BEER Thread!

Whoa. You could make quite a porridge from that!

I do love a good high octane brew, but I've stuck mostly to 4-5% stuff so far. Might be time to shoot for something stronger.

Well my IPA turned out tasty, but not what I expected. It is much milder than I expected not nearly as hoppy as I thought it'd be. Still, not a bad first effort and certainly very drinkable.

I think next time I'll add a bit more to the early boil and maybe add some grapefruit peel into the secondary ferment.

Congrats on the success, even if it's not the success you planned!

Are you gonna package up all that Vegemite on the bottom?

Nice job on the first try Phades! Drinkable is a great place to be. Now that I've had a few of mine, I'm thinking I have the opposite problem - it's maybe a bit too hoppy for the style. Although it could really just need a few more days to calm down. We'll see how it is by this weekend.

It's too bad I couldn't package up all the Vegemite! It ended up getting fed to the outdoors into our pile of decaying organic matter. Is there any actual use for trub? I guess some people harvest yeast out of it for another brew, but you have to brew fairly regularly to be able to use it from what I've read.

d4m0 wrote:

Nice job on the first try Phades! Drinkable is a great place to be. Now that I've had a few of mine, I'm thinking I have the opposite problem - it's maybe a bit too hoppy for the style. Although it could really just need a few more days to calm down. We'll see how it is by this weekend.

It's too bad I couldn't package up all the Vegemite! It ended up getting fed to the outdoors into our pile of decaying organic matter. Is there any actual use for trub? I guess some people harvest yeast out of it for another brew, but you have to brew fairly regularly to be able to use it from what I've read.

I've heard of people washing the yeast out and using it for either another batch or for bread, but other than that not really, I was just making a bad joke. I'm pretty sure marmite and vegemite are purpose grown yeast cultures not byproducts.

haha not a bad joke at all! I got it

Making bread with that yeast sounds interesting though... might give that a shot next time!

Just be careful of where you dump the trub if you dry hopped. Hops + dogs don’t mix. Toxic to dogs and can kill them.

whoa good to know, thanks bhchrist. We don't have a dog and the neighbors keep their dog inside their fenced-in yard, so we should be good. I will certainly be more careful in the future though!

For my birthday my wonderful husband enrolled me in an "off flavours of beer" course at a local brewery. Ironically, I opened my present while wearing the self same breweries shirt (itself a gift from my husband years back).

I'm super excited about this

IMAGE(https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/49454406_10157091491982806_1960791023189753856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&_nc_ht=scontent-yyz1-1.xx&oh=a03a80f2d3e60726b710422aea3fe709&oe=5CC9118B)

Awesome! I hope you'll drop some knowledge bombs on us afterwards.

Damn! What a nice gift!

Dogfish Head is releasing a craft whiskey

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/PWzRP11/1.jpg)

Alternate Takes: Volume 1 is distilled from what is essentially a Dogfish Head beer, albeit one that has never been released commercially, nor was ever intended to be. Unlike breweries such as Deschutes, whose Black Butte Porter Whiskey I recently reviewed, Dogfish Head isn’t taking one of their commercial beers and then distilling it. Instead, they’re designing a fermented liquid to be distilled from the very beginning, using a rather crazy array of malts: Applewood smoked malt, coffee kiln malt and crystal malt, which are mashed and then fermented with the brewery’s house Doggie Ale yeast. The fermented product is then distilled, aged in newly charred American oak barrels, and is then finished in rum casks that previously held the distillery’s Barrel Honey Rum.

I'd try it. Certainly sounds interesting! Too bad it looks like you have to be in the DC area to pick up a bottle.

d4m0 wrote:

I'd try it. Certainly sounds interesting! Too bad it looks like you have to be in the DC area to pick up a bottle.

I didn't read all the way to the last paragraph where the small distribution area was mentioned. Oh well. DFH is in Delaware, and I'm way down here outside Memphis. Even though their beer is widely available here, I guess I'm not too surprised that this special product won't be available anywhere near my area.

Just to be that guy, I loved DFH 20 years ago when they were a really innovative, creative brewery focused on making good beer, but for a long time they've felt like a large-scale marketing company that sometimes involves a beer or two. I'm even more aggressively dubious about that than usual.

Bell's Double Two Hearted Ale hitting stores this July

Regular Two Hearted is one of my favorite standard (non-gimmicky) IPAs, so I'm definitely looking forward to trying this.

Yeah, Two-Hearted has been one of the essential, classic American IPAs for something like 20 years minimum at this point. Absolutely a near-perfect, top-notch example of the style. While I'm always a bit dubious about tweaking something that classic and doubling it in what I'm sure winds up being some marketing genius, I'll absolutely get this as soon as it's out.

Psuedo Sue is an excellent beer. Fantastic all by itself. King Sue is at least as good but a little different. Bells already has one of the most sought after double ipa's around in Hopslam so I am sure that Bell's Double Two Hearted won't disappoint. Hopefully, it's a little cheaper than Hopslam (which is $20 a six pack her) but if not I'll still buy it. IIPAs are my favorite style of beer.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Psuedo Sue is an excellent beer. Fantastic all by itself. King Sue is at least as good but a little different. Bells already has one of the most sought after double ipa's around in Hopslam so I am sure that Bell's Double Two Hearted won't disappoint. Hopefully, it's a little cheaper than Hopslam (which is $20 a six pack her) but if not I'll still buy it. IIPAs are my favorite style of beer.

Agree with all of this, but will add that drier IIPAs are more my thing. Too many IIPAs are overly sweet and cloying. The best boosted version of a venerated IPA was Firestone Walker's Double Jack, the Imperial version of their multiple award winning Union Jack. Very dry without the use of sugar. I don't mind the use of sugar to lower the finishing gravity, mind you, and Vinnie does it with Russian River's Pliny, but Double Jack was pretty incredible. They no longer make it and rumor has it that there was also a formula shift in Union Jack, adding in crystal malts to give it a sweeter character. I don't know if that is the case or not (hope not), but Matt Brynildson is one of my favorite brewers.

Oh hell yeah, Pseudo Sue is one of my favorite beers. Near the top of my all-time list. Have you guys tried the Sosus? It's one of Toppling's IIPAs and I would say it's more on the dryer side of the line, and also fantastic.

I just tried Hopslam for the first time last week and loved it. In MA it's only about $14 for a six-pack though, at least where I picked it up, which is a crazy deal considering I often get four-packs of whatever for more than that. I wonder why it's that much more in IA. I'll definitely be trying the Double Two Hearted when it shows up here!

bhchrist wrote:
EvilHomer3k wrote:

Psuedo Sue is an excellent beer. Fantastic all by itself. King Sue is at least as good but a little different. Bells already has one of the most sought after double ipa's around in Hopslam so I am sure that Bell's Double Two Hearted won't disappoint. Hopefully, it's a little cheaper than Hopslam (which is $20 a six pack her) but if not I'll still buy it. IIPAs are my favorite style of beer.

Agree with all of this, but will add that drier IIPAs are more my thing. Too many IIPAs are overly sweet and cloying. The best boosted version of a venerated IPA was Firestone Walker's Double Jack, the Imperial version of their multiple award winning Union Jack. Very dry without the use of sugar. I don't mind the use of sugar to lower the finishing gravity, mind you, and Vinnie does it with Russian River's Pliny, but Double Jack was pretty incredible. They no longer make it and rumor has it that there was also a formula shift in Union Jack, adding in crystal malts to give it a sweeter character. I don't know if that is the case or not (hope not), but Matt Brynildson is one of my favorite brewers.

I'm completely with you on double/IIPAs; as I've gotten older, I've found I like sweet flavors less and less. I actually think Hopslam is a godawful beer; I find it incredibly syrupy and cloying, and that's the kind of flavor I just cannot stand in anything. Like, anything; I rarely eat dessert, dislike most cocktails because they tend to be sweetened liquor on a basic level, and just avoid the taste of sugar in general. I mean, I'll eat the hell out of a giant pile of salt to it's not like I'm a health nut, but, man, so many stronger beers wind up that way because a ridiculous amount of sugar is pumped in to give the yeast plenty of things to snack on, and I just can't deal with it. I'm expecting a bigger Two Hearted to stick to the more traditional C-hops it's known for, and I'm expecting it to be great.

Funny, I also rarely eat dessert and don't really snack on any sweets at all, and never have. Soda is always way too sweet for me. But I still somehow love a good cloying IIPA. I'll say that often a super sweet imperial stout gets to me a bit too much, but somehow the bitterness in a sweet IPA offsets the sweetness enough for me to enjoy it.

I recently got Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" on DVD (well, a DVD rip of the VHS tapes it appears). Would anyone be in interested in watching it if I upload them to YouTube as a unlisted videos?

d4m0 wrote:

Funny, I also rarely eat dessert and don't really snack on any sweets at all, and never have. Soda is always way too sweet for me. But I still somehow love a good cloying IIPA. I'll say that often a super sweet imperial stout gets to me a bit too much, but somehow the bitterness in a sweet IPA offsets the sweetness enough for me to enjoy it.

I used to love all things imperial, it's just one of those things that's happened in the last few years. I was at a brewpub last weekend where they had an imperial peanut butter stout, as well as an imperial "baklava" stout that had honey, cinnamon, and . . . some other thing. I told the brewer they were both really well-made stouts that were full and rich, didn't taste sacchariney or grainy, and I was impressed at how well they'd been done, and that also I hated them both and it wasn't his fault. I just can't do it anymore, and I have no idea why. I mean, I'm pushing 50 so, hey, metabolically speaking it's not a bad thing to not like anymore, but I just can't do anything sweet. I'm a fan of the new Brut IPA trend, just because they're all so gloriously dry.

Trachalio wrote:

I recently got Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" on DVD (well, a DVD rip of the VHS tapes it appears). Would anyone be in interested in watching it if I upload them to YouTube as a unlisted videos?

Personally, I would be interested in your thoughts of them. I appreciate and admire everything the Late Mr. Jackson did for beer history and styles. In many way, he was decades ahead of his time. Today, the industry has moved so very far ahead of what he was seeking out, that I am curious to the relevancy other than as a historical record (and there is great value in that).

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
d4m0 wrote:

Funny, I also rarely eat dessert and don't really snack on any sweets at all, and never have. Soda is always way too sweet for me. But I still somehow love a good cloying IIPA. I'll say that often a super sweet imperial stout gets to me a bit too much, but somehow the bitterness in a sweet IPA offsets the sweetness enough for me to enjoy it.

I used to love all things imperial, it's just one of those things that's happened in the last few years. I was at a brewpub last weekend where they had an imperial peanut butter stout, as well as an imperial "baklava" stout that had honey, cinnamon, and . . . some other thing. I told the brewer they were both really well-made stouts that were full and rich, didn't taste sacchariney or grainy, and I was impressed at how well they'd been done, and that also I hated them both and it wasn't his fault. I just can't do it anymore, and I have no idea why. I mean, I'm pushing 50 so, hey, metabolically speaking it's not a bad thing to not like anymore, but I just can't do anything sweet. I'm a fan of the new Brut IPA trend, just because they're all so gloriously dry.

I still like a lot of those styles, and I think sweet (or the perception of sweet) has a place in my pallet (heck, I just bought a Wee Heavy malt bomb to check out), so my tastes haven't drifted as far as yours have, but, yeah, a Barley Wine has to be pretty special or have other flavors that counter balance the unfermentable maltose in those beers (like Central Waters Barrel Aged Barley Wine).

bhchrist wrote:

Personally, I would be interested in your thoughts of them. I appreciate and admire everything the Late Mr. Jackson did for beer history and styles. In many way, he was decades ahead of his time. Today, the industry has moved so very far ahead of what he was seeking out, that I am curious to the relevancy other than as a historical record (and there is great value in that).

I'll apologize now for these notes being all over the map because I'm getting a lot of feels watching the series and I'm having a hard time putting them down in a coherent form.

I think it's still relevant, both from an informational perspective as well as a historical one... and even, I suppose, from a time capsule like perspective as well. It's 30 years old this year and it shows. But in a retro-cool way I think. Even if you're a seasoned beer aficionado, it's still a great series to watch. While there aren't any new styles to be discovered by watching it, you'll learn a lot of history on the styles that you do know. And why a region is famous for a particular style. Outside of books, has anyone else done this?

Because it was never filmed in HD, you're constantly reminded that when the show came out most people watching had never heard of most of the beer styles he talks about, let alone the breweries he visited. People would have been fascinated by it because it would have been so "exotic". They'd been drinking macro lagers their whole life and knew nothing else. That blows my mind. Because, as you've said, we've moved so far ahead of what Mr. Jackson was looking for in '89 and even what he knew just before he passed. And everyone else knew even less.

In some ways I feel like watching the series is a good reset. Back in September Don't Drink Beer had a great post titled "Top 10 Beers That New Money Palates Will Not Drink". A reminder that we shouldn't always be chasing the new and extreme. Watching The Beer Hunter really helped cement that attitude for me. I went from always having Duvel and St. Bernardus in my fridge, to only having the latest and greatest from my local breweries.

So my tl;dr would be: yes, it's still relevant. And with only 6 episodes of 30 min each, it only takes 3 hours to watch them all

Trachalio wrote:

I recently got Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" on DVD (well, a DVD rip of the VHS tapes it appears). Would anyone be in interested in watching it if I upload them to YouTube as a unlisted videos?

I would love to check those out if you did put them up on yatube. That would be awesome.

I enjoy a really dry beer now and then, but still haven't tried a brut IPA. They seem to be taking longer to get out here on the east coast. I've only seen one in a liquor store one time, but I was almost afraid to get it because I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I should just pick up a single the next time I see one. My tastes are certainly moving more in the dry direction, probably similar to bhchrist, but I'm not sure I'll ever be all the way there.

I've created an unlisted Playlist on YouTube: The Beer Hunter. Enjoy!