Chat Thread - Official BotRH Beer Club

[Tyler Glembo]

I had Mystery Romp and the New Orleans beer festival.  It was the best brew there out of the many, many, many that I tried :-)

[Yates]

Okay. Some beers/breweries that might make nice additions to the list [or to replace over represented breweries?]:

 

North Coast - Old Rasputin. Period. Do it now.

St Bernardus Abt 12 - Needs to go on the list. Period. This is Westy 12 but available to everyone. Seriously.

Founders Breakfast Stout - I don't even think we need to debate this. One of the most anticipated bottle releases of the year.

Firestone Walker - how these guys aren't already on here is beyond me. Sucaba? Union Jack? Wooky Jack? Pick one...

AleSmith - Ditto. Speedway Stout? IPA? Numbskull [won Gold at 2013 GABF]? Wee Heavy? Seriously. Even their Extra Pale Ale is great. EXTRA PALE AND STILL DELICIOUS.

Oskar Blues - Ten FIDY. Dales Pale is a solid 2nd choice. That or Old Chub.

Great Divide - Yeti. Nuff said. Extra points for chocolate oak aged.

Boulevard - Tank 7?

Three Floyds - Zombie Dust since Dark Lord is a Unicorn beer.

Bells - Two Hearted or Hop Slam. Take your pick.

Russian River - For our sour fans. Probably Sanctification. Supplication or Consecration can also be up there. Pliny [either one] is a Unicorn beer.

 

To add diversity [since I went all American up there]:

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier [Germany]

Fuller's London Porter [England]

Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout [England]

Zywiec Porter [Poland]

[Yates]

Decided to break this up into two posts:

 

Speaking of Unicorn beers - Heady Topper. Probably needs to be removed unless it's up there for bragging rights. Maybe we should come to an agreement on Unicorn beers for next year? These are beers you would drive 100 miles for if you were guaranteed to get a bottle even just for bragging rights.

 

Alchemist Heady Topper

Westvleteren 12

Three Floyds Dark Lord

Sam Adams Utopia

Russian River Pliny [Elder or Younger]

Surly Darkness

Cantillon [blabaer]

Hill Farmstead [Abner]

[Krakalakachkn]

For me there are only two Unicorn breweries

 

Hill Farmstead

Alpine

[Krakalakachkn]

at least, in the states

 

 

 

What I wouldn't do to get my hands on another Exponential Hoppiness.

[Yates]

So... I dragged my wife up to Vermont last year for Memorial Day. My ulterior motive was that we just HAPPENED to be staying at a place that was a 20/30 minute drive from Hill Farmstead and they just HAPPENED to be having a bottle release that Saturday. Well, it snowed Friday night and Hill Farmstead cancelled the bottle release. Of course, we didn't find out about it until the next day after I drove up and over a mountain with some precarious windy roads. Needless to say, I was pretty peeved.

 

Then I drove all the way from Greensboro down to Waterbury and waited in line at Alchemist [which you can't even do any more] for like 2 hours. Picked up my case of Heady Topper and got the F out of Dodge.

 

If I ever work up the nerve to go back to Hill Farmstead I'll pick something up for ya. To be fair, I'll probably be picking up some Lawson's Finest Maple Tripple. Ratings on that beer are way too low for how delicious that beer was. Of course, you have to be in the mood for sweet and that went down like maple syrup liquor. Delicious.

 

I've never had Exponential Hoppiness. I was just reading about it and find the dry hopping with oak chips in the hop bag intriguing. [*Takes note*]

[Hayl3y]

wow guys that's a lot of new beers and ..dang i know none of them lol

 

just came back from greece and well, the Mythos, there is nice but nothing very exceptional

 

[Yates]

wow guys that's a lot of new beers and ..dang i know none of them lol

 

just came back from greece and well, the Mythos, there is nice but nothing very exceptional

 

Ha!  We were just in Greece for two weeks!  Beer scene is kind of brutal.  Mythos and Fix were pretty meh and everywhere.  Even Fix dark was underwhelming.  In Santorini I found some Volkan beers.  They had a wheat that was actually quite good.  I think I liked their Black, too.  I also had some Crazy Donkey IPA that was decent.

 

Also, I really liked this sign down by the beach:

[Hayl3y]

LOL great sign !

i did my part today drining Chimay

 

i didn't try the Fix, unfortunately... i got fastly tempted by other beverages *grins*

[Barmacral]

Also, I brew my own beer and have collaborated with three different breweries now.  Any homebrewers out there?

 

I'm just starting out homebrewing with my father-in-law. We did our first beer back in June and I'm picking out our second recipe, which we'll likely be doing this month sometime after he returns from Scotland. Our first batch was done with malt extract, but this time we're gonna try and do a batch with actual malts. I'm looking for something hoppy this time, possible a hoppy red ale of some sort.

[Yates]

i didn't try the Fix, unfortunately... i got fastly tempted by other beverages *grins*

Yeah, like I said, the Greeks aren't known for their beers... I just hope you didn't drink TOO MUCH Ouzo! We actually stuck to the wines, for the most part. We hit two wineries, which was pretty nice. The Assyrtiko was especially great - like a fantastic crisp and refreshing Souvignon blanc. I also had to bring back a couple of bottles of Vinsanto - which is something between a port and an ice wine.

 

Our first batch was done with malt extract, but this time we're gonna try and do a batch with actual malts. I'm looking for something hoppy this time, possible a hoppy red ale of some sort.

Welcome to the obsession! You can actually make some decent extract beers these days. Based on your wants and skill set, I'd consider a partial grain kit and do something like an ESB or Pale Ale. Clone kits are usually a safe bet. Northern Brewer has a kit that will knock your socks off for super cheap.

 

I just had a delicious Weyerbacher XVIII tonight.

This is a REALLY nice weizen bock.  One interesting flavor I pick up [that I haven't seen described anywhere] is almost a smokey/salty peanut shell flavor.  It has some residual sweetness that rounds out a rather bold and complex beer.  It is DANGEROUSLY drinkable for an 11% ABV beer!

[Yates]

Because I found it for $1.50 a bottle:
 

 

If you are looking for a lighter bodied highly floral beer with a bitterness compounded by a belgian yeast strain with just a touch of medicinal quality, you've found your beer.

[Tyler Glembo]

^^^^  HAH!  That is what I was drinking this weekend with my gramma!

[Yates]

Your grandmother has acceptable taste.

[Tyler Glembo]

Lol, how very kind of you to say.

[Yates]

Lol, how very kind of you to say.

To be fair; if you said you were drinking Dark Lords with your grandma I would have assumed this was your grandfather:

 

 

 

[Tyler Glembo]

Well, me and my gramma also drank: wine (cotes du rhone), dc brau the corruption, dales pale ale, allagash white, heavy seas loose cannon, and heavy seas saison.

 

Just sayin', my gramms is awesome :-)

[F Horn of Valere]

Well I got some redds apple ale, and I am happy to say I finally have a drink I can enjoy that comes in single serving bottle. This will make football season more fun/social.

[Barmacral]

Welcome to the obsession! You can actually make some decent extract beers these days. Based on your wants and skill set, I'd consider a partial grain kit and do something like an ESB or Pale Ale. Clone kits are usually a safe bet. Northern Brewer has a kit that will knock your socks off for super cheap.

 

Thanks! I'll take a look around. I'm based in Sweden so American shops aren't really the places I'll be checking out kits and such. The beer we made with extract turned out delicious, but we are both interested in doing all grain brewing and have been from the start. The extract was nice because it allowed us to figure out our basic process and get a quick win before we really dive in.

 

I'm hoping to do something soon where I can maybe take one base batch and make 3 (or something) mini batches out of it, with different strains of yeast, dry-hopping, stuff like that, so I can start to really tell apart how something will affect my beer. My ultimate interest is to be able to craft my own recipes.

[Yates]

That's great! I didn't know you were in Sweden. My bad. But I'm sure you have something similar around.

 

We have done hop experiments, SMaSH experiments [single malt and single hop], and yeast experiments so let me know if you ever have any questions.

 

The easiest thing to do right from the start is a simple yeast experiment - especially if you are starting off with a lighter beer anyway. I don't know if European homebrew kits are any different [i imagine they are] but we brew mostly 5 gallon batches [19L ?]. So we have broken up a 5 gallon batch into 5 1 gallon fermenters and used 5 different yeasts. I guess you could do 6 3L batches? Just double check the number of live cells in your yeast samples and compare that to a pitch rate calculator. Contrary to what some people believe, there *IS* such a thing as over pitching and can defeat the purpose of the experiment - which is to taste the different esters that come through in the flavor profile for properly pitched beer for different types of yeast.

[Barmacral]

Oh smart way of doing that, I'll have to take a look into it.

 

And yeah, we have a 25 litre pail but we got about 19 litres out of it, so I think our amounts are much the same.

[Tyler Glembo]

OFFICIAL MOD ANNOUNCEMENT

 

We will be changing the rules.  All beers tried in 2014 count toward beer club.  It is no longer only those beers tried since joining the club.  I will change the rules in the official thread also.

[Yates]

OFFICIAL MOD ANNOUNCEMENT

 

We will be changing the rules.  All beers tried in 2014 count toward beer club.  It is no longer only those beers tried since joining the club.  I will change the rules in the official thread also.

Excellent news!

[Yates]

Am I the only one drinking in here?

 

From last night...

[Tyler Glembo]

^^^  I think we all are....I know I just haven't been good about taking pictures, etc.