Beer

[Rico444]

In my opinion there’s a big difference between a great stout and IPA to justify the cost difference.

But lagers, pilsners, porters, etc show much less of variance in quality.

I agree. I would also probably say the same thing about session IPAs. Super Session #2 from Lawson's is very good for a session, but it's not worth $15 for a 6 pack when I can get a 15-pack of All Day IPA for almost the same price.

 

[dtrumpet]

Problem I have with a lot of the pilseners/lagers made by micros is that they're simply not good enough to justify the price difference between them and the macros or regionals.

I sing their praises often, but for lagers/pilseners, Great Lakes is still my go-to. Easily accessible here, not sure about CT. But their Dortmunder Gold (Helles) and Elliot Ness (Vienna Amber) are excellent examples of micro lagers and more fairly priced than the Stone/Lagunitas lagers out there, at least in Pgh.

Those Great Lakes offerings are tasty, but sadly not available in CT, I've looked everywhere.

 

[Chuck]

Friday of this trip is always a beer adventure day. Skied Saturday and Sunday.

But funny you mention that; I commented several times this weekend how much I love ski days because it is such great exercise that it gives me license to eat and drink whatever I want with impunity. But after I stepped on the scale this morning for the first time in four days and observed a five-pound gain, I was reminded that I often misjudge just how much license I have to overdo it. And I ate a ton of great meats all weekend as well, which is not usual for me. Oh, and I didn't mention the ciders, either...



I don't drink enough of any beer any more for it to make a significant difference for me, but I recall liking Penn Pilsner a lot, and they have been doing it for longer than craft beer has been a thing. As a Yinzer I would have expected Penn to be on your go-to list for lagers.

I was at Stowe this weekend. You missed a great ski day on Friday. Better conditions and the slopes were so empty. I absolutely ate more than my skiing calorie burn, but oh well.

I took a look at this thread because we hit Alchemist as we were driving for dinner. Picked up some Heady, Focal Banger, and a 4 pack of Skadoosh. I mostly pick it up for friends in NJ that are big beer fans. I'm not a big hops fan, but I like the novelty of getting something that we can't get locally. It was cooler a few years ago when I went to a few stores to find Heady for a friend. I failed miserably, but then I struck up a conversation with a package store owner who explained that people drive from hours away and then get pissed at her when she runs out or limits purchases. Then they leave and don't buy anything else. I told my daughter to get some snacks (which we wanted anyway). When we were checking out she slipped a four pack into our bag and asked us not to tell anyone. She would hold back a case for people that were nice. She asked me not to tell anyone because she could lose her distribution. I assume access isn't as big of a deal now, but I still won't say which store she was at!

I also liked the Citizen Ginger cider we had (can't remember the formal name).

 

[8893]

I was at Stowe this weekend. You missed a great ski day on Friday. Better conditions and the slopes were so empty. I absolutely ate more than my skiing calorie burn, but oh well.

I took a look at this thread because we hit Alchemist as we were driving for dinner. Picked up some Heady, Focal Banger, and a 4 pack of Skadoosh. I mostly pick it up for friends in NJ that are big beer fans. I'm not a big hops fan, but I like the novelty of getting something that we can't get locally. It was cooler a few years ago when I went to a few stores to find Heady for a friend. I failed miserably, but then I struck up a conversation with a package store owner who explained that people drive from hours away and then get pissed at her when she runs out or limits purchases. Then they leave and don't buy anything else. I told my daughter to get some snacks (which we wanted anyway). When we were checking out she slipped a four pack into our bag and asked us not to tell anyone. She would hold back a case for people that were nice. She asked me not to tell anyone because she could lose her distribution. I assume access isn't as big of a deal now, but I still won't say which store she was at!

I also liked the Citizen Ginger cider we had (can't remember the formal name).

Skiing Friday is not an option for this trip because we leave that morning and get there around 1:00 p.m. We had pretty good luck with the crowds at Stowe on Saturday because we skied through lunch and didn't break until around 1:40, so we had pretty empty lift lines and slopes from around noon until then; Midway Lodge (where we set up) was empty by then, and when we went back out from 2:30 to 4:30 we pretty much had the mountain to ourselves, with fresh snow falling the entire time. Our last run on Saturday was probably the best run of the day because there were already a few inches of new snow to cover what had been skied off and there was no one else there.

Because the conditions were so good we decided to ski Sunday as well, something we usually don't do. We stay closer to Sugarbush so we skied there on Sunday and conditions were incredible with the new snow overnight; our friends who skied Stowe all three days thought Sunday was the best day there. I only skied 9:00 to 1:00 on Sunday but probably got in even more runs than Saturday because there were no lift lines at all the entire time and I skied straight through lunch again.

The Citizen ginger cider is Dirty Mayor, which is a favorite of mine, although less so than it used to be because they lowered the ABV (used to be 6.9% and now is something like 5.2%) and it has less of a bite as a result. The ginger cider from Nine Pin out of New York is currently my favorite ginger cider.

 

[Jay-Bone]

Because you don't know that you are drinking dreck now.

It's like when I go to Grand rapids all the time which is known as an incredible beer city and it was 10 years ago. Hell even 5 years ago.. now it is like the dark ages.

I'm with Rocktheworld. Alesmith and Firestone Walker are awesome. But I don't drink pine cones and weed. However, Russian River made NE IPA's what they are today way before Hill Farmstead and Heady. Try some Sucaba, Old Numbskull, Speedway Stout, Parabola, Wee Heavy, Stickee Monkey. Breweries that were born before the Treehouse / Trillium fad.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Agreed. I liked that Treehouse Pilsner a lot, but not enough to put 8 cans of it at 4 dollars a can in my cooler while Im sitting at the beach watching my daughter surf when I can put a twelve pack in there for 1/2 the price.

I won’t buy anything but IPA’s and DIPA’s from Treehouse ever again. I tried their stout (That’s What She Said), Lights On, and Old Man. They were ok, but it was nothing you couldn’t pull off the shelf at a package store.

If you like stouts Counterweight makes a great one called Void.

 

[Jay-Bone]

You arent going to try to defend CA Pizza now, are you?

However Pizza Port is the best place that makes pizza and beer. Combine Port with Lost Abbey and you get relics like Angel's Share.

 

[HuskyHawk]

2 excellent Beers... The Trail Magic is very interesting because it is a foray into Pilsner. I didnt get a full on take of it because I tried it AFTER the In perp and Hurricane (Mistake!) but it is a nice coiffable Pilsner that I could see going down easy in summer months out of a cooler.

So my Treehouse theory.... So many new labels after the move!!! And they are all good. But there isnt a huge variation in them. I think they Brew for their flagships while tweaking out the new setup and if something becomes a little different than the original beer they are intending to brew, that they just make up a new name and label and the custies go nuts buying up!
Brilliant.

Honestly, any maturing brewery needs to figure out what they do well and cut back. Experiment, sure, but they should be cranking out way more Julius, Green and Haze. Honestly, I loved "Old Man' and would love to see more of that, but I doubt it's a core beer for them.

Shawn Hill announced a couple years ago he was going to be doing that at Hill Farmstead as well. It makes no sense for a small brewery to have 50+ beers in its lineup. Keep the winners, ditch the losers. Trillium is slowly getting there. DDH Melcher is nearly always brewed now, as if Fort Point and Congress Street. The first two "Street" beers were Congress and Melcher, and those are still the best two.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Holy crap is So Cal boy still gloating about having the best beer?

“West Coast” IPAs were HUGE. Like ten-plus years ago.

“New England style” IPAs have dominated the landscape since then.

If you want to know when each jumped the shark, just look at when Sam Adams felt the need to put out its own “West Coast style,” i.e., “Rebel,” and now its own “New England style,” which means that style is on its way out soon, too.

Try again. I’m not arguing which style is better. I explicitly state that I prefer the East Coast hoppy and especially NE hazy styles.

I’m arguing they do those styles at least as well out here. I think it’s dumb to judge a region based on a single style. Really just about how they make beer, period.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Was in in the Stowe/Waterbury/Waitsfield VT beer corridor for a tremendous weekend of skiing. As usual, the NEIPA scene continues to boom there with perhaps a half dozen or so new (to me) breweries, in addition to ol' reliables like Hill Farmstead, Lawson's and Alchemist. Most impressive and refreshing to me, however, were the number of Pilsners and other lagers now on offer all around the area.

Von Trapp's new brewery (right around the corner from the Alchemist, which makes for a convenient two-fer) is gorgeous and their beers--all traditional lagers--are excellent. Their Pilsner was my favorite, followed by their Weissbier and Helles. Food was very good, too.

Hill Farmstead had a bunch of non-IPAs, most notable being "Mary," their excellent Pilsner. Their Biere de Mars was also outstanding. I also loved their "Shirley Mae," a porter on nitro.

Blackback Pub in Waterbury also had Rothaus Pils from Germany on tap and it was fantastic.

Queen City Brewery from Burlington was a new one to me, and their Hefewiezen was also terrific.

As for new APAs/IPAs, Upper Pass's First Drop was very popular and tasted like the most grapefruity beer I've had in a while; and River Roost out of White River Junction was another popular new one with a lot of offerings throughout the area. Foley Brothers Grumpy Wench was probably the best one I tasted on this trip, but I didn't drink a ton of them and mostly sampled.

Von Trapp does German styles well. I'm not a Pilsner fan, but like their Vienna Lager and some others.

Upper Pass First Drop is good stuff. They also have a very good barrel aged stout.

Foley Brothers is the best producer of IPAs and DIPAs in Vermont. Straight up. Love those guys, and that they are 20 minutes from our house. I've been there a dozen times.

Hill Farmstead Mary is a great Pilsner, even if I don't like them. They do a lot more than IPAs. IPAs aren't really their best beers aside from Abner.

Too bad you missed Foam. Great beers.

 

[8893]

Too bad you missed Foam. Great beers.

I wasn't hunting for IPAs because I have soured on them due to the gastric distress they cause me. My buddy was drinking them and I was sampling his. I didn't see any Foam beers that weren't IPAs, but I know they make non-IPAs and I was looking for them. I actually planned on drinking much less beer than I did (funny how that happens in VT) and would have just stuck with cider, but the lagers and pilsners were so good and plentiful that I ended up having a lot of them.

 

[Waquoit]

Problem I have with a lot of the pilseners/lagers made by micros is that they're simply not good enough to justify the price difference between them and the macros or regionals.

Very good point. Like "gourmet" ketchup, I don't like it as much as Heinz. I don't remember having a craft pil/lag that I thought was better than "it's fine."

 

[Dove]

Not sure how long it's been available up north North but stores down south are stocking Sam Adams' '76. Part lager, part ale. Comes in cans. Perfect for beaches, boats and golf.

Its everywhere here in CT. A crusher late to the game maybe? I will buy a couple the next time I build a 6 pack.

 

[tdrink]

However, Russian River made NE IPA's what they are today way before Hill Farmstead and Heady.

Uh. No.

 

[Jay-Bone]

Uh. No.

Uh yes, craft beer noob. Bet you started drinking IPA's from Treehouse. You go wait in line for 4 hours, and all of a sudden you know everything about the history of microbrews.

If you tell me what Beer Advocate and Ratebeer's #1 beer was around 2009-2012, I'll stop calling you a craft beer noob idiot. Hints: its not an IPA, its not west coast, and its not around anymore. And during that time Belgians were almighty, but its not a Belgian either.

I've been drinking this stuff longer than Treehouse and Untapped.

 

[tdrink]

Uh yes, craft beer noob. Bet you started drinking IPA's from Treehouse. You go wait in line for 4 hours, and all of a sudden you know everything about the history of microbrews.

If you tell me what Beer Advocate and Ratebeer's #1 beer was around 2009-2012, I'll stop calling you a craft beer noob idiot. Hints: its not an IPA, its not west coast, and its not around anymore. And during that time Belgians were almighty, but its not a Belgian either.

I've been drinking this stuff longer than Treehouse and Untapped.

I don't do online **c* measuring contests, so you win by default.

Just pointing out that there is distinction to NE style and Russian River did not start it.

 

[Jay-Bone]

I don't do online **c* measuring contests, so you win by default.

Just pointing out that there is distinction to NE style and Russian River did not start it.

Fair enough, but in that case just try to spare me the stupid "uh no" replies without any substantial backing. It keeps me from being triggered. I don't like being triggered.

If you don't think any of these West Coast's IPA influence is imprinted in the foundation of NE IPA's, then I don't know what to tell you. Anyone that shitss on Pliny, is an imbecile. And I don't even like IPA's, but I can declare that much.

 

[8893]

New England Gold Stock Ale, from the first iteration of New England Brewing when it was in Norwalk, was an excellent beer from the first wave of the craft beer explosion. Ipswich IPA and Smuttynose IPA are probably the first examples I can think of for NEIPAs, back when each used to be cloudy, hazy beers. Can’t remember when McNeil’s started but he took it to another level. The style has come a long way since then but those were damn good beers in their primes.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Fair enough, but in that case just try to spare me the stupid "uh no" replies without any substantial backing. It keeps me from being triggered. I don't like being triggered.

If you don't think any of these West Coast's IPA influence is imprinted in the foundation of NE IPA's, then I don't know what to tell you. Anyone that shitss on Pliny, is an imbecile. And I don't even like IPA's, but I can declare that much.

I only "crap" on Pliny -it's a fine beer- because it's a favorite of name-dropping scrubs like August and the degree to which it continues to be over-hyped in the craft scene has itself become a joke here in SD at a few bars and bottle shops

And that goes for both Elder and Younger

 

[Rocktheworld]

Wait lol when was SJ banned, and what for?

 

[Jay-Bone]

I only crap on Pliny -it's a fine beer- because it's a favorite of name-dropping scrubs like August and the degree to which it continues to be over-hyped in the craft scene has itself become a joke here in SD at a few bars and bottle shops

I had a great time in SD about 6 or 7 years ago stopping at Ballast Point, Pizza Port, Stone and Lost Abbey. Some great beers down there, but yes they don't do IPA's well. Although Sculpin was huge for a while. I can't speak for IPA's, but Alesmith and Firestone Walker have been cranking out some excellent stouts, barleywines, belgian quads and scotch ales for a long time now.

 

[Rocktheworld]

I had a great time in SD about 6 or 7 years ago stopping at Ballast Point, Pizza Port, Stone and Lost Abbey. Some great beers down there, but yes they don't do IPA's well. Although Sculpin was huge for a while. I can't speak for IPA's, but Alesmith and Firestone Walker have been cranking out some excellent stouts, barleywines, belgian quads and scotch ales for a long time now.

I've gotten in to this multiple times already with other posters and I'm not at all interested in doing it again. All I'll say is that the county is nothing like it was 6-7 years ago. The vast majority of the 150+ craft brewers throughout the county are no older than 5 years, and several (Modern Times, Mikkeller, Pure Project, Toolbox, Novo Brazil, Abnormal, Half Door, and Burgeon to name a few) over the last 18 months have been cranking out NE/hazy IPAs that are at least on par with the stuff from back home.

 

[Jay-Bone]

I've gotten in to this multiple times already with other posters and I'm not at all interested in doing it again. All I'll say is that the county is nothing like it was 6-7 years ago. The vast majority of the 150+ craft brewers throughout the county are no older than 5 years, and several (Modern Times, Mikkeller, Pure Project, Toolbox, Novo Brazil, Abnormal, Half Door, and Burgeon to name a few) over the last 18 months have been cranking out NE/hazy IPAs that are at least on par with the stuff from back home.

Mikkeller has been around for a while, and they're Danish. Europeans aren't known to do IPA's well. Mikkeller is known for their stouts. I've had Beer Geek Breakfast and Brunch Weasel back to back and they're fantastic. Never thought of them as an IPA shop, but I suppose all have to adapt now to move into the American market. I think I visited their brick and mortar in SF. I don't know the others and can't really attest to IPA's too much anyway.

 

[upstater]

Did some blind taste tests last weekend with some friends: Sip of Sunshine, Heady Topper, Grimm Tesseract, Maine Lunch, Singlecut Use the NME, Trillium Cutting Tiles.

A local beer won: Bang A 'Uey - Community Beer Works (New York) | Photos - Untappd

If the small local guys can do an outstanding NEIPA, I think we're close to the top of this craze. Or maybe not.

2nd place: tie between Grimm and SOS.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Uh yes, craft beer noob. Bet you started drinking IPA's from Treehouse. You go wait in line for 4 hours, and all of a sudden you know everything about the history of microbrews.

If you tell me what Beer Advocate and Ratebeer's #1 beer was around 2009-2012, I'll stop calling you a craft beer noob idiot. Hints: its not an IPA, its not west coast, and its not around anymore. And during that time Belgians were almighty, but its not a Belgian either.

I've been drinking this stuff longer than Treehouse and Untapped.

what a douchey post.