Blanche de Namur was rather pissy from what I remember. Hoegaarden is choice for a tight budget (unless you just want to feast on tons of that Jupiler bullshit), but have you tried Kwak? That one tastes great. Duchesse de Bourgogne is great too, but at a significantly higher price.

It's called Dry Hop. It's on the North Side of town.

Nah, I was talking only about Witbier, not belgian beer in general. I don't like very much Kwak, is too sweet for me, but I do enjoy Duchesse de Bourgogne, even though I think Rodenbach Grand Cru or Caractère Rouge are better.

Hey guys,

I live in the US, but spent the past 4 months in the UK. Prior to that trip, I had not tried many different beers, mostly because I am both underage and don't have a lot of money, so if I did drink something it would be shitty light beer. When I was in London, however, I tried a lot of different beers and found that my favorite was definitely Hobgoblin. I was hoping that someone would be able to suggest to me other beers that are similar to Hobgoblin that are available to me in the United States, particularly the New England area. Also, I usually don't know what to ask or look for, because I don't know what type of beer it is that I like. I know Hobgoblin is referred to as a brown or amber ale, but I didn't know if those were smaller subsets of a broader type.

Thanks.

Hobgoblin's an ESB. You should be able to find it in the US at stores that carry a decent selection of imports. You could also try Fuller's ESB, also from England. Other good beers in the style that you should be able to find without too much difficulty are Stoudt's Scarlet Lady ESB and Redhook ESB. During the winter you should be able to get Heavy Seas' Category 5 Winter Storm Ale.

I would suppose that there are also smaller breweries doing good ESB's in New England as well.

Boatrocker Banshee Barleywine

Appearance: Brown, which makes it too dark for me. Barley wines should IMO be a dark amber, maybe a very dark red, but it shouldn't cross into the brown spectrum. Perhaps it has been darkened by its time in barrels- to quote the label, "...aged in freshly emptied new world distillery whisky (ex-Pedro Ximenez) barrels".

Aroma: Very sweet, like very dark toffee mixed with caramel. Some honey notes. The sweetness is quite overpowering.

Flavour: Full of esters and phenloics, with the aforementioned sweetness lingering on the palate after swallowing. Honestly I would love to try what the beer was like before it was put in the barrel, because honestly it doesn't taste like the barrel added very many good qualities at all. Sure there are some sherry notes, but overall it has a roughness to it that doesn't sit very well. The sweetness doesn't help either, as after several sips it just becomes this cloying background that is a little sickly. I'm sure my friends are sick of hearing me say this, but I stand by it- on the whole beers are better when they have attenuated more and finish out dry- especially if it's an IPA, though barley wines benefit from it as well. The sweetness covers up whatever malt body that the beer may have, rendering the beer a sweet concoction with its main flavour markers being its ester and phenol profiles. They're great and all, but I want some maltiness to hold it all together.

Mouthfeel: Decent, with good body.

Overall: While my flavour notes might make it sound like I really dislike this beer, I don't. At 14% I didn't expect a beer that's soft on the palate in any way, and ending up with a big beer was inevitable. Its flaws, though, prevent it from being a great beer. It's all right- drinkable with no deal breaking flaws, but with problems that mark it down in my eyes.

Thanks, I still got a few months until I'm 21 but I will keep those names in mind.

Man, I love me a red ale


a little bitter on the finish for my liking, but otherwise another great Moa.

Not always good to drink your best beer first, this tastes completely arse by comparrison


still got one of these to wash it down


some people hate it. I like it OK. It's not complex, but at least its got a genuine chocolate flavour. Someone other than me must buy it for it to still be in production.

Some random reflections from my vacation last week:

Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Cherry Stout: Wasn't sure about this going in as I've had found barrel-aged stouts outside the normal range of flavors* (coffee, chocolate, etc) are hit and miss. But this was quite good, a lot richer and more balanced than the normal CW BB Stout, which I found very boozy and watery. Cherry flavor was up front and nice and tart. Did have a touch of a cough-syrupy flavor, but not enough to be a significant detraction.

Backwoods Bastard 14: Since this has been out for about seven months the booziness has mellowed a bit and the toffee/chocolate/fig flavors are moving forward. going to save a few more to try after a full year of aging.

Shorts Huma Lupa Licious: Balanced and straightforward IPA. Nothing special, just satisfying and crisp.

Shorts Soft Parade: An ale fermented with raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. Definitely more on the tart than sweet side, so don't go into it expecting a shandy. Very refreshing on a warm summer day.

*IE the Bourbon Barrel Coffee Mint Stout I had at a Bayfield WI brewery, which tasted like toothpaste and disappointment.

Picked up a six pack of this tonight. I've had two, and while I really enjoy the citrus the back end bitterness just kills it for me. I don't mind bitter beer in general but for whatever reason I'm not that into this. Going to try someat room temperature another day and see if that makes any difference.

Got a Carlsberg Elelphant tonight. Pretty drinkable for a strong lager.

and this...


It's a "New Zealand Ale". It comes in a swappacrate bottle, costs $3, and tastes like your typical old school NZ draught...








...as in like piss.

I very like Desperados Tequilla Beer.

St. Bernardus Abt 12 and Rasputin are the greatest beers.

What do you like about them? Either of you go first. Personally the combination of tequila and beer is insta-puke for me, so I'm curious. Also, is there more than one Rasputin? What's St. Bernardus Abt 12?

The Rasputin beer I'm talking about is the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. It has a very rich flavor that is also impactful. Kind of sweet, bitter, but somewhat fresh tasting. According to beeradvocate.com, St. Bernardus is a Quadrupel. Tastes malty and slightly fruity. Drinking this kind of feels like eating food, because the flavor is grainy and fruity. I'm not sure if that description does a good job, but you gotta try those two. Chances are you'll enjoy them, and even if you don't, it would be an interesting experience nonetheless.

St Bernardus sounds nice, as I like me a good quad.

Speaking of quads...

Cold tonight (by Aussie standards naturally) and I'm working my way through a delicious and satisfying La Trappe Quad, with another two in the fridge. Life is good.

Man that sounds perfect. Kinda hot where I'm at right now, so I'm locked in my room, eating lame yogurt.

Two of my coworkers are leaving (an American's going back home and a Korean quit for greener pastures) so we're having a farewell party/cookout at the head teacher's apartment tonight. We're supposed to bring libations to share, so I went to the local Emart to grab some bottles of Duvel and was pleasantly surprised to see two different Lagunitas beers on display. They only had the IPA and the Pale Ale, which is kind of lame, and they were something like $5.50 per bottle, but I still had a huge dumb smile on my face. Gonna be a good night!

Just opened my bottle of Chimay red. This has a wonderful nose and a deep, reddish-brown colour. Delicious. After this I'm onto a bottle of Chimay blue.

New Korean craft beer at Homeplus: Hug Me by ARK (brewed by the very creatively named Korean Craft Brewery). This is a wheat ale with ginger, coriander and orange peel. Pretty damn tasty stuff, so I'll be on the lookout for their IPA as well.

Man, these would probably be staples at my place if they didn't come so relatively dearly around here. A lot of the Belgian imports are fairly pricey in NY, around $6/7 for a 12 oz, so it's been a long time since Chimay graced my glass. For the same reason I haven't yet tried out some of the other Belgian standards that you'd expect, like St Bernardus or La Trappe.

In other news, I'll be buggered if Lagunitas Gnarlywine isn't an amazing go-to standard to have available. Only $5 a bomber, stuff is like candy

Yeah their bombers are great for a go to beer. Here they range from $3.50-$5 depending on the store you're at. I just wish they'd put out some more bombers though, seems like they've only got 4 or 5 in regular circulation.

How boozy/hoppy is it? I tend to prefer sweeter barleywines over hoppier ones like Old Guardian / Old Ruffian.

I consider it quite sweet/malty, not very hoppy, but then I also consider Old Guardian not particularly hoppy either, so... When I think of a hoppy barleywine I think of Bigfoot, if that puts things into better perspective. The hop levels in Gnarlywine/Old Guardian I feel are just enough to add a nice bite to balance out the powerful sweetness.

You ever try Unibroue's La Terrible, Gnu? If you're into strong, sweet, darker beers I highly recommend it if you can find it. It's like Trois Pistoles but even better, imo.

La Terrible rules. It was actually far easier for me to find in my neck of the woods than Trois Pistoles, which was actually one of the more difficult standard Unibroue beers for me to get my hands on.

I forgot to mention that I think I turned on some Koreans to the wonders of not-shitty beer on Saturday! I brought that 750ml bottle of Duvel and two bottles of Lagunitas IPA to a dinner party and they assumed the Duvel was wine and were shocked when I told them it was beer. "I never knew beer could taste this way!" Then they were all passing around the Lagunitas sniffing the shit out of it, "wow, this smells like oranges and pine trees!" I should be a beer missionary.

It is especially expensive to drink beer that doesn't taste like piss in Korea. I remember La Chouffe was expensive as hell.

It depresses me that when people recommend Hoegaarden as a cheap wheat beer, its $18-19 for a 4 pack 330ml here (about US $15).

Luckily I can get a Krombacher Weizen 500ml for $4, which to my taste, is pretty decent.

Drinking my own beer tonight. It's good. It's got a super nice caramel flavor to it on the back and even though it's a DIPA it's not super hoppy oddly enough. Super damn strong though, messed up on the abv calculator so I have no idea how strong it is. The reading we got was 4.5% so I knew it was wrong but I'm guessing this is 8-10%. My buddy screwed up on the sugar so it's got way too much head but ehh what can you do?

Cheers for homebrew!

I'm drinking a homemade chai milk stout (5.9% ABV, 23 IBU). It's got more roast than my brother-in-law and I were aiming for; gonna switch out some of the roasted grains for a bit more chocolate but I'll be damned it I'm not happy with it overall.

Tower 10 IPA.

I really can't think of much to say about it other than "yep, that's an IPA". It's such a stock example off the style it's quite boring.

Any of you out there tried this?



Thinking of buying a bottle out of curiosity, as I don't mind a decent chili stout/black beer if done right. The last decent one I have had was Garage Project's Day of the Dead, which was really good, with the chili being a subtle (but noticeable) flavour undercurrent.

I've grown surprisingly fond of chile stouts/porters, surprising in the sense that I'm not particularly keen on spicy food. That being said, I feel like any Rogue take on the trend would just be a gimmick beer a la Voodoo Maple Bacon Doughnut Ale (or whatever the fuck they named it). I will avoid that one.


I recently tried St. Bernardus Christmas Ale for the first time in years but I paired it with food, so I couldn't do a proper review. It's their "other" quad, for anyone wondering. The quad that sits in the shadow of their abt 12.

Yeah I've seen that maple bacon thing around, but I'm none too keen to try it, due to what you said - being too gimmicky without much substance. The reviews on rate beer for the Sriracha seem somewhat pleasing toward it, so maybe I'll give it a run. Problem is it's $23AUD a bottle, so I have a slight heart attack at the price.

Been drinking a lot of Chimay blue, La Trappe quads and last night I had me two of these beauties



A pleasing and unassuming smoked porter from Western Australia. Decent beer, from a great little brewery.

Everything Feral does is gold. I would argue that their Hop Hog is the best pale ale in Australia.

New craft brewpub type place opened in town called "Beer Works." Had a sip of their "tropical ale" which was a wheat ale that had some nicely citrusy hops, as well as their pale ale which was pretty standard stuff, but the porter was actually real tasty. The best place is that the interior decor was all of these fucking depraved bears with these suicidal frowns and bloodshot eyes drinking beer and doing shit like choking people to death and taking massive yards-long shits on the ground and stuff. It was pretty busy in there and I think they thought I was weird for taking pictures, so I apologize for the shitty quality:

God damn that is some strange artwork.

Omnegang's Three Philosophers is rich as hell, and flavorful - it took a bit of getting used to, but damn, a fine, strong beverage. This is becoming one of my favorite breweries. Scythe and Sickle is still my favorite that I unfortunately can't find where I am now. But this one and the Witte are damn good too.

Went with the go to of beers tonight, Lagunitas. Got me a cheap bomber of the Imperial Stout, always a nice replacement for dinner as well. Always good to know that I can spend $4.50 on a bottle and be sittin pretty for the remainder of the evening.

Attended a friend's bachelor party last Saturday and had some rather great beers among the bunch: Garage Project's Death from Above was a really nice, strongly resinous IPA. The bottle could've been fresher, but you get what you get when you ship bottles across the globe. Smuttynose Barley Wine was a greatly American barley wine with a lot of the caramel and dried fruit you'd expect as well as some residual, resinous hoppiness as the bottle wasn't the freshest either. Somewhat sweet, but not overtly so. Hop Valley's Alpha Centauri Binary IPA was a very easy-drinking DIPA - though again not the freshest- and Caldera's Rauch Ur-Bock was somewhat like its more famous namesake, but quite a bit fruitier and less smoked ham-like. Partizan's Stout - A well done foreign stout. Drinks superbly easy for its strength with a lot of roast and chocolate. It had nothing on the best beer of the night though: Wild Beer's Wildebeest - An 11% imperial stout with plenty of roast and coffee, vanilla and salty liquorice. Some light sour earthiness. Just magnificent.



I tend to agree though I like spicy food even if I can't handle a lot of it, but a porter/stout that has a bit of burn to it that you feel at the back of your throat is really nice. I guess it goes with the flavor profile. I also tend to prefer dunkels or regular stouts/porters with spicy, tomato-based foods.



The Christmas is really great. Has plenty of dark, ripe fruits and not too much spiciness in comparison to the strong malt backbone. I really like the vinous, sherry-like quality it has as well. I think I do prefer it to Abt 12.

Garage Project in Finland eh? That's awesome, as they're one of my favourite brewers right now. Most of their beers are superb. The Pernicious Weed is a good IPA if you ever see it around anywhere, as is my personal pick, the Venusian Pale Ale.