What BEER are you drinking? (Part 1)

Beer and Spirits
13721

Was back home in Morgantown, WV and drank my weight in the best local brewery’s pale ale - Chestnut Brew Works Halleck Road Pale Ale. Better than most west coast pale ales as it provides enough hops to keep it interesting without being overpowering or bitter. Was quite impressed and happy to know I have quality local options when visiting my family.

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Stella Artois is always at hand :wink:

13723

Hillfarmstead Society & Solitude #6. Double IPA with Mosaic hops. Incredible. Soft, with a touch of sweetness and a texture that only comes from that delicious HF well water. I don’t know how they hide the alcohol so well on their beers.

DRANK DAT BOY OUT OF THE ZALTO

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13724

Stella Artois is always at hand :slight_smile:

13725

Scott, have you tried this rev of Black Raven Wisdomseeker? Had two bottles from Met Market and I don’t know if they were old or what, but there was very little pine/citrus and a bit more malt than usual. Wasn’t my typical experience.

13726

First off, Charlie balling again with HF AND Krug. Nice!

Andrew - I have not tried Black Raven in years. Drank through the line-up a few years ago and nothing really interested me. Perhaps through scaling up for bottling, etc their beers are suffering a la Fremont?

The only Seattle-area beers I drink these days are Holy Mountain (and quite a bit at that) with the occasional Cloudburst, Ruben’s, Stoup and Mollusk (served at the restaurant of same name; used to be Epic Ales). For Fremont, I’m only drinking the barrel-aged stuff, although I would assume the regular Dark Star is still a really good stout. I’ve been wanting to try Lucky Envelope as they supposedly make some lagers. Hoping they can tide me over until Heater Allen makes its way to Seattle. I like Georgetown, esp Lucille, but I rarely see them on tap around Fremont and I rarely make it to Georgetown to fill growlers.

I really like Propolis, which you can buy in bottles at the Ballard Sunday market, but they are a Pt Townsend brewery. From what I’ve had thus far, Three Magnets out of Olympia holds promise.

13727

Alpine Beer Co.Hop Boxed IPA. 7.0% ABV. Citra, Mosaic hopped.

To say I was shocked to see these new Alpine special brews being bottled at the source and with new Alpine Beer Co. labels would be an understatement. They plan to keep rolling out these special releases in bottles on a regular basis. Pat told me HFS is up next. This is the real deal, brewed on the hill and gives me hope that as this GF/Alpine merger matures we will see more “real” Alpine recipes show up in bottles. Hop Boxed maybe my fave of the special releases, I mean Citra and Mosaic in Pat and Shawns hands ? That don’t suck. Dank and so juicy good.

Highly Recommended,

Cheers,

Bud

13728

Fantastic DIPAs, don’t know which one I like best, the #5 or #6. Both world class IPAs, just boils down to what hops you like best, New Zealand varietals in the 5 or Mosaic on the 6, I 'll take both anyday champagne.gif

Cheers,

Bud

13729

I actually think #4 is the best, where they mixed basically double citra and double galaxy. Need more of dat stat!

I have one more growler of S&S #6 and a growler of Citra single hop pale ale. Gotta get to them soon

13730

SS#4 was insane.

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I have yet to have #4, it always seems to allude me……sigh………

Cheers,

Bud

13732

Victory Agave IPA. Only okay. A bit hollow. A bit bitter–but not in your typical hop-like way; more in a bitter citrus rind way.

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If you ever get near Denver, you need to stop at Living The Dream. It is just outside of Littleton, down an industrial road, next to the cement pipe plant, behind the railroad tracks, but Oh MY God can they make beer. The Hop-Eatin Grin double IPA may be the best beer I’ve ever had.
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13734

Took down some goodies on saturday. Buddy dropped by my house to drop some stuff for auction off, i had some beers that needed drinking.

Hill farmstead Citra pale Ale: A bit too thin. While I really like Edward, their other pale ale, I think this citra pale ale gets lost on the palate as it’s almost not there. The nose is this awesome citrus and juice explosion but the palate is not really there.

HF Society and Solitude: Notes similar to before, this growler seemed to have a bit less oxidation and tasted fresher which made a great beer even better.

Trillium Double Dry Hopped Congress Street: Apparently Trillium’s most sought after IPA. Bottled and released 10 days prior. I’m not a giant fan of double dry hopped things. While the palate texture was pretty great, soft and appealing, but it was almost too hopped for me. lingering vegetable note on it that I didn’t love.

After taking these three down my buddy asked if I wanted a sour. He pulled out a Lost Abbey Duck Duck Gooze. Initially when opened it was a touch warm and threw off a lot of oxidized apple notes, almost like apple cider. Cooling it down helped tone the oxidation down but it isn’t as close to the super powerhouse that Dustin opened last year at our share. The first release is already pretty much oxidized iron nail flavors right now and I don’t think this is far behind. I’ve had an even worse bottle a month ago.

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Alpine Beer Co. Nelson IPA W/Simcoe flowers on cask, 7.1% ABV. Very limited availability.

One of my hop head friends texts me today, " Nelson with Simcoe flowers on cask is on at Beachwood Seal Beach"

That’s all I needed. Nelson as I could never have imagined. You get the true Nelson characteristics combined with the addition of Simcoe flowers to create a Nelson variant that is probably the best variant on Nelson I have had in my 12+ years drinking this beer. Intoxifying floral nose, complex layer upon layer of super ripe citrus fruits, most noticeably very ripe sweet red grapefruit and tangerine, ripe pineapple,mango papaya and the herbaceous dankness from the Simcoe flowers. On cask this is a completely different beast, served at perfect cellar temps this just explodes on every level. I had two pints because something tells me this won’t be around very long.

Highly recommended,

Cheers,

Bud

13736

Love love juicy pale Ales on cask. It really adds to the roundness of the beer and softens the hops which lets that fruit really shine.

13737

Quite a bit of DFH 60 and 90 min. Happier with the 60, much more than the 90. Not as big of a fan here as I once was.

13738

From Astoria this is well done. A lot happening with subtle, lingering hops. Bravo.
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13739

Karl Strauss Brewery Aurora Hoppyalis IPA 7.0% ABV.hopped with Amarillo Mosaic Simcoe and Citra hops.

I will admit I have never been a big fan of KS beers. Last year at GABF the buzz surrounding the IPA competition was that there was a new beer from Karl Strauss that was blowing away the judges. That beer it turned out was Aurora Hoppyalis which won a bronze in the IPA category which is very impressive considering the amount of beers entered in that category. What they did was create an IPA that showcases the best of the East coast and the best of the West coast in a seamless absolutely delicious IPA. It has gobs of ripe tropical fruit, mostly sweet pineapple and papaya/mango. In addition there is very sweet citrus, I get lots of sweet tangerine, grapefruit and also peach. There is a very interesting interplay with the very soft juicy body reminiscent of the best east coast IPAs and the bone dry citrus structure of the best west coast offerings, the finish is long and bitter sweet. It all works perfectly together. This comes in both 22oz bombers as well as 6 packs of 12oz bottles. This was just released in bottles this week and will be a year round offering from Karl Strauss. My hats off, this is a fantastic IPA on every level that will be in regular rotation for me.

Highly recommended,

Cheers,

Bud

13740

Had on tap the other day. Loved it. Was totally shocked by the abv. I can drink 10 of those by the pool! But then I would drown [wow.gif]

Jason