Tonight I polished off about 3/4 a bottle of cheap demi-sec white that’d been sitting in the fridge for a few days. My dilemma is that I’m in the mood to keep drinking, want something that tastes good, but don’t want to “waste” a good bottle on a shot palate that’s 2 sheets to the wind. So, beer it is. Well, what do we have here? Looks like a nice barrel-aged Sam Adams. I figure, “well, they’re my go-to in most restaurants and they’re limited edition stuff tends to be pretty decent, what the h*ll…”
My reaction? What the H*LL??? Now I know what the beer equivalent of an over-oaked fruit bomb tastes like. Here’s a hint, it’s not good. I’ll admit that there’s a time and place for hedonistic wines, but the only place for this beer is the bottom of a sunken barge, where it will never have the misfortune of passing some unsuspecting victim’s lips. It’s absolutely vile and should be avoided at all costs. Here’s a good approximation of the taste:
1 part bourbon, preferably the cheapest, bottom-shelf cr*p you can find
3 parts prune juice
1 handful of oak sawdust
2 parts stale, week-old coffee
the ashes of 2-3 cheap-a** cigarettes (pall mall or lucky strike oughta do it)
2-3 pieces of decade-old, melted black licorice
throw in a few moldy raisins as well
Seriously, everything about this beer screams old, spoiled, and rancid. The store I got it from is usually pretty solid in terms of storage (staffed by beer geeks), and these weren’t on the shelf a couple weeks ago, so I doubt that the beer just went bad somehow. Ugh, this is just terrible and incredibly disappointing. I should pull a Charlie Fu on this (is that trademarked yet?), but I’ll probably wind up finishing the bottle. Why? Because I’m a cheap-a** muthafu**a who, apparently, enjoys torturing himself. FML.
Well, that definitely sounds gross. But I have to say: if you are in Holland, MI and you’re drinking a Sam Adams in an area where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a great local brewery (New Holland, Founders, Bells, etc…) then I don’t know what to tell you.
I was in a bar last weekend, and they were serving Hopslam in what I estimated to be 18-OZ SCHOONERS. Three bottles is usually my limit, but I stopped at two before switching to Alpha King.
What can I say? It was part of my my new year’s resolution to drink something produced outside of MI (see my post in the Best of 2012 thread), and I got taken in by the shape of the bottle. BTW, even Hopslam gets tiresome after you’ve polished off a few cases of it. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know that I wound up dumping the SA and moved onto Bell’s Speical Double Cream Stout instead.
Last weekend at my birthday party, a good mix of beer & wine brought:
Tilquin Gueuze l’Ancienne
Black Raven Raven de Garde
Prof Fritz Briem Berliner Weisse 1809
Great Divide Rumble BA IPA
Rogue XS Double IPA
Russian River Damnation
2006 De Dolle Oerbier
Since- Some Stone Enjoy by 2-15’s which are definitely going to fill the Pliny void up here.
The rest of the Lagunitas Sucks six pack
A trip to Orlando where I had:
Cigar City Maduro Brown & Jai Alai IPA
Terrapin Rye Pale
Brooklyn Winter Ale
Just picked up my 2013 4 pack of Bigfoot & cracked one yesterday- a great batch.
Love it- I buy it pretty regularly, but never seem to drink lambics. I like that it shows an intense tartness & freshness. Not as yeasty or wild as Cantillon or Beersel, but just as great.
TASTE: sweet, piney hop note from the Nose is repeated here on the palate; bitter, but somewhat soft/easy on the palate; better at room temperature than with a chill. Definitely made in the American IPA style, but the Green Tea in the mix does give this a unique slant. Good stuff here.
First thing that came to mind for me also…not enough to use a brewery specific growler you have to tag the growler with the specific beer as well (also seen breweries label the alc. %??). Don’t mind having growlers from my favorite breweries but don’t get all the regulations.
Yeah, that’s a Firestone growler. Many alcohol laws are much more lax out here than in the States (although some are more stringent — I believe the DWI threshold is .04 BAC out here). Many local pubs have “carry out” cartons; instead of buying a carton, I simply bring in my growler and a funnel, and they put my pints in the growler instead of the carton — no problems, and I’m definitely under the impression that no laws are being skirted, either. I do pay the full pint price (i.e.: no growler discount), but I’m willing to pay in order to get some of these cask-only brews into my house.
What are the “growler laws” you guys are talking about? I could swear I’ve been to a United States brewery or two that had no issues with filling up a “competitor’s” growler … but, I may be misremembering that — I can’t be sure.
I haven’t had a problem going to plenty of breweries and filling up a growler that wasn’t theirs. I do know that 3F makes you buy a new growler on each visit (or at least that’s how it was the last time I went down there).
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