The Beer Thread

sweetcell wrote:

stevewizzle wrote:
eh i tend to agree.  barrel aging and overly hopped beers can make a bad beer good, and a good beer great. 

 
next logical step: it makes a great beer stellar.  i don't think anyone is saying (i certainly am not) that just add hops and gutter water will get a 98 on BA.  there are literally thousands of IPAs out there but people only chase down a handful.  sam adams has recently launched Rebel IPA… <crickets>.

they chase down the freshness, not the recipe.

sweetcell wrote:

stevewizzle wrote:i think there's a big resurgence of beers like budweiser on the horizon. 

doubtful, on two counts:

1) the type of folks who would be responsible for a resurgence (beer enthusiasts, reviewers, journalist and bloggers, etc_ will not embrace BMC.  should the momentum swing towards less intense beers (more on this below), it would focus on craft beers.  there is a stigma with the big industrial brands (deserved in my opinion - you can go subtle, light, crisp, etc without being tasteless).

woah, you're arguing a point i never tried to make. who said anything about big industrial brands?  a beer can be like budweiser and not be from macrobrewery. the fact that budweiser is mass-produced and still tastes excellent (usually) might mean local brewers who produce a similar product could start eating away at the market share.

sweetcell wrote:
2) supporters of less intensity have been proclaiming the rise of sessions beers and the like for a good 2 years now.  i don't see it.  sour beers were also supposed to be the next big thing, but they're limited by production: because of the time an resources required to make most sours, brewers can't pump out the volume required to maintain a "new wave."  session beers, let along industrial beer like bud, certainly don't have that problem.  the pale ales that are doing best out there are to the higher end of hoppiness and ABV.

feel free to come to the west coast, where sour beers sit on the shelves and collect dust. production is way ahead of demand. oud tart, tart of darkness, sang noir, etc.. all some of the finest sours crafted in the world are shelf beers now. for lagers, i'm just saying i think a resurgence will occur.  they might sit on the shelf along with the sours and the session beers, but i bet it happens. 

sweetcell wrote:
IPAs will be unseated some day as the king of craft… but it ain't happening any time soon, IMO.

gruit will be the next king of craft. but king of beers? there's only one.*


*brought to you by anhueser-busch inbev

http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2014/01/craft-brewery-to-open-in-woodstock.php

my neck of the woods, went and got, all fancy pants.  too bad, i think, that beer is, a tool of the devil.

There is no devil and six ounces of beer a day has its health benefits.

walkonby wrote:
http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2014/01/craft-brewery-to-open-in-woodstock.php

my neck of the woods, went and got, all fancy pants.  too bad, i think, that beer is, a tool of the devil.

walkonby wrote:
http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2014/01/craft-brewery-to-open-in-woodstock.php

my neck of the woods, went and got, all fancy pants.  too bad, i think, that beer is, a tool of the devil.

so that is where you live..man that is far..

i got to say this is a pretty boring friday night..maybe i'll go back to washington bio

ELI5: the difference between IPAs and American Pale Ales, please.

I'll let a better writer than me answer that one.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/home/883809-129/searchampdistill

Julian, wrote:
ELI5: the difference between IPAs and American Pale Ales, please.

IPA is the pale ale's bigger brother.  same yeast types and similar malt bill (grains).  main differences are little more alcohol and a lot more hops in the IPA - to the point where there is not attempt to be balanced, it's all about the hops.  it's a continuum so there is no clear delineation.  it's also a moving target: beers are getting bigger and hoppier, so an IPA from a few years might be considered a PA today.

a separate line of distinction is english vs. american.  english pale ales and IPAs will be maltier and more balanced, american PAs & IPAs will be hoppier and drier.

if you want a technical definition, here's how the BJCP defines american PAs and IPAs:
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style10.php#1a
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style14.php#1b

don't forget the distinction of IPLs vs. IPAs ;)

i brewed a black IPL yesterday.  couldn't find anything out there similar to the recipe on the interwebs, so i'm excited to see how this turns out.

The 100 best beers in the world, listed alphabetically. And sorry, Bobby Dylan, not a one of them from Germany. That sounds about right.

http://www.ratebeer.com/RateBeerBest/bestbeers-world2014.asp

i had a bunch of beers lined up for my super bowl party last night.  things transpired in such a way that i didn't get to open as many bottles as i was hoping to.  the growler of Enjoy By kept me & guests occupied during halftime and the 3rd quarter, and my homebrewed IPAs were treating me just fine all night long.  i had my first bottle of a brett'ed saison after the game, which was a bit of a waste.  it was really nice but it's not like i had a very discerning palate after several hours of eating and drinking.

so tonight, as i cleaned up the last of the left-over party messes i decided to open one of the bottle that i was really looking forward to last night: Jolly Pumpkin La Roja, batch 10 (bottled 4/23/13).  wow.  what a fabulous sour.  not my all-time fav, but definitely top 5.  what an enjoyable beer.

has this been posted here yet?  i think so, but it didn't come up in the search…
http://denizensbrewing.com/
https://www.facebook.com/citizensbrewco

and yet another new brewery… does anyone here know sign language?
http://lockthroat.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_1MS9FnQU

Had a Reissdorf Kolsch last night.  It was pretty good.  I thought it wasn't as good as Gaffel so I then drank one of those.  And now I am not so sure.

I think I appreciated Kolsch beer so much because the time I tried to make a Kolsch it turned out so badlly. 

sweetcell wrote:
has this been posted here yet?  i think so, but it didn't come up in the search…
http://denizensbrewing.com/
https://www.facebook.com/citizensbrewco

and yet another new brewery… does anyone here know sign language?
http://lockthroat.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_1MS9FnQU

Yeah… and we discussed how lame it was for DC Brau to issue a cease and desist order against them due to their old, poorly named, "Citizen's Brewing Co."

well that explains why a search for "Denizen" didn't come up with anything.  d'oh.

Neither Citizen's nor Denizens are exactly awe inspiring brewery names that are going to make me want to check out their beers. Talk about generic and lame sounding.

who cares about the name.  i'll go to Dad's Brewery if they have interesting beer.  some might equate lack of creativity in naming with lack of creativity in brewing, but i don't make the connection.

maybe Citizen's/Denizens spent all their startup money on equipment, and couldn't afford any marketing ;D

drink beer, fight bigotry in russia:

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/hello-my-name-is-vladimir
http://www.brewdog.com/product/hello-my-name-is-vladimir

James wrote:
Neither Citizen's nor Denizens are exactly awe inspiring brewery names that are going to make me want to check out their beers. Talk about generic and lame sounding.

I have very low hopes for this brewery, however, who cares what they name the place?

You guys obviously don't work in creative fields (neither do I).

Why so you have very low hopes?

Yada wrote:

James wrote:
Neither Citizen's nor Denizens are exactly awe inspiring brewery names that are going to make me want to check out their beers. Talk about generic and lame sounding.

I have very low hopes for this brewery, however, who cares what they name the place?

James wrote:
You guys obviously don't work in creative fields (neither do I).

Why so you have very low hopes?

Yada wrote:

James wrote:
Neither Citizen's nor Denizens are exactly awe inspiring brewery names that are going to make me want to check out their beers. Talk about generic and lame sounding.

I have very low hopes for this brewery, however, who cares what they name the place?

The location is terrible and has had multiple other restaurants/bars fail in the past few years. People in Silver Spring hardly support the restaurants/bars that are already there and people that don't live in Silver Spring sure as hell aren't going to be making trips to a brewery that's not in their neighborhood. It's not a hot spot like the Navy Yard area per se. These issues mixed with the fact that they're trying to pull off some Blue Jacket-esque style and brew over 20 beers sounds like a recipe for a disaster.

I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but unless current trends of Silver Spring denizens change, that place will probably last a handful of years.