doesn't get much better.
There's a similar one from Slovenia called Lasko that's similar, maybe even a bit better - if you can score a can of that you're laughing.

Tonight I'm treating myself to:
- Weihenstephaner Hefe
- Sierra Nevada Hefe
- "Yenda" Pale Ale (was $10 per 6pack for members of a bottle-o chain here)

You still might very well enjoy it. A lot really, as I understand why it gets the demand it does. It's not my place to convince anyone to avoid something unless I just happen to agree with a preexisting negative consensus, which Hop Centric doesn't have.


It's on the bucket list to get on over to all those eventually, especially Pipeworks. I haven't had enough of Revolution, but their Unsessionable was the nectar of the gods and lived up to it's name in the best way possible for me. Worth every cent.


This is correct. I was unsure if/how Sucks would change after becoming available year-round, but it's held up.

The best Pipeworks beers I've had were stouts but they make a number of saisons with "Poivre" in the name that I suspect are quite good, based on the one I had. The stouts I loved were Game of Jones, an imperial milk stout brewed with vanilla which is easily the best vanilla stout I have ever had; and Raspberry Truffle Abduction, an imperial stout brewed with chocolate, raspberries, and vanilla, which was like liquid chocolate-covered raspberries. That latter one was a bit too sweet to be perfect, but Game of Jones I could have almost any day. Vanilla beers have a tendency to be disappointments, Game of Jones wasn't. Better yet, they make a whole line of cream stouts with "Jones" in the name that share the same base beer, so I'm sure they are all pretty swell.

I'm not living in the Chicagoland area right now so I don't have access to Pipeworks but if I did I would definitely be checking out the many "Jones" beers. Just do a google and then see which ones your store has in stock: https://www.google.com/search?q=pipewor ... 8&oe=utf-8

So tonight I grabbed some beers from work that were past the best before date. A couple of years past from the looks of things

I've had beer past the BB before and it was fine, but not that far. Right now I'm drinking a Tuborg Green. It tastes a lot maltier than I expected, rather than the usual classic skanked green bottle lager flavour you would expect. Should I expect the flavour will have changed over time?

Well, the BB is just best before, so just a producer's guesstimate on when it starts to lose its best flavor though often I find that with beers that rely on hops, it's way too late often. So what you lose in a beer as it ages, the hops and their flavors and bitterness starts to mellow and vanish so the malt flavors become more prominent and easier to taste. Oxidation is another thing that can affect the beer. Usually the beer becomes stuffier, but of course, all this depends on how it is stored. The third one is whether it is a bottle-conditioned one or not i.e. is there live yeast in the bottle. Lagers from big producers won't have this, but a lot of micros do leave yeast in the bottle. Beers inoculated with brettanomyces will of course develop over the years. Of course, again yeast is livelier in higher temperatures so in the fridge, the flavor won't develop as much.

cheers for that. They weren't stored in a fridge, just a little storeroom really. A look at ratebeer shows that Tuborg is a bit on the maltier side of things anyway. I also just drank a Carlsberg that was a year over, tastes exactly the same as you would expect.

Unfortunately none of these free beers are in anything but a green bottle, but hey, it is free after all

I must find this Raspberry Truffle Abduction, now.

It is quite good, I was really taken aback by the amount of actual raspberry flavor. I've only seen it once so I'm not sure how often they make it, but then again I'm not in Illinois very often anymore. Looks like the most recent batch of Raspberry Truffle Abduction came out in March. Since then they've done three different versions of Abduction in May (Coffee Break Abduction, Pistachio Abduction, and Cherry Truffle Abduction) and one in June (Passion Fruit Abduction).

http://pdubs.net/batch/

I'm pretty sure the Raspberry and Mocha versions are the most well-liked.

Welp, I struck beer gold in Beijing of all places.

Went to a street called Nanluogoxiang (which translates as South Luogo Alley) that's something of trendy pedestrian hangout spot for local yuppie types. Found a bar there called Pass By that was possibly the best bottled beer bar I've ever been to in my life. They had pints of their own house brew, which was a cloudy, brownish pub ale that was pretty tasty, for about $5.50. That's all well and good, but after that I went to take a look at their bottle fridges and was simply blown away. About ~180 different bottles, all pretty damn fresh per the best by dates, from a vast selection of foreign craft breweries and older European breweries as well. I had a Trappistes Rochefort 10 that cost me about $5 and a Belhaven Oat Stout that was the same price. Would've gone back repeatedly had I found this place earlier in the week and I'd be in there all the time if I was living in Beijing. They also had a nice selection of food at good prices, and a really nice glass-ceilinged indoor beer garden area with all kinds of foliage around for a cool atmosphere.

I saw another place a bit further up the street that looked like a pretty similar deal, but didn't stop in there.

Finally, I had a friendly Chinese girl help me find Great Leap Brewing, which is back in the windy residential hutongs off of Nanluogoxiang. Real bitch to find that place. Anyway, I was expecting something of a second or third rate faux American craft brewpub based on what I've seen in Korea, but I was happily proven wrong. They had a sweet Thursday deal that was four beers and a 12" pizza from a local (delicious, apparently) pizza place for 150 RMB (less than $30 US) so I camped out there for the evening. Had these:

Honey Ma Gold - A golden ale with Chinese honey, coriander and Sichuan peppercorns. Real subtle hand with the spicing there let those ingredients sing without totally wrecking the balance. Extremely easy-drinking stuff that was super well-balanced all around. I see how this is their flagship.

Little General IPA - I skipped their Hidden General session version as well as the amped up version and went straight for their standard. This was a really straightforward but expertly crafted IPA that reminded me a lot of Sierra Nevada Torpedo.

Aggressor - This was deliiiiiiiiicious. Base beer is a wee heavy but it's blended with a separetely-brewed doppelbock (I couldn't get them to cough up the proportions) by boy howdy was this an ode to the glory of malt in a glass. Beautiful dark brown with rusty amber around the edges and truckloads of complexity out of the malt symphony. Goddamn brilliant beer, this.

Cinnamon Rock Ale - I can't really think of a more appropriate name for this beer. It's something like a malty brown ale as the base but there's just huge quantities of hot cinnamon rock candy in there for a one-two punch of cinnamon heat and raw crystalline sugary sweetness that balance one another well. I couldn't drink a bunch of these but it was an interesting beer for sure.

Anyway if you ever find yourself in Beijing you'd be missing out by not getting intimate with both of these establishments, even if Great Leap is a huge pain in the ass to find.

That sounds like an amazing experience! It's crazy that most Asian countries have a better craft beer scene than many European ones.

They do? The way I've been hearing it, there can be a craft place or two in the more touristy destinations, while others are very desolate. Finding craft in South-Eastern Asia or in India can be rather difficult. I'm not sure which European countries you mean, but while some of the Eastern European countries might well lack a proper craft beer scene (Romania, Balkans, Bulgaria), but it is going strong in most of Western, Northern and Southern Europe with a couple of exceptions: Portugal and Balkans again and of course Greece has suffered a serious setback what with the economic crisis and all.

There are five craft beer places in China and suddenly it's better for beer than what more than a thousand years of European brewing has given us! Of course, that's coming from someone from a country known for its gimmicky, showy "we just discovered real beer" faddism.

Hey, America *used* to have real beer! It just so happens that German styles were the in thing when prohibition struck, so all of the decent breweries in the country went out of business while only the biggest breweries of the day survived, and when prohibition lifted they had such a ludicrous hold on the market that they were able to market swill as great beer, and thus the American beer palate changed for the worse. So, it's less about us discovering real beer and more about rediscovering it! I do agree that there are too many gimmicky brews and stuff but there's still shitloads of wonderful American stuff.

Anyway yeah China's beer scene seemed grim as hell, really. Just a couple islands of decency in a vast desert of Tsingtao. I just thought those couple islands I found were pretty great.

Hah, yeah, I'm not saying that America doesn't have have its own great beers (it certainly does). But they're also world leaders in gimmicky, over-hopped, toffee-album-cinnamon whatever, too. There's a lot of marketing over taste, as well, which unfortunately has made its way over here (not naming any names, but Brewdog is a fine/awful example of this). Also, I'm seeing a lot of UK breweries adopting similar hip marketing strategies to make sure that they don't look too "old man"-ish.

Although I only see Export-UK beer here, I can guarantee you that all of them are absolutely riding that "old man" image til the (carriage) wheels fall off. The international image is still in tact.

Excellent. That's just what I would like. What British beer can you find in New Zealand, anyway? Sadly, they don't sell Wakachangi over here, though.

Sweden has to have the worst beer in civilized Europe (the not south and east parts of Europe). Horrible horrible stuff, would rather drink Carlsberg than touch Swede suds. That said, I tend to buy American beers like IPAs or Innis & Gunn Rum Finish from that stupid Scotland place. Out of the common Asian beers/lagers Beer Lao I think is the best, then the Japanese stuff. Asahi Honey Brown was a good one, haven't seen it much outside of Jappers though, don't think they even make it these days, no doubt replaced by cucumber and seaweed beer or some crap.

Dude, what? Try something from the proper brewers: Dugges, All-In, Närke, Slottskällans, Närke, Nils Oscar, Poppels, Mohawk, Sigtuna, Oppigårds, Omnipollo, CAP, St. Eriks, Nynäshamns. And get the stuff they have at Systembolaget, rather than the folköl you can get from regular shops. You might have to talk to a salesperson and have them order some bottles for you, but it shouldn't be too difficult if you plan ahead. For specific recommendations for example All-In's The Purpose of IPA is just divine, one of the best IPAs I've had, Oppigårds' Thurbo Stout and Thurbo DIPA, Poppels Nya Världens IPA and DIPA, Mohawk's Anything Gose, Jönköpings Dolce WhIPA, Modernist's Savant.

Maybe waiguoren is talking about their domestic lager (I assume that's all he drinks since he's student scum... I once saw him paying for a bag of chips with a cheque, but that's another story). Surely, the Scandi stuff is worse than, say, Peroni or Estrella. I mean, I'd definitely rather drink either of those than fuckin' Carlsberg.

I figured so at first and granted, their Mariestads or Spendrups or Tre Kroner don't hold a candle to Karhu, as you well know, being a connoisseur of lager. But then he goes on to mention American IPAs (you know, the kind you love) so I figured he doesn't mean just the crendy lager at least. And even so, some of the smaller breweries make great lager as well: Dugges, Nils Oscar, Jämtlands. They aren't stupidly hoppy (there ain't no such thing) either.

I also hate Innis & Gunn. Tried it once at uni and it was quite vile. If I remember correctly it was a beer with a hint of whiskey.