The Beer Thread

the toronado is renown for its staff's surly attitude.  you need to go in there knowing that.  sorta like dick's last resort.  it's part of the schtick.  it's been that way since it first opened.

steve, sounds like an awesome weekend (well, minus the Pats' loss, obvs).  did you have the RR pizza?  it's supposed to be good, too.  how much is a bottle of supplication when bought on site?  need anything from this side of the country? ;D  (WWS is now out… just sayin')

speaking of sours: over thanksgiving i bought a Lindmans Cuvee Rene.  i recently opened it, and wow.  strong citrus, like an tart & mildly alcoholic lemonade.  closer to a wine in taste but quaffable like a beer.  it was really, really nice.  my in-laws who had never had a sour before both loved it and asked for more. the misses, who is slowly coming around to some sours, also liked it.  if you've been wanting to find out what this sour beer thing is all about, Cuvee Rene is a great "intro to sours" beer.  it's probably not sour enough for hardcore sour-heads tho.  it's soooooo drinkable.  can't wait to try one on a hot summer day.

Haven't been to Toronado SF, but I did go to the one in San Diego. Totally different than what I've heard about the one in SF. Local neighborhood bar with family friendly-ish (people were there with kids, I was not…was part of a business trip) atmosphere in a hip neighborhood, good food and friendly enough service. Not divey at all, yet not pretentious either. Plus, Pliny, fresh Sculpin, and much other good stuff I can't remember.

update from The Alchemist:

We have looked at dozens of spaces for a retail shop in the Waterbury area, yet none have met our criteria. We finally realized that we needed to switch gears once again. Instead of depleting resources?both time and money?on a retail shop, we are focused on finding a property where we can build a second small brewery with a retail shop/tasting room.

Although we loved having the public visit us at the existing brewery, it simply wasn?t big enough and we certainly did not produce enough beer to be open to the public. Having no beer to sell four days out of the week is not an ideal situation for anyone. Over the past month, we have had plenty of time to discuss and plan our next brewery. It may evolve a bit over time, but here it is in a nutshell.

We are looking for a piece of property to build a second brewery. Our current brewery will continue to make 9000 barrels of Heady Topper per year. Our distribution company (Alchemy Distributing) will continue to run from this brewery.

Our new brewery will make beer for on premise sales. We will build a large tasting room and retail shop?much like our old shop but bigger and better designed to sustain our customer base and traffic. John has all sorts of exciting things planned in regards to the beer. I will leave the brewery update to him.

full post: http://alchemistbeer.com/blog/#2765

They are doing this because one woman was complaining about how disturbing it was to have them as neighbors, right? I'm not sure why they just don't give her a tidy sum for her land and trailer and be done with the problem.

sweetcell wrote:
update from The Alchemist:

We have looked at dozens of spaces for a retail shop in the Waterbury area, yet none have met our criteria. We finally realized that we needed to switch gears once again. Instead of depleting resources?both time and money?on a retail shop, we are focused on finding a property where we can build a second small brewery with a retail shop/tasting room.

Although we loved having the public visit us at the existing brewery, it simply wasn?t big enough and we certainly did not produce enough beer to be open to the public. Having no beer to sell four days out of the week is not an ideal situation for anyone. Over the past month, we have had plenty of time to discuss and plan our next brewery. It may evolve a bit over time, but here it is in a nutshell.

We are looking for a piece of property to build a second brewery. Our current brewery will continue to make 9000 barrels of Heady Topper per year. Our distribution company (Alchemy Distributing) will continue to run from this brewery.

Our new brewery will make beer for on premise sales. We will build a large tasting room and retail shop?much like our old shop but bigger and better designed to sustain our customer base and traffic. John has all sorts of exciting things planned in regards to the beer. I will leave the brewery update to him.

full post: http://alchemistbeer.com/blog/#2765

rough translation - obtaining HT is going to be WAY more hassle than it should be for the forseeable future

sweetcell wrote:
update from The Alchemist:

We have looked at dozens of spaces for a retail shop in the Waterbury area, yet none have met our criteria. We finally realized that we needed to switch gears once again. Instead of depleting resources?both time and money?on a retail shop, we are focused on finding a property where we can build a second small brewery with a retail shop/tasting room.

Although we loved having the public visit us at the existing brewery, it simply wasn?t big enough and we certainly did not produce enough beer to be open to the public. Having no beer to sell four days out of the week is not an ideal situation for anyone. Over the past month, we have had plenty of time to discuss and plan our next brewery. It may evolve a bit over time, but here it is in a nutshell.

We are looking for a piece of property to build a second brewery. Our current brewery will continue to make 9000 barrels of Heady Topper per year. Our distribution company (Alchemy Distributing) will continue to run from this brewery.

Our new brewery will make beer for on premise sales. We will build a large tasting room and retail shop?much like our old shop but bigger and better designed to sustain our customer base and traffic. John has all sorts of exciting things planned in regards to the beer. I will leave the brewery update to him.

full post: http://alchemistbeer.com/blog/#2765

I thought what they were saying was that the 9,000 barrels will now be sold through retail chains, and beer for "on-site" sales will be brewed at the new location.  That should technically make it easier to get, not harder.  (Well, not easier for me, but perhaps, for some, people.)

yes, it will technically be easier to get when the new facility is completed in 18-24 months……until then???

grateful wrote:
I thought what they were saying was that the 9,000 barrels will now be sold through retail chains, and beer for "on-site" sales will be brewed at the new location.  That should technically make it easier to get, not harder.  (Well, not easier for me, but perhaps, for some, people.)

brennser wrote:
yes, it will technically be easier to get when the new facility is completed in 18-24 months……until then???

grateful wrote:
I thought what they were saying was that the 9,000 barrels will now be sold through retail chains, and beer for "on-site" sales will be brewed at the new location.  That should technically make it easier to get, not harder.  (Well, not easier for me, but perhaps, for some, people.)

Stock up on widely available Surly Abrasive.

having had both fresh in the last 2 weeks (plus Pliny, Zombie Dust and a slew of other great beers) I can categorically state that Heady is (for me) way better - it is absolutely worth the hype

Abrasive was great and had a dankness thing going on that I liked but Heady wins every time for me

Yada wrote:

brennser wrote:
yes, it will technically be easier to get when the new facility is completed in 18-24 months……until then???

grateful wrote:
I thought what they were saying was that the 9,000 barrels will now be sold through retail chains, and beer for "on-site" sales will be brewed at the new location.  That should technically make it easier to get, not harder.  (Well, not easier for me, but perhaps, for some, people.)

Stock up on widely available Surly Abrasive.

brennser wrote:
having had both fresh in the last 2 weeks (plus Pliny, Zombie Dust and a slew of other great beers) I can categorically state that Heady is (for me) way better - it is absolutely worth the hype

Abrasive was great and had a dankness thing going on that I liked but Heady wins every time for me

Yada wrote:

brennser wrote:
yes, it will technically be easier to get when the new facility is completed in 18-24 months……until then???

grateful wrote:
I thought what they were saying was that the 9,000 barrels will now be sold through retail chains, and beer for "on-site" sales will be brewed at the new location.  That should technically make it easier to get, not harder.  (Well, not easier for me, but perhaps, for some, people.)

Stock up on widely available Surly Abrasive.

I agree that heady is better, just a hair in my opinion but it's nice that you can get a case of Surly quite easily over a three month period, unlike the hassle of getting Heady.

stevewizzle wrote:
wine tasting in napa saturday, and russian river brewery on sunday

Go to San Francisco in the fall and this is my exact itinerary, though i may hit Lagunitas as well.

Anything else in the bay area worth a visit?

Head brewer at Bluejacket didn't last long…


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2014/01/21/bluejacket-and-head-brewer-megan-parisi-part-ways/

Take your pick.

http://www.bayareacraftbeer.com/bay-area-craft-breweries/

http://sf.eater.com/archives/2013/08/20/the_ultimate_bay_area_beer_map.php

http://www.sfbrewpub.org/pubs/

StoneTheCrow wrote:

stevewizzle wrote:
wine tasting in napa saturday, and russian river brewery on sunday

Go to San Francisco in the fall and this is my exact itinerary, though i may hit Lagunitas as well.

Anything else in the bay area worth a visit?

Very helpful!  Thanks!

This is all  I got for this thread….

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/super-furry-animals-develop-their-own-beer

Super Furry Animals Develop Their Own Beer
'Psychedelic Wild Welsh Beer…'

Working with Celt Experience Brewery, the brand will be titled Fuzzy - after debut album 'Fuzzy Logic' of course.

James wrote:
You should have told them you were from Seattle. Where the Seahawks play.

stevewizzle wrote:

James wrote:
Seems about right for a city ruled by homeless degenerates.

walkonby wrote:
you "enjoyed the shitty attitude exuded by the bartenders" of that one place?  why would you do that?  is that the new cool and hip thing to do;  savor the tastes of bad service from paid employees?

i almost spit out my breakfast.

it was somewhat TIC, i was told going in that the place was run by a bunch of assholes, so i didn't expect much.  service was fine, i got my beers quick and they were friendly enough. but there was a feeling of "i'm better than you" type in the air… i don't know, i'm having a hard time explaining.  it's not the cool, hip thing to do, i just heard that place does beer fantastically well so i was going to go regardless.

we briefly uttered those words at RR, and then left immediately. 

sweetcell wrote:
steve, sounds like an awesome weekend (well, minus the Pats' loss, obvs).  did you have the RR pizza?  it's supposed to be good, too.  how much is a bottle of supplication when bought on site?  need anything from this side of the country? ;D  (WWS is now out… just sayin')

$13, and nothing has quite caught my eye from the east coast for a while :) i'd part with one in the future though.  we got pliny bites in lieu of pizza, which were tasty enough.

And the best brewery tour in America is….


http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i4153-c1-Press_Releases.html


Really? Really? And $25 for a brewery tour (only $10 if you're under 21!!!). Are you shitting me?

James wrote:
And the best brewery tour in America is….


http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i4153-c1-Press_Releases.html


Really? Really? And $25 for a brewery tour (only $10 if you're under 21!!!). Are you shitting me?

it's a travel site, not a beer geek site.  they don't care about the beer, they care about the destination and the entertainment value of the tour.  although they make dreadfully boring beers, i've been told by several folks that a tour of a BMC brewery is pretty interesting.  it's huge, it's mechanized, they have big shiny tanks, they have spent money on making the tour "an experience", etc.  the beer itself likely doesn't figure in their rankings.

James wrote:
And the best brewery tour in America is….


http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i4153-c1-Press_Releases.html


Really? Really? And $25 for a brewery tour (only $10 if you're under 21!!!). Are you shitting me?

The regular tour is free.