The Beer Thread

I'm partial to Flanders Reds when it comes to sours:

Rodenbach Vintage
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Rodenbach Caractere
Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
Bruery Oude Tart
Panil Bariquee
New Belgium La Folie (technically a sour brown ale but close enough)

The Duchesse is ok, but a bit too sweet for the style to me.

never buy beer from a little ole market out in the middle of nowhere.  I was driving around doing work, and saw this place and it was neat and they sold beer, mostly ok selection for snobs but decent for people who want more than what food lion is trying to do.  go, check out food lion and see what I mean.  well they had troegs nugget nectar, one six pack left.  I said, nice, this is last time I will see that this year so sure, I will buy it.  the lady rang up each beer as the individual sale price of $3, and then did some weird discount, for a grand total of $17 with tax.  I just sat there, not knowing what to do; should I go into bitchfit mode and lay into her, throwing the beer back onto the shelf for I did not want to pay $17 for beer.

no . . . I just handed her my card and thought, ok, whatever, it is a nice day, and this is a, was, a nice place, and I won't see the beer again til next time it comes out.

walk,on,by wrote:
never buy beer from a little ole market out in the middle of nowhere.  I was driving around doing work, and saw this place and it was neat and they sold beer, mostly ok selection for snobs but decent for people who want more than what food lion is trying to do.  go, check out food lion and see what I mean.  well they had troegs nugget nectar, one six pack left.  I said, nice, this is last time I will see that this year so sure, I will buy it.  the lady rang up each beer as the individual sale price of $3, and then did some weird discount, for a grand total of $17 with tax.  I just sat there, not knowing what to do; should I go into bitchfit mode and lay into her, throwing the beer back onto the shelf for I did not want to pay $17 for beer.

no . . . I just handed her my card and thought, ok, whatever, it is a nice day, and this is a, was, a nice place, and I won't see the beer again til next time it comes out.

They were probably charging extra because they aged it for you.

funny…….#WorldHealthDay & #NationalBeerDay are on the same day

Since it's National Beer Day I'm sipping a National Beer in a National Bohemian pilsner glass and saluting my dad, who worked for them in some capacity for 39 years.

Hey Sweetcell, BCBS on draft at WFFB. Now. It's Friday. I'm just sayin'.

I had to celebrate my one year since my root canal and no problems yet dental appointment somehow.

So on Wednesday I got all excited as The Brew Shop in Arlington posted on their Instagram account that they had some KBS in stock at noon
I cut out of work a little early…and she was like…you would have had to had been here by 1 pm buddy
:(

but I am going to swing by tonight to pick up a growler
you all have been loving Ocelot ….opinions on their Lost Angel IPA

also it's flying dog 'tasting' so they have Flying Dog Smoked Belgian Stout - An awesome roast bomb from Flying Dog'sBrewhouse Rarities series. Smoke, coffee, cocoa…deliciousness
and I was thinking of getting that instead


also had the Anderson Valley Briney Melon Gose last night
not as good as the Kimmy

The beer at Aslin is so damn good that Ocelot has sort of fallen off my radar. I'm struggling to stop myself from going to Aslin for the second weekend in a row and dropping $40 on beer.

That said, if it's an Ocelot IPA, it won't be anything short of very good, and possibly will be excellent.

Ocelot's anniversary party (4/30) tickets on sale now. I won't be going.

Space wrote:
Hey Sweetcell, BCBS on draft at WFFB. Now. It's Friday. I'm just sayin'.

I had to celebrate my one year since my root canal and no problems yet dental appointment somehow.

you marched all the way over to foggy bottom??  it's a decent lil' walk for you, innit?

WFFB used to be really good about keeping their beermenus page up to date.  since they lost their beer buyer, they might update it once a month.  maybe.  so useless.  how did you find out they had BCBS there?

Probably going to be a shitshow, but Dominion in Falls Church has KBS tonight…you get to choose between two bottles, or a 32 oz growler fill.

Is there any real difference on these barrel aged beers on draft vs. out of the bottle? If it were some hotshit IPA I'd probably choose draft, but as it is I might opt for the bottle.

That's if I lived in Falls Church. I don't, and can't be there at 5pm so the point is moot. But maybe some of you do.

sweetcell wrote:

Space wrote:
Hey Sweetcell, BCBS on draft at WFFB. Now. It's Friday. I'm just sayin'.

I had to celebrate my one year since my root canal and no problems yet dental appointment somehow.

you marched all the way over to foggy bottom??  it's a decent lil' walk for you, innit?

WFFB used to be really good about keeping their beermenus page up to date.  since they lost their beer buyer, they might update it once a month.  maybe.  so useless.  how did you find out they had BCBS there?

I had a 11am dental appointment over there. One year since I got a root canal. They had told me they'd try the root canal first but the odds were I'd have to have the tooth pulled before a year was over. One year passed, and tooth got a clean bill of health. Tooth needed some BCBS to help it celebrate.

Space wrote:
Is there any real difference on these barrel aged beers on draft vs. out of the bottle? If it were some hotshit IPA I'd probably choose draft, but as it is I might opt for the bottle.

yes, there is a difference.  kegging beer is a gentler process than filling bottles, when done right.  so the beer in the keg could potentially be in better shape.  kegs are often kept refrigerated while bottles linger out in the heat.

you're right, big barrel-aged beer vs. IPA changes the equation… won't matter quite as much given this is KBS.  that being said, i've had both BCBS (going for a walk soon!) and BCBSBW in both bottles and on tap, and they are noticeably different.  i definitely prefer BCBSBW from a bottle.

the most important consideration, IMO, should be post-purchase preservation.  bottles will last a long time.   the growler will need to be drunk relatively quickly.  if you're ok with downing 32 oz in the next few days, go for that - you're getting 32 oz instead of 24.

believe it or not, Gordon Biersch's imperial IPA is pretty darn tasty and I usually can't stand their stuff

had me a full pour of BCBS.  the poor guy behind the bar had no idea what he was doing, took him 4 or 5 attempts to fill my growler of Matilda, and he panicked when pouring my BCBS and gave me a full 12/14/16 oz (whatever their big cups are at WFFB).

also snagged a bottle of KBS.  one of the staffers gave up one of their own for me.  i'm gradually warming up to the new beer crew there ;D

Bagley wrote:
believe it or not, Gordon Biersch's imperial IPA is pretty darn tasty and I usually can't stand their stuff

which GB did you have that at?

i recently learned that brewers at most GBs have a decent amount of autonomy.  they need to brew the basics, but beyond those flagship german lagers they can do whatever they want as long as it meets quality standards.  and GB gets some highly trained & technically excellent brewers.  if you go to brewing school, GB is a plush gig to land.  if you didn't go to brewing school, you aren't working at GBs as a brewer.

Rockville town center

New joint opening up the road in Brookeville

SideBurner wrote:flying Dog Smoked Belgian Stout - An awesome roast bomb from Flying Dog'sBrewhouse Rarities series. Smoke, coffee, cocoa…deliciousness

So I ended up getting this FD smoked Belgian stout…very good stuff definitely smoky, but in a good way
and at $12 a growler… quite the deal

Tried a taste of the Ocelot IPA and it was good…but was feeling very Space cost conscious and $18 was more than I wanted to spend at the time

Nuke wrote:
New joint opening up the road in Brookeville

Need this to be great. Not good. Great

SideBurner wrote:
but I am going to swing by tonight to pick up a growler
you all have been loving Ocelot ….opinions on their Lost Angel IPA

As Space said Aslin is sort of blowing Ocelot out of the water lately, albeit with a radically different style of IPA. That being said I found Lost Angel to be one of their least impressive offerings

I had another great local beer (IMO) out of Rockville…VA (just outside Richmond?)
Midnight's Not My Job Southern English Brown Ale

Typically don't ever get brown ales, but this was almost black with a coffee/toffee taste
predicibly got (mostly) poor reviews on BA/RA, but it's got my seal of approval