Welllll I haven't actually been there yet (will check it out this evening) but apparently there's a place that's not to far from my new apartment here called Next Craft Beer and Pizza that supposedly has actually better-than-decent western style pizza as well as plenty of craft beer on draft and in bottles. Right now it looks like they have two Anderson Valley beers, Ayinger Celebrator, Ballast Point's Big Eye, Caldera IPA, Brewdog's Punk, Founders Centennial and Dirty Bastard, Firestone Walker's Union Jack and fucking New Holland Dragon's Milk. Prices look decent, too; about $7-9 for most things which is alright for Korea. They've also got open mic and trivia nights.

Has anybody here tried this beer called 12 Minutes To Destiny by Flying Monkeys? I'm not sure if it is available outside of Ontario, but I just bought a 6 pack of it because I've never seen or tried a "hibiscus amber lager" before. It's pretty darn good and not what I expected. The hibiscus is not overpowering and there's a mild raspberry sweetness, and it's super easy to drink. I wish it were stronger because lighter beers lack punch, but the flavour really makes up for its weakness.

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/beers/12-minutes-destiny

Off the top of my head I can only recall having one beer with hibiscus, a long-discontinued beer by Goose Island called Fleur (not le Fleur, just "Fleur"). Goose Island gave conflicting information about the beer during the two or so years they made it. They variously described it as being made with hibiscus and bottled with brettanomyces; being made with hibiscus, then blended with kombucha tea, then bottled with brettanomyces; or being blended with both hibiscus and kombucha tea and then bottled with brettanomyces. They also claimed the beer had different abv's at different times and implied that previous batches were incorrectly labelled.

It was delicious, however they made. I still miss it.

Quite a few with hibiscus. An IPA from France, but I forget the name. A golden ale or a bitter from an English brewery. Dieu du Ciel! makes a wit with hibiscus.

I mean, I've been to beer bars with other hibiscus beers on the menu and I'm positive I ordered some. Fleur is just the only one I remember.

I'm going to keep an eye out for floral beers in the future. I like beers that have unique flavours, and that beer is a new favourite of mine. I remember having a banana bread ale this summer, and that one had a very authentic banana taste, almost like it was caramelized. Dissapointed that I can't remember what brand it was.

Speaking of flavoured beers, anybody try Frulli? It was classified as a wheat ale in the pub's menu, so I ordered it. Right after I ordered it, I realized that something wasn't quite right about the name. The server comes to my table, and it's red! I even asked her "why is this red?" and she said "it's a strawberry beer". Right, red "beer". I felt like a bitch drinking it, but damn, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. I had 3 that night, but I'm never touching that shit ever again.

Wells.

Used to love that stuff but as I've gotten more into beer I've found it increasingly underwhelming.

Got a few pretty nice beers for my bday- bunch of coopers stout long necks, a case of hoegaarden, another case of fat yak pacific ale (decent and sort of sessionable) a brewdox paradox imperial stout and an epicurean imperial outmeal stout which I'm really psyched about smashing.

10:35pm, four days out from three weeks holidays and currently enjoying a six pack of Sierra Nevada pales. Mmmmmm... delicious...

Also steamy as balls here on east coast Australia.

Nice. I went to college in Chico (where Sierra Nevada is headquartered) which was pretty awesome. To quote a great movie, it's "a place where the beer flows like wine." The running joke there was that the brewery had underground pipes going to all the bars and restaurants in town haha. Man, I really miss their Brown Ale though. Not their Maple Brown which is ok... but their plain Brown Ale. A couple buddies and I would meet weekly at Woodstock's Pizza and discuss The Bible - each with a liter of Brown Ale in our hands haha. Good times.

CrushedRevelation: Ha that sounds great.

I need to check out more stuff from Sierra Nevada. There is a few types that can be ordered in the special liquor store here.
5 it looks like. Think I'm gonna order them all and try them out
Have only tasted the Pale Ale before and that one is good!

^SN's Pale is one of my least favorites of theirs (though it's still far from bad). If you like it, I imagine you'll dig their other stuff. Which ones are available? Probably their Celebration, Torpedo...? Their barley wine style ale called Bigfoot is very good and somewhat readily available. Also, their imperial stout Narwhal is excellent too. Both of those go for about $10 USD for a four-pack but IMO it's worth it. I can only imagine the cost in Norway though...

Still sitting on a bottle of BA Narwhal 2015, thinking of cracking it this NYE.

Oh nice! The barrel aged Narwhal is even better than the standard stuff. You won't be disappointed.

Also, I had The Bruery's Autumn Maple the other evening and it was alright... I'm all for unique flavors in beer but when done with subtlety and modesty. This one tasted pretty overwhelmingly of maple syrup. It's a decent beer but IMO would be much better had they toned down some of the extra flavors in it.

Hehe, I also just got a bottle of this year's Black Tuesday. Heard it's sweet as hell, so I'm probably going to share it with at least two other people when I finally open it. Hilariously strong flavoring does seem to be The Bruery's MO...

Alright, sounds good then!

They have:
Porter
Stout
Pale Ale
Torpedo IPA
Bigfoot

Price is quite heavy indeed, but I am used to that

Right on. I haven't had that one though sounds like it may not be my cup of tea haha.



Awesome! Those are some very good options. The Porter and Stout I enjoy very much. And even here in California they're not super easy to come by unless you're in the town of Chico. I've seen 'em around though.

That Bigfoot will put hair on your chest though haha. It packs a punch for sure.

Sounds good, I will for sure check all these out then!
The Bigfoot do for sure look interesting, and I will probably notice that one without doubt

Will have to wait a little, since I have way to many ''christmas'' beers / winter warmers I am gonen enjoy the coming weeks.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!



Haha I know what you mean... We picked up one of these (the BIG bottle) thinking we'd give it away as a gift or at a party or something but the opportunity hasn't arisen yet so maybe we'll end up keeping it...

Just moved to Malaysia. Beer here is expensive (thanks to the absurd tax rate, cheers Islamic government for deciding what everyone else shouldn't be doing for them ) and the selection very limited. Seems to be basically dominated by Asian divisions of Heineken and Carlsberg. But I'e found Tiger White to be a passable wheat, and Royal Stout affordable and solid.

Malaysia? interesting. Good luck on the beer hunt man



Agreed on the selection there, as they are all pretty damn good, especially the Torpedo IPA. Damn good stuff.

You know, I couldn't help but be disappointed with that bottle of So Happens It's Tuesday I drank...jesus, about a month ago now. The alcohol was fucking hot as hell in that thing, and while it was definitely complex there just wasn't the solid malt foundation a beer like that really needs. It was sort of a chore to finish off the ($20 ) bottle. Compared to the Clown Shoes Hammer of the Beast I drank just before it (which was diviiiine/unhoooooly I tell you what) this was a huge disappointment.

For you bourbon barrel aged aficionados out there, I HIGHLY recommend Heavy Seas Blackbeard's Breakfast. I've always thought this brewery was underrated and felt it was kind of a shame that their competitors over at Flying Dog have become a big player while Heavy Seas seems to still be basically a Mid Atlantic only sort of brewery, but goddamn does that beer push them hard into "CRIMINALLY underrated" territory. Rich, malty, of course coffee, chocolate and bourbon are there but are not the whole story by a longshot as there's lots of plum, cherry, woodiness, floral notes and lovely hints of alcohol heat stabbing through, while the whole thing is lighter than these beers tend to be as it's an imperial porter rather than a full-blown stout. Extremely tasty.

Have you considered going into [beer] sales? I am sold. I'm not familiar with Heavy Seas but I will check them out; thank you for the recommendation.

No problem! They're an old favorite of mine. While their original Clipper City beers weren't much to write home about, the Heavy Seas line (which proved popular enough to become the name of the brewery itself) was always really solid stuff. Loose Cannon was my go-to affordable IPA for years and Peg Leg and Below Decks were my go-to cheap, tasty beers for colder nights. Seems like they've retired some others I liked - Red Sky at Morning, Holy Sheet and Dubbel Cannon were all great. Probably some of those new bombers they've got are also worth a try.

Right on. Looks like most of their brews are IPAs which I'm usually not in the mood for but all of their "uncharted waters" beers (Siren Noire, Plank IV, etc.) sound amazing. I'll be keeping an eye out for them for sure!

Summer's here so today I went and got me a mixed six pack of IPA's and some DIPA's.

These consist of Stone's (US) Ruination double IPA and their Delicious IPA, 8 Wired's (NZ) Superconductor double IPA, Viven (BEL) Imperial IPA, Feral Brewing Co's (AUS) Warhog American IPA and a Pirate Life Brewing (AUS) Imperial IPA.

Bring on the hops!

That Anchor Christmas ale I mentioned earlier was really good! My dad, wife, and I shared it on Christmas and were all really quite impressed by it. Good stuff!

I got a few beers for Christmas though I am most curious to try the habanero Sculpin IPA I was given. It could be awesome or really really gross hahahaha.

Last year I had a 8 Wired - Hopwired IPA, and wow that one was really good!
But there are no beers from this brewery in the sortiment here any more

Got these today and will dive into them the coming weekend!


Went with two Bigfoot when I first ordered, quite sure I will enjoy them!


And a few more Norwegian winter ales. Winter ales (Jule øl) is such a big thing here, every brewery makes plenty of versions

^Enjoy!

I'll be curious what you think of the Sierra Nevada beers. Those winter ales look interesting too. The few American "winter ales" I've had I've liked but am curious how the Norwegians do it.

Bought 4 of each of these ales for New Years as they were going cheap. Never tried either before and both are ABV 5%

Had this one last night. It was actually pretty good! It had more heat than I expected but wasn't overwhelming either. The habanero did drown out most of the other flavors but it still had remnants of its citrus-y flavors too. Not something I plan on drinking lots of, but it was nice to have something different. I'd recommend it for the more adventurous beer drinker though don't expect anything life-changing.

Let it be stated here that putting Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout back into six packs after an 8-year hiatus was a wise decision.

Ohhhh it is, eh? Very wise indeed.

Anchor Steam is one of the original craft breweries I bought stuff from all the the way back in the 90's. Them and Pete's Wicked Ale. As far as I can tell they have kept a consistent taste all that time which is really impressive considering all the brands that have come and gone since then.

I bought a loose single of that habanero Sculpin because I was interested but was intimidated by the 18 bucks for the price of the whole six pack. I love their session IPA and the original sculpin but like you I figured there was a chance it might be pretty gross. Sure enough, I felt the heat and it definitely tasted a lot like habanero peppers, but it is not something I could drink more than a few of, and that is coming from someone who is a huge pepper fan.

On a funny note, I was at Buffalo Wild Wings last Wednesday and they had that beer on tap! I should have gotten one as that was likely my only chance to ever see that.

I did get those for Christmas:

Was recently in KL. Managed to break the interesting beer draught by going to Taps, an import craft beer bar. Had a fruity Tempest Berliner weiße, which was nice. Don't usually do sours. Also had a black IPA of some description, but was more forgettable.

Oh well, back to KK and bland lagers again soon I guess.

So, I tested these 3 Sierra Nevada beers last weekend:

Torpedo IPA
Porter
Bigfoot

And I have to say these are excellent!

The IPA was super, and I do belive I have had this one before actually.
The Porter was very ''round'' and balanced I think, a great beer to just sit down with.
But the highlight was without doubt the Bigfoot, wow.
I might conisder this as one of the best beers I have had, loved the taste of it! Had to give it 5 stars on untapped!
Still have the Stout left, will drink it on Friday I think!

Excellent! I'm happy you enjoyed them so much. Yeah that Bigfoot is awesome. They've done some barrel-aged releases of that too and it is spectacular. It's $$$ though but worth it.

Oh dang I have been slacking on using Untappd! I gotta get back using that...

That barrel aged one sounds insane!
Is the Bigfoot a seasonal beer? If so I should stock up on some of them

And I just got some info there will be a few new sorts in late February, looking forward to that!

ha I just discovered untapped, cool app. The only ''social media'' stuff i use.

BA Bigfoot is delicious, cracked my 2015 bottle of it a few weeks ago. Strong bite on account of using whiskey (instead of bourbon) barrels, but still very well-balanced.